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Why is The Witcher 2 10x more difficult than the first one?

Don't like the combat in either game tbh. Am actually playing Witcher 2 atm and the combat is not very hard, or fun. Just a lot of rolling around on the ground.
 

Seanspeed

Banned
Yea, I died a shit load of times in the beginning. Just turned it to Easy and got on with it. Combat isn't nearly good enough for me to deal with that shit.
 

Sentenza

Member
Never had a problem with witcher 2 and I'm a play on normal only type of guy. Must have just clicked for me.
I played it in Dark Mode twice and still found it annoyingly easy overall, except for a couple of occasional difficulty spikes.
AND YET, it was nowhere near as easy as TW1 even played at the hardest setting.

P.S. I should probably point that I'm not really into masochistic ways to prove myself, I like games just challenging enough to require my attention and don't play by themselves, generally speaking.
 

Mackins

Member
I got it at launch on the 360 and although I always play games on the hardest difficulty setting, I didn't struggle with it at all.

I never played the first so I don't know how it compares to that one.

The Witcher 3 is definitely my most anticipated game, I loved TW2!
 

Dysun

Member
This dog was broken, man. More so than letho.

Bestiary_Hellhound_full.png

I'm glad I pushed past this part in the first game. Comically easy for the most part
 

methane47

Member
Outside one boss fight was I the only person who had no qualms with the Witcher 2's challenge?

And I played it when it first came out.

Yeah i had absolutely no problems except for one scene where you enter a base and the gate closes behind you and you have to fight off 5 soldiers plus a "Boss"? in a pretty confined space.

That was alittle tricky.. but besides that I had no issues.
 

foxdvd

Member
I posted this a long time ago in another thread..it is not the only way to play..it is how I played on dark difficulty. There are MANY ways to play this game, but what I did below made actually made my game easy...

...roll...roll...roll.

Never get surrounded. I just finished on Dark and here are some tips that will make the game actually really easy.

I stayed away from Alchemy tree. Never spent one point. I did not want to worry about preparing myself for a fight, and many times you don't know what you are going to face.

So what I did was level up magic about half way and then went into Sword.

The 6 points I spent in the training were as follows...all points listed in the order I took them.

1-Vigor Regeneration

1-Parrying

1-Fortitude

1-Fortitude(max this out)

1-Arrow Red (can mutate it)

1-Dagger Throw (though I never used it..so this one is up to you)

Then I went to magic

1-Destructive magic

1-Enhanced Quen Sign(best skill in game..get out of jail free card)

1-Enhanced Quen

1-Venting

1-Magical Vigor

1-Enhanced Igni (this is why I never used daggers)

1-Enhanced Igni

Then I went to sword

1-Feetwork

1-Position

1-Schemer

1-Tough Guy

1-Hardy

1-Whirl

1-Fitness

1-Invincible

1-Invincible

Back to magic

1-Magic Intensification

1-Magic Intensification

After this you need to make up your mind if you want to upgrade your magic to get HELIOTROPE (slows down time) or the swords finishers. Heliotrope is the stronger choice, but it can take a while to build up...but comes in handy in boss fights...(I took Heliotrope)

Combat involves you putting down QUEN at the start. If you have a large group of enemies hit them with fire...a few blast even on dark difficulty will drop them quick...remember your vigor will not come back while quen is up...so if you lose it...roll away from the combat if you can and let it recharge before using quen again.

In fights where fire does not work...stay on the outside of combat...roll around and dive in for a quick strike...and roll away. If they do get a hit in, quen will hurt a big group...giving you time to get out and recharge quen. This works in just about every situation.
 

Effect

Member
I thought I was alone in Witcher 2 being difficult to play and get into. Especially compared to The Witcher 1 which I did enjoy. I pushed forward until I got to the forest area and that's when I had enough and uninstalled the game. I never became comfortable with the controls be it the xbox controller or keyboard and mouse. They both had things that just didn't work for me. Which in turn makes the combat itself frustrating.
 

RoadHazard

Gold Member
Weird, I don't remember difficulty being a problem for the Witcher 2.

It might not be the difficulty per se, but rather the way in which the game expects you to approach fights in a certain way without really explaining it first. So once you really get into the game and start meeting groups of enemies, you're most likely screwed. It's quite different from TW1, where you had a group fighting style. In TW2 you don't; there's really no way to take on several enemies at once (at least not initially), you have to pick them off one by one. It's just a rather big change coming from the previous game.
 

RoadHazard

Gold Member
So, yeah, it definitely got more managable relatively quickly. Now that I'm used to the combat system, and have also become quite a bit more powerful, I'm enjoying it. Still think, as others have said, that the combat in this game is weirdly difficult in the beginning to then become much easier, but oh well. Now I'm beating up large groups of fools with ease.
 

NeoGash

Member
10 Steps to Success in The Witcher 2

1. Roll
2. Roll
3. Sign
4. Roll
5. Roll
6. Roll
7. Roll
8. Swing sword
9. Roll
10. Roll

Listen to this guy, he is right. The combat roll is there for a reason, and I was much like you. I wasn't liking the game as I was getting my ass kicked by those scorpion guys outside of Flotsam. Even one of them would kill me, let alone 3. I think I also forgot to use my silver sword for creatures, so I was getting double banged in the bum.

Upgrade the combat roll ASAP. It's on the left branch IIRC.
 

DocSeuss

Member
I'm playing the game using a controller, since I think fighting and such should be better that way (?).

Oh

Yeah.

Fight the way it should be played, with a mouse and keyboard, not the way you think it should be played, because, as it turns out, using a controller is the opposite of how to play this game well.

Also, just fyi, if you're playing and you've got any sort of input lag, the game's harder, in part because animations are locked, so lag + locked animations = problem. They've tweaked it, but it's still challenging.

It was a loooot harder on launch, but other than that opening ballista fight, my only challenge was the Letho one.
 

Sentenza

Member
Upgrade the combat roll ASAP. It's on the left branch IIRC.
I would actually advise against that. there are a lot of more useful and more interesting talents to unlock.
I unlocked the "enhanced roll" just in *one* of my several playthrough, and just when I was wasting points on nice extras toward the end. I must say never regretted missing it.
Also, relying on obsessive roll too much to stay alive may even be effective, but it's goddamn boring and it drags the fights too much.
In fact it's like playing an Arkham game relying entirely on the counter; it may work most of the times (except for special enemies) but it just drags fights that you could end in seconds for entire minutes.


Oh, and listed to DocSeuss. Whoever claimed this games plays better with a controller probably didn't grasp too well how it actually works, considering how the direction of your attacks is tied by default to where the camera is looking.
 

NeoGash

Member
I would actually advise against that. there are a lot of more useful and more interesting talents to unlock.
I unlocked the "enhanced roll" just in *one* of my several playthrough, and just when I was wasting points on nice extras toward the end. I must say never regretted missing it.

Oh, and listed to DocSeuss. Whoever claimed this games plays better with a controller probably didn't grasp too well how it actually works, considering how the direction of your attacks is tied by default to where the camera is looking.

Combat roll makes it much, much easier though. You may not do as much damage, but you sure as shit shouldn't be getting hit basically ever. Even on Dark difficulty, the game is a complete breeze outside of the very start.
 

Sentenza

Member
Combat roll makes it much, much easier though.
I just edited the previous reply, but let me quote you what I just added in case you missed:
Also, relying on obsessive roll too much to stay alive may even be effective, but it's goddamn boring and it drags the fights too much.
In fact it's like playing an Arkham game relying entirely on the counter; it may work most of the times (except for special enemies) but it just drags fights that you could end in seconds for entire minutes.

Oh you want Witcher 2 to have good combat?
Eh, it would be nice if they actually improved this for the third game.
Massive open world and stunning production value plus good combat would make it something memorable.

Let's be real: I'm not expecting them to match Dark Souls' combat in quality, but even matching... I don't know... Risen? That would be a nice start.
 

NeoGash

Member
I just edited the previous reply, but let me quote you what I just added in case you missed:



Eh, it would be nice if they actually improved this for the third game.
Massive open world and stunning production value plus good combat would make it something memorable.

Let's be real: I'm not expecting them to match Dark Souls' combat in quality, but even matching... I don't know... Risen? That would be a nice start.

I never got bored, and I ended fights puuurdy quick :)

You can spend even just one point for the roll and that's enough raaarrllyyy.
 

RoadHazard

Gold Member
Oh

Yeah.

Fight the way it should be played, with a mouse and keyboard, not the way you think it should be played, because, as it turns out, using a controller is the opposite of how to play this game well.

Also, just fyi, if you're playing and you've got any sort of input lag, the game's harder, in part because animations are locked, so lag + locked animations = problem. They've tweaked it, but it's still challenging.

It was a loooot harder on launch, but other than that opening ballista fight, my only challenge was the Letho one.

I'm very much a comfy couch + controller + TV kind of gamer, will always choose that over mouse + keyboard at my desk (on my small laptop screen) whenever it makes sense to do so. Controller works just fine now that I'm used to how the combat works, the only thing that's annoying is how shitty the quick menu is to use with one. You'd think it would be easy to make it nice and snappy to use (hold the quick menu button, point the analog stick in the direction of the sign/pocket you want to select, release button), but I guess they couldn't be bothered doing that (instead, you have to use the D-pad to slowly move the selection over to what you want, step by step). So that menu is really clunky and annoying to use, but the actual combat works great.
 
Eh, I loved Witcher 2 combat.It requires a good combination of being observant, having to think and having some reflexes. The key is usually having patience, and trying to separate enemies.
 

Quotient

Member
I picked up both Witcher 1 and 2 on a fantastic steam sale - $5 for both.

I finished 1 and just started 2 and found the same issues as alot of others - very difficult start. It seems alot of the issue stem from the developers doing a terrible, absolutely terrible job of explaining anything. For example:

  • Getting attacked from behind causes 200% damage - just 2 of these from certain enemies and you are dead. (there is a skill upgrade to lessen the damage)
  • You do not regenerate vitality during a battle - unlike Witcher 1 where you do.
  • Rolling is important
  • Quen is the complete opposite from Witcher 1. In the witcher 1 quen would allow you to regenerate vitality but launching an offensive attack would turn off the shield. In Witcher 2, quen now allows you to attack while still shielded but you cannot regenerate vitality. This is HUGE. I had no idea about this until I read a few threads on gaf about Witcher 2's difficulty.
  • Again, rolling is very important

There are so many parts of the Witcher 2 that are not clear and i have had to resort to forums, wiki's etc. They really need to step up their game in Witcher 3 in conveying important gameplay/mechanics details.
 
why do people lavish the souls games with praise of not holding ones hand but damn witcher with the same hand.

Also rolling isnt important. Potions, spells and the right sword for the task help immensely.

i didnt even fight letho. I saw him and said fuck it and laid every bear trap in the game in front of me before i started the fight, never even made it close.
 

chaosblade

Unconfirmed Member
I found Witcher 2 to be too easy on Normal difficulty, aside from the Kayran fight which was broken for me (was complete blind guessing on a QTE segment because the prompt didn't show).

After the arena tutorial it suggested I start on Dark. I should have at least gone with Hard.
 

DMiz

Member
I'm still sitting on both Witcher games without having played them, and reading these comments make me wonder...

What's the appeal of these games if its' not the combat (which seems to make up the bulk of the experience)? The story-telling? In that case, is there a difficulty select option in the game where you can reduce the combat difficulty even further if someone just wants to experience the story?
 
I had no problem with Witcher 2
Trying to play Witcher 1 afterwards. Didn't even finish the first chapter. That beast thing was terrible. Didn't want to keep playing.
 

Sentenza

Member
There was a fan patch of sorts too, is that any good?
Can't give an extensive review about it, but I tried it once and my first impression was that I really didn't like how it felt.
I preferred the vanilla version. There were a couple of new mechanics like "Shiled Quen" and automated parry that I genuinely disliked.
 

Tommy DJ

Member
I'm still sitting on both Witcher games without having played them, and reading these comments make me wonder...

What's the appeal of these games if its' not the combat (which seems to make up the bulk of the experience)? The story-telling? In that case, is there a difficulty select option in the game where you can reduce the combat difficulty even further if someone just wants to experience the story?

Turning the difficulty to Easy will reduce combat difficulty to nothing. All you have to do is press X and Y to win. I'm not sure if you can actually die on Easy.

The combat isn't difficult. It just takes time to click. When it clicks, the combat crumbles because it becomes too easy. As someone said on the first page, the combat boils down to signs, roll, three sword swings, roll, signs, repeat.
 

Kssio_Aug

Member
Complains about the combat system is what ever deviated me from this game.

And its also what makes me wonder if I will be buying Witcher 3.
 

Sentenza

Member
I'm still sitting on both Witcher games without having played them, and reading these comments make me wonder...

What's the appeal of these games if its' not the combat (which seems to make up the bulk of the experience)? The story-telling? In that case, is there a difficulty select option in the game where you can reduce the combat difficulty even further if someone just wants to experience the story?
Yeah, like many core RPGs it's mostly about story, interacting with characters and exploring/enjoying the environment.
And then there's the main driving feature which is choices and consequences. Many core RPG fans would tell you it's a very important feature in any decent "pure" RPG, but The Witcher seriously makes of it a major "selling point".

By the way, reducing the difficulty won't increase the enjoyment, just make things more boring more quickly. If anything is probably the quickest way to make people think the combat system is even worse than it actually is.
In fact, while I wouldn't dream to claim it was "very good" or anything like that, I'm mostly confident that a lot of people who hated it and/or dropped the game quickly because of it played at easy and didn't bother learning it.
 

misho8723

Banned
Really? For me the Souls games are difficult, but Witcher 1 was ok on hard, and Witcher 2 was fucking easy on hard difficulty.. even the tutorial part and that famous part with Dragon was too .. the one and only diffucult battle in both games was the first battle against Letho.. but yeah, one of the easiest RPGs that i have ever played
 

Crossing Eden

Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
Use quite literally everything in your disposal. And upgrade your signs to become an overpowered battlemage.
 

adelante

Member
I played it on my 360, and on the hardest difficulty so I wonder how it compares to the PC. The game was challenging but FAIR imho. Right from the tutorial I knew how important evasion was... more specifically, using the combat roll in such a way that allows you to not only evade attacks but bring you around an opponent to strike him from behind. Really cant wait to see what Witcher 3 brings in terms of combat.
 

Ric Flair

Banned
I thought the game was insanely difficult in the beginning and then very easy towards the end. The more abilities you gain the easier the combat becomes, the enemies never seem to level up with you
 
Witcher 1 was incredibly obtuse with some of its mechanics. I haven't finished Witcher 2,but from what I've played it was much more approachable.
 

antitrop

Member
Witcher 1 was incredibly obtuse with some of its mechanics. I haven't finished Witcher 2,but from what I've played it was much more approachable.
I played both of them at launch, before patches, rebalances, redesigns, and Enhanced Editions, and I found The Witcher 1 to be the far simpler game to understand from the get-go.

Hell, I had the advantage of already having played and understood TW1 when I went into TW2 and I was still so absolutely lost and frustrated with the beginning of that game that I completely abandoned it in the tutorial.

Since both games have recieved such massive reworks over the years, almost everyone will have a different experience between the two games, depending on when they played each one.

TW1 is also a game that can be greatly improved with some downloadable mods, where TW2 is mostly fine as is.
 

Vidpixel

Member
I was actually a little disappointed that the difficulty of The Witcher 2 drops so drastically after the Prologue and Chapter 1. Leveling up actually felt meaningful in those stages of the game, but later on, you pretty much just start decimating everything.
 
I'm not finding the combat difficult as I'm playing on easy, and I don't know if it's just me, but this is one of the most bizzarely unintuitive games I've ever played in terms of quest and level design.

I originally got it ages ago only to quit playing somewhere early chapter 2, and picked it up again recently, with it becoming quickly clear why I dropped it in the first place, despite so much of the game being great.

The quest structure in much of act 2 is an absolute mess, it's shockingly bad, at one point I had 3 guides open in a web browser just to untangle the unituitive web. Quests without markers, quests that shouldn't even be active yet, quests that entwine with others in arbitrary ways, it's just a terrible, terrible mess.

And then there's the level design - you have absolutely beautiful assets jumbled together in some of the most disjointed and non flowing level designs that are just insanely unintuitive to navigate, Loc Muinne in particular, with arbitrary blocked passages requiring needless complex detours.

Then there's quests with absurd solutions, 10 part passwords, etc, not to mention the inventory, just so much about this game is bewlideringly unintuitive.

The games gets so much right, amazing graphics, decently acted dialogue, decent combat system, but the level and quest designs are infuriatingly bad on more than one occasion. It makes the game feel like an amateur effort despite having amazing production values in other respects.

I'll finish it as I've come almost to the end, but I sincerely hope Witcher 3 has far better quest and level designs, because Witcher 2 has some of the least intuitive I've encountered in over 30 years of gaming.
 

Sentenza

Member
The quest structure in much of act 2 is an absolute mess, it's shockingly bad, at one point I had 3 guides open in a web browser just to untangle the unituitive web. Quests without markers, quests that shouldn't even be active yet, quests that entwine with others in arbitrary ways, it's just a terrible, terrible mess.
Having played the game from start to finish at release date, completing it without using any guide, I couldn't really disagree more even trying.
It's not just that I disagree, it's also that I have genuinely no clue of what could have made you feel so lost and require "three different guides".

If I have a complain about quests in the game is that frankly they were a bit too simple and focused in looking good rather than feeling good, at times.
Oh, and let me laugh a bit at "no marker" listed almost as if it was a capital crime in design.
 

Leb

Member
I'm not finding the combat difficult as I'm playing on easy, and I don't know if it's just me, but this is one of the most bizzarely unintuitive games I've ever played in terms of quest and level design.

I originally got it ages ago only to quit playing somewhere early chapter 2, and picked it up again recently, with it becoming quickly clear why I dropped it in the first place, despite so much of the game being great.

The quest structure in much of act 2 is an absolute mess, it's shockingly bad, at one point I had 3 guides open in a web browser just to untangle the unituitive web. Quests without markers, quests that shouldn't even be active yet, quests that entwine with others in arbitrary ways, it's just a terrible, terrible mess.

And then there's the level design - you have absolutely beautiful assets jumbled together in some of the most disjointed and non flowing level designs that are just insanely unintuitive to navigate, Loc Muinne in particular, with arbitrary blocked passages requiring needless complex detours.

Then there's quests with absurd solutions, 10 part passwords, etc, not to mention the inventory, just so much about this game is bewlideringly unintuitive.

The games gets so much right, amazing graphics, decently acted dialogue, decent combat system, but the level and quest designs are infuriatingly bad on more than one occasion. It makes the game feel like an amateur effort despite having amazing production values in other respects.

I'll finish it as I've come almost to the end, but I sincerely hope Witcher 3 has far better quest and level designs, because Witcher 2 has some of the least intuitive I've encountered in over 30 years of gaming.

Well, that's a curious complaint and not one I see very often. I mean, virtually every quest has a marker (except when there are obvious reasons why it can't) and really none of the critical path quests have any even remotely challenging gameplay mechanics/riddles/puzzles. Out of curiosity, did you go with Roche's path or Iorveth's path?
 
Having played the game from start to finish at release date, completing it without using any guide, I couldn't really disagree more even trying.
It's not just that I disagree, it's also that I have genuinely no clue of what could have made you feel so lost and require "three different guides".

If I have a complain about quests in the game is that frankly they were a bit too simple and focused in looking good rather than feeling good, at times.
Oh, and let me laugh a bit at "no marker" listed almost as if it was a capital crime in design.


Well I had a gap of about 2 years between last playing it, starting again with about 10 active quests, most of which couldn't be completed without completing others first, but not specifying that fact. I also encountered a couple of recognised glitches and just had a terrible time with it.

Granted, the 2 year disjointed gap will have had something to do with that so I can accept my criticism is from that standpoint.

The no marker issue was related to some glitches I encountered and as someone who completed Morrowind many times back in the day, I'm all for having good quest descriptions and not using markers, but in this instance they were required.

So I appreciate your comments, slightly snide in tone they may be, but my criticisms are still entirely valid from my pespective.
 
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