• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - CDPR on open world gaming, and comparing to Skyrim

Durante

Member
doomed1, your defense of level scaling rings hollow. Basically, you are saying that if players are lazy, stupid or ADD-addled then you need level scaling to keep them engaged. For me, that's not nearly good enough an argument to support the erosion of world cohesion and the loss of player progression that level scaling causes.

The Witcher developers were going in quite hard in their criticisms of Skyrim in that video. I wonder how the devs at Bethesda would feel about someone saying their characters are forgettable and the quests are too generic. It's quite unusual in this industry for developers to criticize the work of other devs. They normally say nice things.
Eastern European devs generally seem more genuine (remember "horrible, slow CPU"?). In any case, they are right. I voted for Skyrim as my GotY back in 2011, and I can't remember more than 2 NPCs from the whole game.
 

EviLore

Expansive Ellipses
Staff Member
Landa? Linda? L-something? Your loot mule slave woman who you can marry.

...

...

...


That's all I've got.
 
Well, I can already see some of the gaming press going bonkers about things said in the video.

I don't see how Bethesda would be offended by this unless saying the truth is considered an offense nowadays, the obviously prioritize with their games and story and characters aren't very high on the list.

Anyways I'm happy CDPR has such a clear vision of what they want to create, sounds pretty much like the RPG I always dreamed of.
 
The Witcher developers were going in quite hard in their criticisms of Skyrim in that video. I wonder how the devs at Bethesda would feel about someone saying their characters are forgettable and the quests are too generic. It's quite unusual in this industry for developers to criticize the work of other devs. They normally say nice things.
I'd be surprised if Bethesda didn't think the same. At least the ones that can get over the "my baby" bias.
 

Sentenza

Member
Oh a wonderful and thought-out response so soon!
I'm not sure what needs to be "thought-out" in dismissing your horrible implications, but if you're just asking for an argued rebuttal touching every single point you made, I was already planning for it.
You'll need simply to wait, because at the moment I'm busy watching other stuff.

For the moment, you should just know that everything you are saying sounds simply atrocious to me.
 

szaromir

Banned
CDPR should play the Gothic or Risen games if they want to see how to do exploration and open world gaming right. Some of my favorites games. The player is always rewarded for exploring.
At least they realize the faults of Skyrim and are trying to avoid making those same mistakes.
It's already said that CDP specifically mentioned Gothic series, but worry not a) it's one of the most popular video games in Poland b) CD-Projekt themselves brought it to the Polish market, so they would definitely be familiar with them even if they didn't mention them. ;)
 

hellclerk

Everything is tsundere to me
doomed1, your defense of level scaling rings hollow. Basically, you are saying that if players are lazy, stupid or ADD-addled then you need level scaling to keep them engaged. For me, that's not nearly good enough an argument to support the erosion of world cohesion and the loss of player progression that level scaling causes.
I didn't say that at all. I said that level scaling was necessary if you want to have all of your content roughly available all at once and have an even difficulty curve. Not only does no level scaling make some dungeons seem unnecessarily hard, it will make early game dungeons ridiculously easy. The Witcher series doesn't really do this, and will probably scale access to higher level dungeons and areas with questlines, so they probably won't have to worry about it. That said, scaling with progressing quest-lines also means you can't have all your content available to explore up front and that the player might just miss it. The CDPR guys seem totally okay with this design choice, while Bethesda probably wanted the player to have as much available to experience as he wanted. 280 hours into skyrim, and I'm STILL finding new stuff to do from the vanilla game. If it's too easy, it becomes a disappointment. If it's too hard, it becomes a chore. Level scaling in Skyrim allows for me to experience new content no matter where I am in character progression, and that's valuable.
 

Perkel

Banned
Alright, I get that there are some aspects to open world RPGs that people like and can identify with, but there are reasons behind all of it. Part of what make Skyrim great is how accessible it all is, how you can just hop in and save the world and don't need to understand anything before it. I'll engage this in detail and give the pros and cons to each of these.

That is what is wrong with Skyrim. There is no reason to play RPG if you don't care about world, lore and characters. ARPG is what you probably like which is not RPG at all. Few years back ARPGs were hack&slash games.


I don't think I've ever played a game where I HAD to follow quest markers or had the option to turn those markers off. If anything, quest markers are a powerful player tool for determining priorities and direction, and can help a player lost or a player who wants to revisit a quest he left in favor of more interesting quests get back on their feet and go where they need.

And this is why most of RPG players hate it. You should yourself explore village and find people, memorize where they live and what they do. Thanks to quest marker you don't know anything about people or world. You just fallow damn arrow. Skyrim is worst case because there are no additional information provided by NPC so you need to fallow quest marker.


While the UI in 2 definitely needed some streamlining, bring it back to 1's level wouldn't really fit with the kind of inventory system they put into place. In order to streamline the UI, they must also streamline the systems to a certain extent. Skyrim does this by a clean sub-menu based inventory setup. I certainly prefer the PC's SkyUI mod, but its in the same spirit.

No no no no no no no. gif. Stop using "streamline" Skyrim UI is even worse. Only SkyUI is somewhat good. They need to create good UI and this doesn't mean it needs to be streamlined or axed from features.

While hand-placed loot might sometimes FEEL more personal and immersive, it also makes the world boringly predictable. Sure, having fifty iron swords of enervating which you'll never use is kind of obnoxious, but random loot also has to do with the little things: money, crafting materials, consumables, junk. By having a random loot system where hand-placed loot doesn't mean anything, you can get players the items they need in volume easily without having to regulate scarcity manually. Basically, it's easier and provides the same outcome. The issue is choosing where that random loot goes and where you handpick your loot.

No it does not provide same outcome. Scaled random loot is pure bullshit.

I always hear people rag on level scaling, and I never understand it. Level scaling prevents punishing players for exploring new, mysterious areas. The previous Witcher titles managed scaling by making sure players were at a certain combat effectiveness before throwing harder creatures at them via linear story progression, but in an open world system, you don't have that ability short locking areas until you get a certain power. However, if you do that, you risk the player not ever going there again anyway. Similarly, if you make a dungeon that the player has early game access to, but is meant to be completed by late level players, they're going to give up and quit because they think the game is too hard. Level scaling allows the player to access all the content he can possibly find through exploration without punishing him for poking his nose into places the developers may not have "intended" earlier on. No matter how "unrealistic" it may be, it provides a positive outcome and enables most of the open-world aspects we take for granted in games like Skyrim.

It ruins character progression. It ruins pacing. It ruins any challenge. Maybe you don't remember skyrim dragons which were as strong as flies ? That is what you get when you do level scaled enemies. Part of what makes open world game open world game is proggression. You can go anywhere even to most dangerous places if you have skill. There is no "fuck yeah i am so best" factor in level scaling"

No matter what you do, you're going to have button mashing in games. The trick is to not make button mashing ineffective, but rather inefficient. I'd say that while you can spam attack buttons in the Witcher games and even TES, They're rarely the best way to go about combat. If you're button mashing in TW1, you're either doing it wrong or trying to dodge. If you're button mashing in TW2, then you're not getting the most you can out of your combat abilities, simple as that.

Nope. Nor TW1 nor TW2 was button mashing. In TW2 you die if you button mash. Button mash is game design fuckup

That said, I hope CDPR succeeds and gives Bethesda something hard to think about for the next Elder Scrolls game. It would be refreshing for a story where you feel like you have some impact. I mean, you know, you DO kill a God at the end of Skyrim's main quest after all.

Killing GODs in RPG is so clishe and bad that i vomit every time i see something like this. There is absolutely no impact from character standpoint killing some being, dragon or whatever.

Personal quests are the most interesting in any RPG.
 

Lunar15

Member
I got really worried about this game when CDPR kept talking about W3 being "like Skyrim", but seeing them understand the faults of Skyrim and other open world games makes me feel a little better. I really do like skyrim, but I feel that what the Witcher strives to do (strong character focused storytelling) is much different than what the Elder Scrolls tries to do. (Personal growth fantasy and choose-your-own-story mechanics)

Particularly glad that they noticed how much stronger New Vegas was in terms of storytelling.
 

Perkel

Banned
What? then what's the point?

I don't get it either. It's completely anti-RPG mechanic.

I got really worried about this game when CDPR kept talking about W3 being "like Skyrim", but seeing them understand the faults of Skyrim and other open world games makes me feel a little better.

Particularly glad that they noticed how much stronger New Vegas was in terms of storytelling.

It wasn't stronger... it was leagues beyond. Even Morrowind was simply put vastly better in that aspect.
 
Why exactly do some of you argue against random loot? I understand the scaled reasoning (as with anything); but what else does it ultimately affect negatively? I always thought random loot was positive due to nothing being scripted and easily attainable.
 

Perkel

Banned
Why exactly do some of you argue against random loot? I understand the scaled reasoning (as with anything); but what else does it ultimately affect negatively? I always thought random loot was positive due to nothing being scripted and easily attainable.

Random loot needs to be scaled to your level because you don't want to get best weapon from first box and because of that you don't have a chance to find something worthwhile. If you know that you will get few low price gems, some shitty scroll and magic armor which is probably not good even before you go to dungeon then that is just bad mechanic. It only works in games like diablo where there is no world to explore.

Non level scaled loot is all about exploration and thanks to non level scaled enemies best loot is guarded by best enemies and sometimes thanks to your eye you can find something amazing without any guard.

And next problem with it linear progress. Which is the worst thing ever from game design standpoint. It there is no time where you are "so best" thanks to last weapon you found then there is not sence of progression and simply put loot is crap.

To have good RPG you need non scaled enemies because killing those hard dudes which moped floor with you gives you sence of proggress, non scaled loot to have this OMG ASDFASDF what is this ! AMAZING feeling when you find some kickass sword which will allow you overpower some dudes which moped floor with you and non linear loot which is essential to OMG ASDFASDF thing.

In short summary Dark Souls/Deamon Souls and many RPG before it.

Random loot is good only for minor things like ammunition in FalloutNv or food but not for tools which u use to progress. Even FNV was hurted by it and they handplaced a lot of items.

Mentioned Gothic was phenomenal about it and sense of progression was amazing.
 
They've got a good point about the characters in Skyrim. I've been playing Dragonborn nonstop for the past week or so and I coudln't even remember Ulfric's name until I clicked on this thread and that's after putting 200 plus hours into the game.

From the main game I can remember Parthanax, Esbern and Alduin and two of those are dragons if that has anything to say about Bethesda's ability to write human characters. The only reason I remember Esbern's name is because Max Von Sydow voices him and he was the voice in the Skryrim trailer.

In Dragonborn I can remember Miraak, mostly because he's suprisingly absent for most of the DLC despite being the antagonist in it. I also remember Varona only because of a quest marker bug that shows her body is in the middle of the ocean that is inaccessible to me and finding it is a prerequisite to finishing a sidequest. That's the only reason I remember Neoloth (sic?) too because he keeps asking me where Varona is. She's in the middle of the fucking ocean you idiot and I can't get her without using console commands that might or might no fuck up my game.

Hell, even Ghaleon, who is addicted to Skyrim, mentioned in a recent thread that he doesn't remeber who Neoloth is, despite him being one of the most frequent quest givers in Dragonborn.

The problem with Skryim is that 90 percent of the NPC's feel like the Witcher series quest boards just modeled after a human instead of a paper contract.
 

BigDes

Member
Why exactly do some of you argue against random loot? I understand the scaled reasoning (as with anything); but what else does it ultimately affect negatively? I always thought random loot was positive due to nothing being scripted and easily attainable.

Random loot is problematic in games where its implementation is thrown in and poorly thought out.

In OBlivion for instance I opened a random dresser in a town and got a dagger. I then proceeded to venture into a dungeon battled through it, lockpicked the chest at the end and got, a dagger.

No feel of risk/reward.
 

hellclerk

Everything is tsundere to me
Something I should probably mention is that I'm more playing devil's advocate here. I'm not really commenting on if something is "right" or "wrong", I'm simply giving the reasons why people are using these mechanics. Whether they're any good at using them is up to you.

That is what is wrong with Skyrim. There is no reason to play RPG if you don't care about world, lore and characters. ARPG is what you probably like which is not RPG at all. Few years back ARPGs were hack&slash games.
Then why play a Roguelike? Or any other dungeon-crawl game that makes up most old-school RPGs? It's fun, it's living out a fantasy of being transported to a mysterious realm and then saving it, which by the way is the plot of every DnD related film media.

And this is why most of RPG players hate it. You should yourself explore village and find people, memorize where they live and what they do. Thanks to quest marker you don't know anything about people or world. You just fallow damn arrow. Skyrim is worst case because there are no additional information provided by NPC so you need to fallow quest marker.
Listen, there were so many fewer interactive NPCs in The Witcher 1 and 2 than Skyrim, and even then, I didn't want to memorize them all. In fact, there were plenty of characters I didn't like in the slightest, which is a good thing because that means they elicited a reaction, but even in The Witcher, there were quests where they said "Here, I'll mark it on your map". Not every player is going to live, breath, and sleep the world of the RPG, but the option is always there to turn the quest markers off once you know where you're going. I do it all the time in Skyrim. Before too long, I forget I have other markers telling me to finish that quest I started four hours ago. Quest markers are a convenience, one you don't explicitly have to use, but most casual players, the majority of players, expect them to be there.

No no no no no no no. gif. Stop using "streamline" Skyrim UI is even worse. Only SkyUI is somewhat good. They need to create good UI and this doesn't mean it needs to be streamlined or axed from features.
I'm gonna type this once, so read carefully. STREAMLINING =/= SIMPLIFYING. The goal of streamlining is NOT to simplify and make shallow, but rather to improve the flow of information. Streamlining a UI means that the flow of information given by the menus is clear and makes sense, not that the information given by menus is somehow less complete. In fact, a large part of streamlining is just to make sure it LOOKS good. the Witcher 2 menus are roughly exactly the same as the SkyUI menus. The difference is that the SkyUI menus look crisper, the text is easier to read, and the sorting options are clearer. I didn't even know I had a weight limit in TW2 until I became overencumbered, and part of that was the terrible UI design made me look away. Streamlining the look means making it crisper, less cluttered, and more clear in the information communicated, not making it simpler.

No it does not provide same outcome. Scaled random loot is pure bullshit.
Alright, explain to me the difference between non-story or quest related loot you get in a random side-dungeon that's hand picked or that's generated randomly. Because there doesn't seem to be much functional difference to me.

It ruins character progression. It ruins pacing. It ruins any challenge. Maybe you don't remember skyrim dragons which were as strong as flies ? That is what you get when you do level scaled enemies. Part of what makes open world game open world game is proggression. You can go anywhere even to most dangerous places if you have skill. There is no "fuck yeah i am so best" factor in level scaling"
Oh yeah, I can take down a "Dragon" in a couple hits with my level 70 character, but the Serpentine dragon in Dragonborn? Well, not so much luck there. The trick about level scaling is balancing it to make sure everything STAYS hard. Deadly Dragons is a good example of the Skyrim Dragon level scaling being balanced towards more difficult encounters. It's not really about the method, it's about the parameters. If the developer makes loose or easy parameters, then you're going to have the hilarity that is level scaling in Skyrim.

Nope. Nor TW1 nor TW2 was button mashing. In TW2 you die if you button mash. Button mash is game design fuckup
Yes. Hence why I said you CAN, not that you SHOULD. I actually button mashed for probably the first quarter of TW1, before I figured out how the combat system worked. It wasn't very well explained as I don't usually play click to attack games. Was kind of obnoxious, really, but I somehow managed to scrap by. Somehow.

Killing GODs in RPG is so clishe and bad that i vomit every time i see something like this. There is absolutely no impact from character standpoint killing some being, dragon or whatever.

Personal quests are the most interesting in any RPG.
Personal quests are also unpopular. Pretty much everyone I know saw The Avengers, but I can count the number of people I know that saw Lincoln on one hand. The thing is, like I said before, what about Roguelikes? What about dungeoncrawlers? What about the founding games that are console RPGs. Remember, The Witcher's concepts about choices and consequences is rather modern. People enjoy just cutting up zombies or killing bandits or slaying dragons. Sure, it's not personal, but it's empowering and exciting. Who gives a shit about some peasant woman's mysterious story? The only question I ever had in TW1 when I took those quests was "Will I get a card out of this?" It's not about what's more "interesting", it's about what people want to play. Sure, personal quests are profound, but profound doesn't get the blood pumping.
 
It'll be interesting how they approach loot. Both Witcher 1 and Witcher 2 weren't very big on a lot of loot. In Witcher 1 you only really need to upgrade your sword or armor a few times and there's a handful of special swords. Same thing with Witcher 2. The best swords were always the variations of the Witcher silver sword and Witcher steel sword that you could upgrade. Most of the meaningful loot came from a handful of crafting recipies for unique armors and Witcher swords. Then there's the whole lore emphasis on silver swords only being effective against monsters. I think they can get away with having a wide variety of armors and upgrades, but do you think they can't get away with having a world as big as Skyrim yet only relying on different variations of silver and steel swords?

I could see people getting bored with the loot if its something akin to Skyrim where the only weapons are slight tweaks on existing ones like Witcher Silver Sword of Flames (+5 percent fire damage against enemies) or Witcher Silver Sword of Wielding (+ 10 percent chance of causing bleeding/critical hit), etc.
 

Tacitus_

Member
I could see people getting bored with the loot if its something akin to Skyrim where the only weapons are slight tweaks on existing ones like Witcher Silver Sword of Flames (+5 percent fire damage against enemies) or Witcher Silver Sword of Wielding (+ 10 percent chance of causing bleeding/critical hit), etc.

That could be, but the Witcher games haven't really been about the loot increasing your power. It was more about how you set up your skills and how you used them.
 

Sentenza

Member
Why exactly do some of you argue against random loot? I understand the scaled reasoning (as with anything); but what else does it ultimately affect negatively? I always thought random loot was positive due to nothing being scripted and easily attainable.
Random loot is crap because in the best case scenario, when done properly, forces the player to deal with farming to gather what he needs or to rely on loot tables and luck to build what he's aiming for, and in the worst scenario becomes by itself a feature capable of making any sense of progression and reward in the game completely pointless.

Take Skyrim or Darksiders 2, two games where the random loot turned killing bosses and looting chests in two pointless activities that reward you mostly with useless crap.

The advantages of hand-placed items, on the other hand, allow a willing and competent designer to establish a steady and smooth progression, when you get that specific item as result of achieving a specific goal.

Honestly, think about Baldur's Gate 2, killing Firekraag and finally looting Carsomyr.
A genuine awesome moment in the game when all your efforts were suddenly rewarded with one of the best weapons in the whole game (a big ass game, too).
How would you feel about that moment, if once Firekraag dropped dead you would have been forced to go through this random roll and then you would have looted some generic magic item with some randomly generated bonus stat?
Do you actually think it would have improved your mood because "you know, knowing already what it drops is so boring"? Would that have been a change for the better?
 

loganclaws

Plane Escape Torment
Alright, I get that there are some aspects to open world RPGs that people like and can identify with, but there are reasons behind all of it. Part of what make Skyrim great is how accessible it all is, how you can just hop in and save the world and don't need to understand anything before it. I'll engage this in detail and give the pros and cons to each of these.

You yourself are basically saying that Skyrim is such a shallow experience, you can just hop in and out without any investment in the game. Good for you, you can look forward to the next Elder Scrolls game. A game is a lot more enjoyable, offers much more gratification, and essentially becomes much more memorable and timeless when it is NOT so shallow and diluted.


I don't think I've ever played a game where I HAD to follow quest markers or had the option to turn those markers off. If anything, quest markers are a powerful player tool for determining priorities and direction, and can help a player lost or a player who wants to revisit a quest he left in favor of more interesting quests get back on their feet and go where they need.

You already missed the point here. Developers should strive to build a world where they don't need to rely on these markers. This means that they have to consider how the player approaches and learns the world; landmark placement, zone division, everything has to make sense. Maybe you never played a game with no quest markers, give Gothic 2, Risen or Outcast a try. The exploration in those games is infinitely more enjoyable and rewarding than Skyrim. Developers just become lazy with the world building when they can just lead you by the nose to where you need to go.


While the UI in 2 definitely needed some streamlining, bring it back to 1's level wouldn't really fit with the kind of inventory system they put into place. In order to streamline the UI, they must also streamline the systems to a certain extent. Skyrim does this by a clean sub-menu based inventory setup. I certainly prefer the PC's SkyUI mod, but its in the same spirit.

This is just bullshit. Try harder to convey your point next time. Witcher 1 had crafting, trophies and pretty much anything that was in the Witcher 2 and the UI was better.


While hand-placed loot might sometimes FEEL more personal and immersive, it also makes the world boringly predictable. Sure, having fifty iron swords of enervating which you'll never use is kind of obnoxious, but random loot also has to do with the little things: money, crafting materials, consumables, junk. By having a random loot system where hand-placed loot doesn't mean anything, you can get players the items they need in volume easily without having to regulate scarcity manually. Basically, it's easier and provides the same outcome. The issue is choosing where that random loot goes and where you handpick your loot.

Again, this is the lazy approach, you said it yourself "without having to regulate scarcity manually". Guess what? Regulating scarcity always makes for a more enjoyable experience, and here is why:

- Cuts back on grinding, one of the fastest ways to get players turned off or burnt out with your game.
- Ensures constant rewarding progression if loot is regulated intelligently.
- Allows for fun shortcuts or loot sequence breaking on new games, see fallout 2 power armor run for example.


I always hear people rag on level scaling, and I never understand it. Level scaling prevents punishing players for exploring new, mysterious areas. The previous Witcher titles managed scaling by making sure players were at a certain combat effectiveness before throwing harder creatures at them via linear story progression, but in an open world system, you don't have that ability short locking areas until you get a certain power. However, if you do that, you risk the player not ever going there again anyway. Similarly, if you make a dungeon that the player has early game access to, but is meant to be completed by late level players, they're going to give up and quit because they think the game is too hard. Level scaling allows the player to access all the content he can possibly find through exploration without punishing him for poking his nose into places the developers may not have "intended" earlier on. No matter how "unrealistic" it may be, it provides a positive outcome and enables most of the open-world aspects we take for granted in games like Skyrim.

I guess you don't understand. The concept of never punishing the player is wrong. There should be difficult areas, there should be unbeatable enemies at low player levels. This is a great enticement to the player not a turn off. The developer just needs to give fair warning signals to the player and not get him killed in a cheap way. A good example is the monster in Pirhana Bytes' games, when you approach their aggression zone, they start growling at you for a couple of seconds before attacking, in that time the player can decide wether to fight or retreat. The benefits of fixed levels far outweigh those of level scaled enemies. I think you;re just trolling here anyway.


Yes, climbing is fun, as long as you have control over it and it's not too slow. See the Assassin's Creed climbing mechanics. There are occasionally new ways to approach and explore the same vertical thing. However, you also need good climbing mechanics to do this. Once again, see AC. The question becomes more "can the developers implement such a system in a practical and satisfying way." If the answer is no, then I would rather they do not.

I can't tell if you're referencing AC as a good or a bad example. I can tell you that AC is definitely a BAD example. Man, you really are new school game design. The climbing mechanic shouldn't be a one button press auto-move a la AC, why would you say that? What's wrong with you?? A good climbing mechanic should make the player engaged at every step of the climb. Heck even the climbing system in Gothic 2 is better than AC.


No matter what you do, you're going to have button mashing in games. The trick is to not make button mashing ineffective, but rather inefficient. I'd say that while you can spam attack buttons in the Witcher games and even TES, They're rarely the best way to go about combat. If you're button mashing in TW1, you're either doing it wrong or trying to dodge. If you're button mashing in TW2, then you're not getting the most you can out of your combat abilities, simple as that.

This is of course assuming you're not talking about QTEs. If it is about the QTEs, yeah, I'm with you. Fuck those things.

Ok well we mostly agree here. I think W2 had a more mashy combat than W1. I hope they refine that in W3.


While you might like the idea of having unique abilities for every skill/perk, choosing to increase the effectiveness of a skill or ability is an active effort to specialize. If you choose to use one of your finite skill points for your sword over a sign, you're making an active choice to depend on your sword more often. Certainly, all abilities should scale up with level, but you're going to focus on improving some abilities over others no matter what, so perks that improve the effectiveness of some things over others are certainly an important aspect of any RPG. Hell, character builds are a whole part of the game. Conditional power-ups are highly contextual and of questionable use unless a player really knows how to use them. For example, I didn't ever bother upgrading the evading roll because the distance it covered was just fine for me, but being rather sword heavy, I chose sword ability upgrades so that I didn't have to depend on signs and potions when going into battle if I could help it.


That's completely false. Perks in Fallout games are at least half-way unique and interesting, and perks in Skryrim fall in the same gambit. I've just explained why random loot and level scaling are useful design decisions, and I don't think I've ever button mashed in Skyrim either. I agree with CDPR that Skyrim and Fallout don't give the idea that you're actually doing anything with consequences, and that Skyrim in particular depends on alot of very generic quests to give the players something to do in the world, but the complaints here, while understandable, I'm not sure are warranted within their contexts.

Percentage increases can be relegated to loot upgrades. I.e: better swords will have higher damage and a chance to cause bleeding, better shields have better defence and a chance to disable criticals from enemies. Skills should be tangible and visible to the player. Nothing more boring than spending 3 hours to level up only to get a 10% increase to weapon damage as a skill. Fuck that.

That said, I hope CDPR succeeds and gives Bethesda something hard to think about for the next Elder Scrolls game. It would be refreshing for a story where you feel like you have some impact. I mean, you know, you DO kill a God at the end of Skyrim's main quest after all.



I have no doubt that the witchwer 3 will at minimum be better than all the elde scroll games. But hey, opinion are like assholes and all that noise.
 

Perkel

Banned
Something I should probably mention is that I'm more playing devil's advocate here. I'm not really commenting on if something is "right" or "wrong", I'm simply giving the reasons why people are using these mechanics. Whether they're any good at using them is up to you.

I am perfectly aware of that and i am playing prosecutor here.

Then why play a Roguelike? Or any other dungeon-crawl game that makes up most old-school RPGs? It's fun, it's living out a fantasy of being transported to a mysterious realm and then saving it, which by the way is the plot of every DnD related film media.

Roguelike RPG is different kind of beast. Roguelike RPGs need to be deep with mechanics, good loot, and ton of abilities to use. Which is completely opposite of Skyrim, scaled loot&enemies and same dungeon everywhere with same patterns which will not give you anything worthwile.

If we count Skyrim as rogue like RPG then it is even more shitty RPG than from general RPG standpoint.

Listen, there were so many fewer interactive NPCs in The Witcher 1 and 2 than Skyrim, and even then, I didn't want to memorize them all. In fact, there were plenty of characters I didn't like in the slightest, which is a good thing because that means they elicited a reaction, but even in The Witcher, there were quests where they said "Here, I'll mark it on your map". Not every player is going to live, breath, and sleep the world of the RPG, but the option is always there to turn the quest markers off once you know where you're going. I do it all the time in Skyrim. Before too long, I forget I have other markers telling me to finish that quest I started four hours ago. Quest markers are a convenience, one you don't explicitly have to use, but most casual players, the majority of players, expect them to be there.

Because not every character in RPG need big story line. I can and probably you can name almost every important NPC from TW1 or TW2 even those who were not main characters and we both will struggle to name even 10 characters from Skyrim. As of quest markers yes there were cases were quest markers were given but those were not created with quest marker in mind. Every NPC described where you need to go or who you need to see and where is he or where to look for him.

I'm gonna type this once, so read carefully. STREAMLINING =/= SIMPLIFYING. The goal of streamlining is NOT to simplify and make shallow, but rather to improve the flow of information. Streamlining a UI means that the flow of information given by the menus is clear and makes sense, not that the information given by menus is somehow less complete. In fact, a large part of streamlining is just to make sure it LOOKS good. the Witcher 2 menus are roughly exactly the same as the SkyUI menus. The difference is that the SkyUI menus look crisper, the text is easier to read, and the sorting options are clearer. I didn't even know I had a weight limit in TW2 until I became overencumbered, and part of that was the terrible UI design made me look away. Streamlining the look means making it crisper, less cluttered, and more clear in the information communicated, not making it simpler.

You were the one who said game/menu need to be less complex to have better UI. Witcher 2 UI problem wasn't information or complexity it was overuse of art and clunkyness of it (meaning didn't work well with either mouse or pad) and it wasn't responsive.

Alright, explain to me the difference between non-story or quest related loot you get in a random side-dungeon that's hand picked or that's generated randomly. Because there doesn't seem to be much functional difference to me.

Lack of linear progression.

If you have level scaled loot there is absolutely no reason to explore harder dungeons because in the end loot will be randomly generated by your level even more so if world is also scaled (meaning no harder/easier dungeons). Because loot is scaled you can't get any loot which would help you to go somewhere where you had massive problems.

With handplaced loot. Designers often hide good loot in some places which encourage people to explore even deepest caves. Thanks to that designer place items respectively to dungeon level def. Which will mean that if you are prepared you can explore dungon which will be very very very very very hard but at the same time it will probably give you very very very very very good loot which will automatically make you "FUUUUUUCKKK YEEEEEEESS" state. Thanks to that loot you will have a chance to upgrade your character and try even harder dungeon.

Remember firesword in Balmora in watchtower which you could steal using invisibility spell/ability ? Thanks to that sword you can kill ghosts in crypts making it possible to explore them. Risk reward.

Oh yeah, I can take down a "Dragon" in a couple hits with my level 70 character, but the Serpentine dragon in Dragonborn? Well, not so much luck there. The trick about level scaling is balancing it to make sure everything STAYS hard. Deadly Dragons is a good example of the Skyrim Dragon level scaling being balanced towards more difficult encounters. It's not really about the method, it's about the parameters. If the developer makes loose or easy parameters, then you're going to have the hilarity that is level scaling in Skyrim.

Quest related enemies are not mostly scaled to your level so this is not good answer to my point. Killing any dragon at level 10 is just terrible idea. At least first dragon is believable since Iraleth and guards are with you but rest is just downright shit.

Yes. Hence why I said you CAN, not that you SHOULD. I actually button mashed for probably the first quarter of TW1, before I figured out how the combat system worked. It wasn't very well explained as I don't usually play click to attack games. Was kind of obnoxious, really, but I somehow managed to scrap by. Somehow.

You can't button mash at all in TW1. When you button mash in TW1 you cancel your attack. It was described in manual how to fight (time clicks) and later it was actually interesting to do it since it was faster and faster with each next attack.

Personal quests are also unpopular. Pretty much everyone I know saw The Avengers, but I can count the number of people I know that saw Lincoln on one hand. The thing is, like I said before, what about Roguelikes? What about dungeoncrawlers? What about the founding games that are console RPGs. Remember, The Witcher's concepts about choices and consequences is rather modern. People enjoy just cutting up zombies or killing bandits or slaying dragons. Sure, it's not personal, but it's empowering and exciting. Who gives a shit about some peasant woman's mysterious story? The only question I ever had in TW1 when I took those quests was "Will I get a card out of this?" It's not about what's more "interesting", it's about what people want to play. Sure, personal quests are profound, but profound doesn't get the blood pumping.

1. It doesn't mean Avengers if good film. It means people have shit taste.
2. Roguelikes i answered earlier. Founding games and console RPG ? RPG were created first on PCs
3. This is where our opinions are just opposite. You want RPG to be action game where you kill dragons and shit and you can get better axe once in while my opinion is that RPG need to be RPG you need to roleplay your character, explore world, learn lore, use your skills be it persuation shield or any other skill like pickpocket. memorize places and characters and most important part make choices to which world will react.

What you descibe is action game not RPG.
 

Durante

Member
I said that level scaling was necessary if you want to have all of your content roughly available all at once and have an even difficulty curve.
I see neither of those as a particularly worthwhile goal in an RPG. And that's even in case they'd actually work out that way. In Skyrim, there isn't really a difficulty "curve" at all in my experience, more a straight horizontal difficulty line.

280 hours into skyrim, and I'm STILL finding new stuff to do from the vanilla game. If it's too easy, it becomes a disappointment. If it's too hard, it becomes a chore. Level scaling in Skyrim allows for me to experience new content no matter where I am in character progression, and that's valuable.
Level scaling makes all content feel the same, and at that point having more of it is not an advantage. Challenging areas give players something to work towards, and encountering an "easy" dungeon later in the game demonstrates how your character has grown in power. Both of these are desirable.
 

Leckan

Member
Random loot needs to be scaled to your level because you don't want to get best weapon from first box and because of that you don't have a chance to find something worthwhile. If you know that you will get few low price gems, some shitty scroll and magic armor which is probably not good even before you go to dungeon then that is just bad mechanic. It only works in games like diablo where there is no world to explore.

Non level scaled loot is all about exploration and thanks to non level scaled enemies best loot is guarded by best enemies and sometimes thanks to your eye you can find something amazing without any guard.

And next problem with it linear progress. Which is the worst thing ever from game design standpoint. It there is no time where you are "so best" thanks to last weapon you found then there is not sence of progression and simply put loot is crap.

To have good RPG you need non scaled enemies because killing those hard dudes which moped floor with you gives you sence of proggress, non scaled loot to have this OMG ASDFASDF what is this ! AMAZING feeling when you find some kickass sword which will allow you overpower some dudes which moped floor with you and non linear loot which is essential to OMG ASDFASDF thing.

In short summary Dark Souls/Deamon Souls and many RPG before it.

Random loot is good only for minor things like ammunition in FalloutNv or food but not for tools which u use to progress. Even FNV was hurted by it and they handplaced a lot of items.

Mentioned Gothic was phenomenal about it and sense of progression was amazing.

Remember Umbra and specifically her sword in Oblivion? She was tough as nails but the rewards for defeating her were great. Never got why there wasn't much more of this in Bethesda's games. It would have made dungeons actually worth exploring.
 
I like the randomness that happens in skyrim..watching giants fight gaurds..then a dragon coming by attacking them and just sitting on my horse watching it all happen ...stuff like that just makes my head explode full of awesome
 

Perkel

Banned
Remember Umbra and specifically her sword in Oblivion? She was tough as nails but the rewards for defeating her were great. Never got why there wasn't much more of this in Bethesda's games. It would have made dungeons actually worth exploring.

And that is why handplaced items rock. Risk and reward. I still remember that firesword from morrowind in balmora watchtower. For low level character it was OMFG loot and at the same time it was reward for people took time exploring (since it was hard to find and steal)
 

Perkel

Banned
What witcher 3 really needs is man cards. Let geralt dip in with some hairy nordic dude now and then.

Unfortunately they fallow strictly witcher lore where only sorceress experimented with both genders.

I like the randomness that happens in skyrim..watching giants fight gaurds..then a dragon coming by attacking them and just sitting on my horse watching it all happen ...stuff like that just makes my head explode full of awesome

This is what RPG is all about. Living breathing world which don't spin only around you. Same thing in Fallout 2 Hubologists fighting gangs and deathclaw attacking NCR soldiers fighting with fiends
 

Madouu

Member
I've been following the debate and as much as I want to contribute with my opinion, I sadly don't have the time for it now but one thing is puzzling me: Why the hell are we comparing Avengers to Lincoln exactly when talking about open world RPGs design philosophies/mechanics.
 
Random loot needs to be scaled to your level because you don't want to get best weapon from first box and because of that you don't have a chance to find something worthwhile. If you know that you will get few low price gems, some shitty scroll and magic armor which is probably not good even before you go to dungeon then that is just bad mechanic. It only works in games like diablo where there is no world to explore.

Non level scaled loot is all about exploration and thanks to non level scaled enemies best loot is guarded by best enemies and sometimes thanks to your eye you can find something amazing without any guard.

And next problem with it linear progress. Which is the worst thing ever from game design standpoint. It there is no time where you are "so best" thanks to last weapon you found then there is not sence of progression and simply put loot is crap.

To have good RPG you need non scaled enemies because killing those hard dudes which moped floor with you gives you sence of proggress, non scaled loot to have this OMG ASDFASDF what is this ! AMAZING feeling when you find some kickass sword which will allow you overpower some dudes which moped floor with you and non linear loot which is essential to OMG ASDFASDF thing.

In short summary Dark Souls/Deamon Souls and many RPG before it.

Random loot is good only for minor things like ammunition in FalloutNv or food but not for tools which u use to progress. Even FNV was hurted by it and they handplaced a lot of items.

Mentioned Gothic was phenomenal about it and sense of progression was amazing.

Random loot is crap because in the best case scenario, when done properly, forces the player to deal with farming to gather what he needs or to rely on loot tables and luck to build what he's aiming for, and in the worst scenario becomes by itself a feature capable of making any sense of progression and reward in the game completely pointless.

Take Skyrim or Darksiders 2, two games where the random loot turned killing bosses and looting chests in two pointless activities that reward you mostly with useless crap.

The advantages of hand-placed items, on the other hand, allow a willing and competent designer to establish a steady and smooth progression, when you get that specific item as result of achieving a specific goal.

Honestly, think about Baldur's Gate 2, killing Firekraag and finally looting Carsomyr.
A genuine awesome moment in the game when all your efforts were suddenly rewarded with one of the best weapons in the whole game (a big ass game, too).
How would you feel about that moment, if once Firekraag dropped dead you would have been forced to go through this random roll and then you would have looted some generic magic item with some randomly generated bonus stat?
Do you actually think it would have improved your mood because "you know, knowing already what it drops is so boring"? Would that have been a change for the better?

Thanks for the points.

You mentioned small randomized loot, such as food or ammunition, is there a system within a game that could randomize only the important items?

What I mean is, everything in the environment leading up to the end-goal, is random (non-neccessary) and then only after a certain difficulty wall was broken through, (boss, puzzle) that could result in a satisfying loot piece. So basically there's 1 & 2, only all 2's could randomize within each other in order to avoid predictability, but keep the quality. I hope I explained that well enough.
 

Sentenza

Member
Thanks for the points.

You mentioned small randomized loot, such as food or ammunition, is there a system within a game that could randomize only the important items?

What I mean is, everything in the environment leading up to the end-goal, is random (non-neccessary) and then only after a certain difficulty wall was broken through, (boss, puzzle) that could result in a satisfying loot piece. So basically there's 1 & 2, only all 2's could randomize within each other in order to avoid predictability, but keep the quality. I hope I explained that well enough.
It's entirely possible and not even hard to do, you just need a loot table that mixes items with 100% drop chances with others that are far lower.

That said, I still don't see the point in it and I don't get why "predictability" should be avoided at all.
It's not like loot being unpredictable is going to add anything to the experience, anyway.
Hell, quite often it's the exact opposite, especially with additional playthrough, where a big part of the fun is finding ways to reach specific items before you normally would.
 

Almighty

Member
They are definitely saying all the right things, but time will tell if they can pull it off. Making a truly great open world RPG is an art that only a very few have managed to pull off. CDPR is one of the current studios that I think could do it, but all this talk about how the world is bigger then Skyrim, fast travel, etc does leave me a little bit worried. They need to take a look at what Piranha Bytes have done. Size of your game world isn't everything.
 

hellclerk

Everything is tsundere to me
I am perfectly aware of that and i am playing prosecutor here.
I'm okay with this. Now let's get started.

Roguelike RPG is different kind of beast. Roguelike RPGs need to be deep with mechanics, good loot, and ton of abilities to use. Which is completely opposite of Skyrim, scaled loot&enemies and same dungeon everywhere with same patterns which will not give you anything worthwile.

If we count Skyrim as rogue like RPG then it is even more shitty RPG than from general RPG standpoint.
I really wouldn't call Skyrim a roguelike, but what I mean is that we accept games that aren't really heavy and complicated on the plot

Because not every character in RPG need big story line. I can and probably you can name almost every important NPC from TW1 or TW2 even those who were not main characters and we both will struggle to name even 10 characters from Skyrim. As of quest markers yes there were cases were quest markers were given but those were not created with quest marker in mind. Every NPC described where you need to go or who you need to see and where is he or where to look for him.
Well to be fair, there are only roughly 10 character important enough to mention from TW1 and TW2, but being able to recognize a character for what they look like is relatively recent, even everyone in Oblivion looked the same, so no forgiveness for old mechanics carried over? Even then, I'd STILL keep quest markers in. They're fantastically useful to the player for a number of different reasons and I'd hesitate to take those tools away.

You were the one who said game/menu need to be less complex to have better UI. Witcher 2 UI problem wasn't information or complexity it was overuse of art and clunkyness of it (meaning didn't work well with either mouse or pad) and it wasn't responsive.
I did not, but we seem to be mostly in agreement here anyway, so I'll consider this resolved.

Lack of linear progression.

If you have level scaled loot there is absolutely no reason to explore harder dungeons because in the end loot will be randomly generated by your level even more so if world is also scaled (meaning no harder/easier dungeons). Because loot is scaled you can't get any loot which would help you to go somewhere where you had massive problems.

With handplaced loot. Designers often hide good loot in some places which encourage people to explore even deepest caves. Thanks to that designer place items respectively to dungeon level def. Which will mean that if you are prepared you can explore dungon which will be very very very very very hard but at the same time it will probably give you very very very very very good loot which will automatically make you "FUUUUUUCKKK YEEEEEEESS" state. Thanks to that loot you will have a chance to upgrade your character and try even harder dungeon.

Remember firesword in Balmora in watchtower which you could steal using invisibility spell/ability ? Thanks to that sword you can kill ghosts in crypts making it possible to explore them. Risk reward.
Well it's a good thing quests like that exist already. Skyrim's loot isn't exclusively randomly generated. There's a good deal of hand-placed loot which reflects specific dungeons and quests for which you're in that dungeon for. So you beat the boss at the end and your reward is the Steel Sword of Asskicking. What else do you have in the chest? Is that it? You already have the boots of badassery, and the next dungeon you get the helm of no shits given, what could they possibly place in there but other, unnamed equipment in there for you to pick up? The dungeon was for the Sword of Asskicking, but now you have it. Now what else? Then you get your gold, your jewels, your decent-but-not-quite-amazing armor... what's the difference between that being placed there by hand versus by random generation? You DO get linear progression with level scaled random loot. You DO more often get equipment appropriate to your level, maybe with some kind of enchantment to sweeten the deal. But after a certain point, they could give you Auriel's Armor of Invincibility and it wouldn't matter because you already modded in some sweet armor set that makes you feel awesome. There's plenty of hand-placed loot though. In fact, I think my favorite was Zephyr, which I got after I started a quest from exploring an area I hadn't before. It was it's own self-contained quest, and I got a sweet bow for my troubles. But most of the rest of the loot was random, and even if the designer handplaced those 234 gold septims, 3 gems, and potion of ultimate healing in the chest near the bow, I wouldn't noticed any better than if those things were randomly placed. In fact, if the designer had handplaced those there, I would have ended up with something much more boring and disappointing, like less gold, fewer gems, and a shittier potion. It's not the notable loot I'm talking about here, it's the random shit that fills in the gaps.

Quest related enemies are not mostly scaled to your level so this is not good answer to my point. Killing any dragon at level 10 is just terrible idea. At least first dragon is believable since Iraleth and guards are with you but rest is just downright shit.
Well, scaling enemies is just a mechanic. If this mechanic isn't carefully balanced, then you end up with inconsistencies, which is what people complain about in Skyrim. I'll not say that Bethesda does enemy scaling perfectly. I'll not even say they do it well, but the use of level scaling is not inherently a bad thing. That they're not scaling the difficulty of boss enemies is probably just not a great idea in general, but I understand why they do it.

You can't button mash at all in TW1. When you button mash in TW1 you cancel your attack. It was described in manual how to fight (time clicks) and later it was actually interesting to do it since it was faster and faster with each next attack.
I agree. Resolved.

1. It doesn't mean Avengers if good film. It means people have shit taste.
2. Roguelikes i answered earlier. Founding games and console RPG ? RPG were created first on PCs
3. This is where our opinions are just opposite. You want RPG to be action game where you kill dragons and shit and you can get better axe once in while my opinion is that RPG need to be RPG you need to roleplay your character, explore world, learn lore, use your skills be it persuation shield or any other skill like pickpocket. memorize places and characters and most important part make choices to which world will react.

What you descibe is action game not RPG.
1. It means that people look for different things out of entertainment. What you look for in RPGs might send others running for the hills.
2. Then you know that the earliest PC RPGs were dungeon crawlers with no story to speak of. (sorry, mistyped there I did mean PC RPGs) Which is my point. Story is a relatively new thing, and not everyone has embraced it like CDPR.
3. But I do roleplay my character. MY character. And sometimes, my character is an unattached murderhobo. You can roleplay as Geralt of Rivia in the Witcher games, but ONLY as Geralt of Rivia, an attached (if sometimes unwillingly so) monster hunter. I CAN play that in Skyrim for the most part. I've largely ignored the main quest even. They sacrifice their depth for breadth, but the breadth means more places to go and see, more things to do, more things to fight. It feels like ADVENTURE! Not some boring "talk to the people and make choices to get something out of it" political shit that half of the Witcher series is comprised of (mind you, I personally love it). And the systems are frankly too complex and numerous in Skyrim to call it a simple action adventure game.

Skyrim is an RPG, a game where you can play your role. Want to be a grand Knight, crossing the land and doing justice? You can do that. Want to be a sinister spellsword, stabbing your friends in the back? You can do that too. Want to be a dagger in the night, cutting purses and taking the very shirts off of people's backs? Totally. Want to be a mage, running around butt naked throwing fireballs at everything that moves? I'm doing it next character. That's role playing right there. Sure, it's not at the depth you'll find in the Witcher series, but the breadth makes up for it as far as I'm concerned. It's a trade-off you make for the time and budget you have. I'm not saying one's better than the other, they just are. You take the good with the bad.
 

Camp Lo

Banned
I have a strong feeling W3 will feel more like an MMO as far as quests go. They're stressing over filling the gap of open world exploration and the only way I can think to do that is to bombard the player with a ton of level specific chores so they'll be pulled in all directions.
 
CD Projekt are quickly becoming one of my favorite developers. Hell, The Witcher 1 was so damn good, they almost had that distinction after one game.

I am so, so hyped.
 

twinfin

Neo Member
Skyrim is fantastic so those are big words indeed.

I will believe that they have made a game as big in scope and with as much to explore - but with non-generic characters - when I see it.

Agreed. Creating a truly open world that is 30 times larger than the Witcher 2-- without losing all the great RPG systems, characters & storytelling mechanics-- is nothing to be sniffed at.

I'll believe it when I see it.
 

Ether_Snake

安安安安安安安安安安安安安安安
I have a strong feeling W3 will feel more like an MMO as far as quests go. They're stressing over filling the gap of open world exploration and the only way I can think to do that is to bombard the player with a ton of level specific chores so they'll be pulled in all directions.

Not necessarily. I think another way to make use of the open world is to have "ecosystems" in the sense that the world lives on its own, a la GTA, and then to make it so that you never clear out areas but instead go back and forth as you open up the world, to return to areas you have been to before but which have changed either temporarily (some bad guys take over a village, you have to kill them, etc.), or to open up new sub-locations within those areas.

I don't think it has to be "generic". There will certainly be hunting quests (the title says it), but it can be done in a few way where the world is more dynamic.
 

twinfin

Neo Member
Random loot is crap because in the best case scenario, when done properly, forces the player to deal with farming to gather what he needs or to rely on loot tables and luck to build what he's aiming for, and in the worst scenario becomes by itself a feature capable of making any sense of progression and reward in the game completely pointless.

Take Skyrim or Darksiders 2, two games where the random loot turned killing bosses and looting chests in two pointless activities that reward you mostly with useless crap.

The advantages of hand-placed items, on the other hand, allow a willing and competent designer to establish a steady and smooth progression, when you get that specific item as result of achieving a specific goal.

Honestly, think about Baldur's Gate 2, killing Firekraag and finally looting Carsomyr.
A genuine awesome moment in the game when all your efforts were suddenly rewarded with one of the best weapons in the whole game (a big ass game, too).
How would you feel about that moment, if once Firekraag dropped dead you would have been forced to go through this random roll and then you would have looted some generic magic item with some randomly generated bonus stat?
Do you actually think it would have improved your mood because "you know, knowing already what it drops is so boring"? Would that have been a change for the better?

To me, the argument is not over the inherent benefits of hand placed loot vs. random loot-- I don't necessarily mind "knowing" what will be dropped. You bring up a good example with Baldur's Gate 2.

The problem only arises in open world games, where the player's actions & choices are not 100% predictable. Given the nature of previous Witcher games (which I loved), I see CDPR's "loot" challenge as this:

Players feel that their sense of freedom & exploration (which is meaningful) is diminished if they get secretly herded through a linear content path, which is almost always linked to a hand-placed loot progression. This includes chapters, zones & unscaled Lvl 100 monsters, which essentially mean, "come back in 30 hours, we didn't plan for you to be here yet".

Overall, I think people underestimate the power of being able to explore the world, without designers locking off content. It may be why Skyrim resonated with a lot of people, despite its flawed combat & story-telling mechanics.
 

DTKT

Member
I think that a mix of both hand-placed and random loot is probably the best. You can have the hand placed stuff for the dungeons/quest rewards/unique stuff and you still can have a massive amount of random stuff for the more mundane items.

Just random loot for everything makes exploration really boring. Just take a look at the dungeons in Oblivion. The vast majority of them had the same loot pool and I quickly lost interest in exploring those awful elven ruins to find the same god damn crystal at the end. Skyrim had a good balance of unique stuff and the more common Draugr ruins. I did get quite bored of the tombs but I played too much of that game.
 

Jac_Solar

Member
key word is "generic"

I'm having Xenoblade vibes from that article, it's probably the rewarding the player for exploring, interest points part

and I hope CP doesn't start being arrogant, as it looks from the article

I didn't think they were arrogant -- it seemed more like someone who is aware of their own abilities, and have confidence in their teammates.

I didn't get the impression that they thought they've completely solved it, but that they are working on solutions.

But is it possible? It'll be 20% bigger than Skyrim, apparently.

The Skyrim devs started out with an engine they've been working with on open-world games for over a decade, in addition to several years of experience with open world games on other engines (Arena, Daggerfall.). They also used a lot of procedural content, along with hand-made tilesets for dungeons, spent 3-4 years in development, and had around 100 people and 70 million dollars in budget.

An open world game is also a lot about logistics -- how to make all the content, and transfer it coherently into a video-game. This, of course, assumes you have a working engine that can handle an open world game.

To make all that, and then create an incentive and purpose to it all, requires a lot of dedication. I do think they can do it though.
 

swit

Member
There will certainly be hunting quests (the title says it),
Well, of course Geralt will slay monsters - that's what the witchers are for (mutated monster-slayers for hire). But the "Wild Hunt" title ("Dziki Gon" in polish) is not directly related to the demand for the witchers' services. Here is some lore (you can find more about it in novels written by Sapkowski):
http://witcher.wikia.com/wiki/Wild_Hunt
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
I think that a mix of both hand-placed and random loot is probably the best. You can have the hand placed stuff for the dungeons/quest rewards/unique stuff and you still can have a massive amount of random stuff for the more mundane items.

Just random loot for everything makes exploration really boring. Just take a look at the dungeons in Oblivion. The vast majority of them had the same loot pool and I quickly lost interest in exploring those awful elven ruins to find the same god damn crystal at the end. Skyrim had a good balance of unique stuff and the more common Draugr ruins. I did get quite bored of the tombs but I played too much of that game.

Yeah, this. Unique loot needs to be hand placed, but random loot is still important and almost all RPGs have it (including old CRPGs). Random loot is usually reserved for trinkets and other low tier junk (like currency, material for crafting, etc) inside barrels and boxes. Hand placing all that is a pointless time sink.
 

Magpul

Banned
Man, I've tried to get into Skyrim like 5 times now. Just tried again, and after about 30 minutes of playing I uninstalled it. The game is just so bland it hurts to play, nothing memorable about it besides the exploration, which really doesn't interest me at all when there is no character development and a boring story.

Looking forward to Witcher 3, I absolutely loved the second one and couldn't put it down once I started.
 
Top Bottom