I'm playing it for the third time. The first time I quit after Skellige (was bored). The next I played in hard, going free roaming instead of following the story. Quit after some houirs because I got bored. Now I'm having a blast because I'm using Enhanced Edition mod.
For the first time I'm feelimng like a witcher. Combats are long, but not because enemies last just so long. It's hard because you need to play very carefully and managing your resources. Otherwise you die. So basically you have great weapons at your disposal, but you need to learn to use them. Combat, while still having awful animations and super weird hit and hurt boxes, feels so much more rewarding than any Witcher game has ever felt. With autolock off you can even play some kind of souls-esque combat, where Geralt no more feels like an amateour doing fancy jumps and piruetes when he should just stab his enemy instead.
Tyhere'¡re many other changes that make the game just so much better. So whoever is planning to do his first playthrough, just do it with Enhanced Edition mod. Do yourself that favor.
Looking forward to when they do one with good gameplay and being able to create your own protag or at least have more options than Geralt (+ 5-minute Ciri cinematics).
Looking forward to when they do one with good gameplay and being able to create your own protag or at least have more options than Geralt (+ 5-minute Ciri cinematics).
lol if you didn't enjoy the gameplay then that's your opinion. plenty of people obviously enjoyed it. and if they do another witcher game then it won't have customisable characters. geralt is "The Witcher". i bet if they do another it'll have ciri as the playable character.
I agree with everything OP said, but in an era where people LOVE open-world games, it has the most organic, believable and interesting open-world in RPG history.
The amount of environmental storytelling is amazing.
See a crashed wagon? There will be written content about what happened. Maybe it'll take you across the world, maybe it'll just be a chest left in the back with a letter. But it'll mean something. See a wrecked ship? Go find out what happened to it. The game almost never lets you down in this respect - and when it does it's actually effective at making sure you believe in the world - rather than every single thing you see being a fairground attraction. It feels real.
I'll never forget seeing that lonesome lighthouse from the overlook in Skellige and saying 'I want to go there. I just do. But it's probably not part of the game map...' So I get in the boat, and I CAN go there - I can sail anywhere, and I get there and of course there's an entire sidequest built around it that you just stumble into naturally. Of course there is. That's the Witcher 3.
The Witcher 3 had the same effect on me that The Wire had; everything else after just seemed mediocre at best and while I know it isn't true, nothing has matched that first experience since.
Looking forward to when they do one with good gameplay and being able to create your own protag or at least have more options than Geralt (+ 5-minute Ciri cinematics).
It's no coincidence that Geralt is one of the most interesting protagonists in RPG history, and it sure as shit ain't because the character looks like you or me. He's got a well-defined personality and history, as does everyone he encounters, which creates a far more meaningful and memorable story (in my opinion).
Yes, it does an awful lot right outside of the video game part of it.
I like The Witcher 3, but it's weighed down so heavily by lackluster mechanics that I really couldn't care less how well it does most of the things you mentioned.
I had too many issues with the mechanics of the game to truly have a great time with it, first time around. Maybe I should try again...
Also the downgrade from the initial reveal (at least in consoles) really hurt my expectations. Aesthetics - wise, Guerilla's game looks to be what Witcher could not.
I love the game and CDPR did an outstanding job. That being said, I worry that all the praise they received will blind them a bit to its shortcomings. CDPR is special partly because of how much progress they made between three games. I can't think of another company that has evolved so much in such a short time. I hope this won't change going into CP77, because just as there was a lot to learn from TW1 and TW2, so is there a lot to learn from TW3. We should demand more from CDPR, also because they can actually handle it and show a willingness to keep on improving in every aspect.
Much of it has to do with the mechanics, but also about the writing. Where TW2 had intricate politics and great antagonists, TW3 dropped the ball hard. The Wild Hunt ended up being generic bad guys, Eredin barely had any dialogue, there was little to no complexity about them, and even peripheral characters suffered, such as Radovid and Dijkstra - the former was just made insane after being closer to a Tywin-like figure in TW2, and Dijkstra acted extremely out of character by the end. A good villain really propels any story (e.g. The Joker in The Dark Knight, Tyler Dyrden to some degree, Darth Vader (though I did find him boring most of the time, he still had a lot of style and a strong presence)), Tywin, Ramsay (moreso in the show), etc).
The RPG elements also could use enhancement. I like that TW3 didn't give you tons of dialogue options in every interaction just for the sake of it, but sometimes it did feel a bit too minimalistic in conversations. Even for a taciturn Geralt. I also feel that it had lose morally difficult choices to make like in TW2. Choosing between
Roche or Iorveth, killing Henselt or not, saving Triss or Anais\Saskia
, these were pretty damn hard. In TW3 I felt that most scenarios didn't really make me stop and think too much. It didn't do as good of a job walking that blurred line as TW2.
I would also like for quests, mechanically, to be much more engaging. TW3 is praised, rightly so, for having good side quests. Unfortunately, this refers mostly (only?) to the writing surrounding these them. It's very rare for the quests themselves to offer something interesting mechanically, or creative ways to solve them. On while I don't know what to replace it with, I really dislike Witcher Senses. Survival Sense. Detective Vision. Etc. I'm tired of it. The problem is, I realize it's a tad important in 3rd person games, because it's much harder to spot small items as it is in 1st person. Still. It's boring by making it a really, really on-the-rails experience.
There's much to say about combat. I will preface by saying I enjoyed it, but it had a lot of faults. I'd like more precise control over my character. I'd like a more understandable i-frame system. I'd like for a system that's meant to encourage aggression. I want a bigger enemy variety. TW3 still had a pleasant amount for an open world RPG, but it could be better. Fighting white wolves at Skellige is just the same as fighting regular wolves in White Orchard. Variety in mechanics, not in visual design. I also want enemies to have a bigger pool of attack options, and perhaps most importantly, I want leveling-up to be interesting. +2.5% to this or that ability isn't interesting. You weren't excited about leveling up. 150 hours into the game, combat isn't all that different than 15 hours into the game, because Geralt barely gets any new, active abilities, and the enemies don't evolve much either. You need a good progression of both your character and the enemies. And maybe in this context I should also add meaningful loot. TW3 really lacked in it. There weren't many items I found in the world that were interesting, my only good gear came from Witcher gera, and there was still a ton of crap to collect.
Controls outside of combat need to be improved too. It's not something unbearable, mind you. People like to exaggerate I find. But there's still room for improvement. It could be simple things such as how you get locked in place while lighting a candle or crouching to investigate something. Making it so that you can still move your character if you want to in those moments is already a small thing that adds to a better flow. Flow in general needs to be improved. It can be Roach automatically jumping over fences and small obstacles like D-Horse. It can be Geralt quickly climbing up ledges instead of just lingering there for a few noticeable seconds. On one hand, TW3 did take maneuvering to a new level in the context of RPGs. You could grab ledges, hop over fences, stuff like that. But it could be better. When you hope over a fence, for instance, there seems to be a broken animation before you connect with the ground. Again, these aren't things that make it unplayable, but they do stand out a bit when everything else is good. Turning Geralt is also annoying. Looting was a bit awkward since you had to be a bit too accurate in what you were aiming at.
Last thing that comes to mind at the moment is making the world a bit more alive. It didn't have a lot of spontaneous events when roaming around. You couldn't often just casually lure a bear to a bandit camp, as a basic example. Making CP77 have more sandbox elements, with a livelier world, would be a ton of fun. Oh, and don't rely on bandit camps and hidden treasures to fill in the empty spaces between settlements. It's kinda boring. Not really exciting stuff.
Out of ideas from now. That's off the top of my head.
Combat was so shit it ruined the whole experience.
/hyperbole. I agree with the OP on why it's a great game, but the mediocre combat and clunky controls really did drag it down for me. While I still recognize it's an incredible game, it's sadly my biggest gaming disappointment in recent memory. I was so bored of the combat by the end, the only thing that was keeping me going was the outstanding story writing and characters.
If only the gameplay was better, I could see it being my favorite game ever... but at least I'll always have Dark Souls 3 and Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen.
I actually wasn't really feeling the game the first 50 or so hours. I mean, I did enjoy it, but I had it in my head I had to explore everywhere and do every single sidequest, and I just kind of burnt myself out after around 50 hours, then I quit for a few months. When I started it back up (after beating FFXV), I basically focused on the main story - doing a few sidequests here and there when I thought they might be interesting based on the description. I enjoyed the game a LOT more after that. And I basically fell in love with it during the two expansions (which are, imo, much better than the base story). I still don't really care for the combat and prefer FFXV in that area, but overall, Witcher 3 was amazing.
That desert realm where Avallach tells you about how it used to be a ocean, damn man.
I originally preferred Fallout 4 over Witcher 3, but subsequent playthroughs have moved it up to my second favorite game of all time. It's just so amazing, from start to finish.
That desert realm where Avallach tells you about how it used to be a ocean, damn man.
I originally preferred Fallout 4 over Witcher 3, but subsequent playthroughs have moved it up to my second favorite game of all time. It's just so amazing, from start to finish.
Combat was so shit it ruined the whole experience.
/hyperbole. I agree with the OP on why it's a great game, but the mediocre combat and clunky controls really did drag it down for me. While I still recognize it's an incredible game, it's sadly my biggest gaming disappointment in recent memory. I was so bored of the combat by the end, the only thing that was keeping me going was the outstanding story writing and characters.
If only the gameplay was better, I could see it being my favorite game ever... but at least I'll always have Dark Souls 3 and Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen.
I actually agree. I was really into the game, but eventually got frustrated and just gave up because of how clunky and boring the combat was. Didn't help that there were a few areas on PS4 with really bad framerates too.
I agree with everything OP said, but in an era where people LOVE open-world games, it has the most organic, believable and interesting open-world in RPG history.
The amount of environmental storytelling is amazing.
See a crashed wagon? There will be written content about what happened. Maybe it'll take you across the world, maybe it'll just be a chest left in the back with a letter. But it'll mean something. See a wrecked ship? Go find out what happened to it. The game almost never lets you down in this respect - and when it does it's actually effective at making sure you believe in the world - rather than every single thing you see being a fairground attraction. It feels real.
I'll never forget seeing that lonesome lighthouse from the overlook in Skellige and saying 'I want to go there. I just do. But it's probably not part of the game map...' So I get in the boat, and I CAN go there - I can sail anywhere, and I get there and of course there's an entire sidequest built around it that you just stumble into naturally. Of course there is. That's the Witcher 3.
Good writeup. It's the game of the generation and one of the best RPGs ever made.
There's just a love and craft to everything big and small in it that goes beyond what other open world games do. There's context and a reason behind it and above all, it's compelling. Characters are great, music is phenomenal. It's the whole package in my opinion. I disagree with most of the combat complaints too. It's not the most intricate or rewarding, but but it works within the game.
After 90hrs the game really clicked with me to the point where I couldn't wait to play it every night but then Kaer Morhen happened and I found myself dreading every time I had control over the characters because of just how poor the controls,gameplay, and animations are in this game. The gap between what was happening during the cut scenes and the parts where you control the characters really pulled me out of what was supposed to be an amazing moment in the game.
I really hope CDPR addresses this with Cyberpunk. I'm not expecting Platimun studios level of gameplay or Fromsoft level of animations but at least something that resembles the gameplay of a modern open world game.
I wish the climax, third act were better in general. But I feel that way about almost every single "epic" narrative/choice driven game. I feel like they rarely finish in a satisfying way. Now, Witcher 3's ending(s) were quite good, I enjoyed the last bits between Geralt and Ciri, but the final conflict involving the main villain was very weak to me, the standoff wasn't that spectacular or memorable after the story built up how terrifying he was, and I thought the last stretch where you're rushing to that big tower promised more than what was delivered. Or maybe it was just me, I understood the point of it, but at that part I felt like there was going to be some huge thing, a bigger battle, or final castle or something but it just led to a cutscene.
I did however love the Kaer Morhen siege, that was an utterly amazing setpiece and a lot better than the actual finale. I just wish games like this would stop being so underwhelming with their finales; Mass Effect is a huge offender in that regard with the exception of 2, but that was good mostly because the entire game revolved around it and built toward it. 1 and 3's were very underwhelming. So it's not just The Witcher 3.
These games are so damn good, but this is always something that leaves a lot to be desired.
Looking forward to when they do one with good gameplay and being able to create your own protag or at least have more options than Geralt (+ 5-minute Ciri cinematics).
I actually think that Geralt's built-in personality is one of the reasons I had so much fun playing him. He's a really interesting character to explore, and the fact that he has a relatively consistent personality throughout the game means he doesn't fall into the traps that premade characters can, where your personality can vary wildly from scenario to scenario. Plus, it's fun to watch him interact with a world he's lived in and has history with, as opposed to the fish-out-of-water setting a lot of "blank slate" characters are put in.
Seriously, i can barely play SP games after finishing Blood and wine, only game that i really enjoyed was Titanfall 2 because it had insanely good mechanics and an amazing campaign.
My reasons why it is amazing (Spoilers for game + DLC inc)
1. Choice matters. Greatest example of this, in my opinion, is the 'Spoons' quest in Blood and Wine where you have to get rid of the monsters curse. You slowly piece together clues about how to get rid of the curse, and then you confront the monster -- you can just outright kill the monster and be done with it, or you can choose to use the knowledge you have gained on the curse thus far to help the creature (who doesn't seem aggressive toward you, just scared).
So you remove the curse and it transforms into an old woman who is now all alone in this world. All of her friends and family are gone, and she had been this creature her whole life. You can let her stay at Corvo Bianco, where you give her a hot meal and a bed. You can get some more backstory from her later as well, where she tells you how/why she was cursed and that she used to be young/beautiful and loves to cook. So you tell her if she wants to stay, she can and can cook as much as she'd like.
To me this was a really great quest that seems simple at first (Monster hunter hunts down monster) but further adds layers of complexity and emotion in classic Witcher style. And it gives you the choice to experience that. If you just want to run in and hack and slash, go for it. CDPR won't stop you, but you'd be missing out on some great characters and storytelling in the process.
2.) Bloody Baron quest. The baron is such a compelling character. I was never exactly rooting for him because of the awful things he did, but I did still feel compelled to help him and his family. He felt real, his families reactions felt real. The story had fantasy elements, but it was also highly relatable dealing with abuse, neglect, love, a miscarriage, being haunted by your past. Really top notch stuff and was the part of the game that really hooked me.
Theres more I could say about this game but I have to go to work lol. Anyways, glorious game and I hope more and more games take cues from CDPR on how to effectively give choice to players and tell great stories in modern games. 10/10
Definitely one of the best games of the generation. Exploring Skellige in particular was amazing. This thread just reminded me that I still need to play the DLC... maybe I should get on that.
Can we not start this? In every thread about W3 or BB someone comes in and tries to derail by starting this argument and it makes both fanbases look bad.
I actually think that Geralt's built-in personality is one of the reasons I had so much fun playing him. He's a really interesting character to explore, and the fact that he has a relatively consistent personality throughout the game means he doesn't fall into the traps that premade characters can, where your personality can vary wildly from scenario to scenario. Plus, it's fun to watch him interact with a world he's lived in and has history with, as opposed to the fish-out-of-water setting a lot of "blank slate" characters are put in.
The side quests in the game kinda reminds of procedural shows like "CSI" or "Law and Order". Although the quests sorta follow the same formula and you're basically a police detective kinda dude, the game has just enough twists and a compelling main character that I never felt bored or tired of the side quests. Plus, you never knew which quests could spin into something much bigger than how they were initially presented.
On top of that, even though you're in this kinda dark/fucked up world, the game has a good sense of levity. It feels very human and grounded.
Great storytelling, healthy amount of narrative paths to take which impact on the gameworld and take advantage of the game's storytelling qualities. Highlight. Strong highlight.
Wonderful visuals. Just a really nice game to look at. Nicely rooted in a believable aesthetic, rather than the exaggerated fantasy style of spikes and massive shoulder pads everywhere, etc.
Inoffensive combat. Kinda dull, entirely functional, a little clunky and samey but whatever.
Awful menus - a chore to deal with for two main reasons: poorly designed with little thought for common-case use; and - worst of all - a persistant and ever-grating micro lag on every single button press. Every input, you have a few, unpredictable tenths of a second before that input is registered and every time the mind thinks: did it not register? I - personally, as someone hypersensitive to a lack of 'snap' in button presses - found this *incredibly* insufferable. Ultimately led to me dropping the game halfway through the last big map, despiute greatly, immensely enjoying the storytelling.
With the above said: Since I consider videogames as a medium that specialise in interactivity, I'm not a fan of TW3 as a product because --
It does nothing special in the combat (one large portion of the interactive experience).
It endeavoured to consistently flick me on the nose every time I navigated a menu (and, being an RPG, you're expected to do this a lot) and, for an inherently interactive ecxperience, that poor user experience with the menu was a consistent drain on my enthusiasm, both as I dealt with it and with regard to my thoughts of continuing on.
Props to the game for the story.
Props for the interactive elements of the story.
Props for being awfully talented at making a fantasy setting look tangible.
Conclusion: I'll take the loss of the choose-your-own-adventure aspect of the gameplay and say that TW3 is a great movie, a pretty great novel. As an interactive experience, it was - ultimately - sadly draining and one I eventually came to regard as, overall, a chore.
Disclaimer: played on PS4 before and immediately after the 'movement' patch, whatever that was.
Yeah, I also don't think it was good. The story didn't do much for me either. A few scenes were amazing, most were average. If you wanted to play a game for story, you could do better. Like Nier.
I wonder why Bloodborne whiners have to constantly remind Witcher 3's fans that the combat isn't as good as Bloodborne's, as if Witcher 3's fans don't know that.
I'd hope a game that focused on combat primarily, such as Bloodborne, had better combat than The Witcher 3. I don't think Bloodborne is even the best ARPG from Fromsoft, so it gets doubly woeful.
To respond to the topic, the game is super satisfying. A lot of the AAA, modern, heavily marketed, RPG-of-the-year experiences end up watered down and disappointing. This retained some of that mainstream trimming, but did an awful lot to attempt to transcend its shortcomings. Outstanding writing and dialogue, outstanding quest design, outstanding C&C, outstanding open world. It even has some frustrating Eurojank that it, imo, succeeds in spite of. While I like some older CRPGs a little better, and many combat systems a lot more, it's been a long time since we've gotten a package this robust and this solid and this fresh.
Yeah, I also don't think it was good. The story didn't do much for me either. A few scenes were amazing, most were average. If you wanted to play a game for story, you could do better. Like Nier.
No game has ever hit me with the raw emotional power of The Witcher series. It's the only thing that ever gives me that bittersweet feeling I get when finishing a great novel. Moment-to-moment, there are times when I have my complaints, but it's the quiet and little things that really sell it for me. Facial expressions, asides in the dialogue, etc.
Could someone make a better game? Sure. Simply designing the quests so that the player isn't just using Detective Vision half the time would be an improvement.
Also, this is gonna sound dumb, but I can't think of any "enemies turned allies" in The Witcher series. I'm sure they're there, just... no one is coming to mind. OP, who are you referring to?
I wish thread derailing was a bannable offense on GAF. I want to have just one Witcher thread where no one tries to derail it by going "bloodborne was better." Stop it. Get some help. I wanna talk about games I love.
