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With CDPR acquiring rights, we could possibly see a Witcher 4 - what NEEDS to be improved?

cormack12

Gold Member
Back in August CDPR spoke about a dual franchise business model (similar to FO and TES for Bethesda):

Managing two separate major franchises (The Witcher and Cyberpunk), along with several independent development teams, enables the Company to conduct parallel work on several projects and smoothens its long-term release schedule. This migration towards a dual-franchise model supported by several independent product lines also permits optimization of manufacturing and financial activities, mitigates important risk factors and makes it easier for Company employees to seek professional fulfillment.

witcher3_en_wallpaper_the_witcher_3_wild_hunt_geralt_with_trophies_1920x1080_1449484678.jpg


Recently, they made peace with the creator of Geralt. The last we heard of this was earlier in the year. CDPR paid Sapkowski an undisclosed sum, and that was that. We thought the ends all tied up. However, a formal agreement around the Witche rights and IP might hint at more video games

"The agreement satisfies and fully clarifies the needs and expectations of both parties, past and present, and sets out a framework for the future cooperation between the two sides," the CDPR writes. "The agreement grants CD Projekt new rights, as well as confirms the company's title to 'The Witcher' intellectual property in video games, graphic novels, board games, and merchandise."

While this could mean remasters of Witcher 1/2 with QoL, it coudl also mean a new title after Cyberunk 2077 given the RoI the game has seen these past few years. So, question time for Gaf - what would you like to see improved from The Witcher 3 if a new game was to be released???

1. Roach - is fine for like 40% of the game but the rest is shocking. Try getting that fast and furious achievement. The sticking to scenery, the crazy turning round, the nto quite knowing whether you've entered gallop mode or not.
2. Underwater - this sucked completely. From diving and surfacing and the crossbow one shot on drowners. Needs to be much much better
3. Combat - I never minded the combat as much as other people and am going through again on deathmarch, but bombs need to be deployed much quicker and the battle stance needs changing, it's like moving in glue.
 

xool

Member
Lose the tedious voice actor.. and the child-butt-hurt main protag too. And the whiney resting-bitch-face ex's too - don't play fantasy games for a dose of real life.

Horse was fine when I played it.

Ground combat could be better. Also lose the fucking "bow" or improve it.

All those witcher potions turns the game into a buff-fest - it's ok but mostly pointless - spend 5 mins in menus before ever fight .. no
 
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Bigrx1

Banned
More than anything a world that makes you want to explore it and feel rewarded for doing so. Interesting and unique things to find instead of just another fucking goblin nest, bandit camp or locked up prisoner. I actually liked Witcher 1 and 2 more than 3 because both of those were tight consistently fun and interesting games whereas Witcher 3 I felt had moments of that filed with a shit ton of boring and bloat
 

xool

Member
battle stance needs changing, it's like moving in glue.
Somethings that really should have been caught in playtesting - I'm sure they know :
  • When in combat mode - can't run away without "mud glue mode" activating - lose that
  • Ever got into fights with wolves and a werewolf - prepare for sword-swapping animation spam every time you change target . fix this.
 
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Yoda

Member
I'd change very little from W3. It has a replay-ability issue due to its combat. I'm not sure how to improve it, but more weapon variety and more depth to the swordplay for a 10,000 foot view of what to tackle first. For the story, maybe a less of a "save the world" main quest and something more grounded.

EDIT: Agree w/the poster above me, the movement in W3 was really tank-like, I'd prefer it be more fluid/game-y even if it looks unnatural.
 
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Hinedorf

Banned
No Ciri at all. Make the main story secondary to all the side quests in the world. Literally make the game about just being a Witcher doing Witcher shit wherever and whenever.

Do we need an epic main story, I guess but just about anybody I hear talk about Witcher 3 adore it for all of the filler content that just exists for you to do, I don't hear anybody going on about how that Ciri story was so great.
 

Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
Overhaul the combat, take a look at Sekiro and just make it a bit less hardcore (but not as casual and loose as Fallen Order) than that and a bit more about equipment stats than skill to keep the RPG aspect. Make preparation with the right oils/potions/whatever even more important but also give players the opportunity to study that in-lore rather than just as a gameplay element full of dodgy GUI stuff. Make acquiring the right stuff part of the quest progression (like the famous striga stuff) for the given monster for example (but also if you already know what's needed make all that skippable, just go up to the monster/wait for it to show up and have at it if you have what it takes already). And yeah, post-game it'd be cool to just go all monster hunter style with random contracts popping up so you can do your Witcher thing ad infinitum, with meaningful rewards and perpetual upgrading paths.
 
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Husky

THE Prey 2 fanatic
Mix the Witcher 1 & Witcher 3 combat. Make me manually choose my sword and combat style :)
And more sex. In the first game, sometimes I'd have a good lay more than once an hour.
 

LordOfChaos

Member
Combat and movement. I loved the game by the end, but it took fully two years of it sitting in my library and me trying it over and over before I got over how sluggish the controls were. Was particularly bad playing it back to back with Bloodborne's rapid dance. Geralt turns like a garbage truck and it's frustrating when you have to be at the right angle to interact with something and over/undershoot.
 

Fake

Member
Combat. For god, was trash in so many levels.
Leave free camera.
Stamina for using sign are a dumb ideia too. Maybe they could invent another source for using magic in this game, but for me the real priority will be combat.
 

Fbh

Member
Love the Witcher 3 but I'd still like to see some things improved/changed:

The big one for me is combat. It was better than in TW2 but it still feels janky, it's not as responsive as I'd like, hit detection wasn't great and the hits themselves lack impact and often felt more like I was fighting with a stick instead of a sword.

Streamline the crafting by reducing the number of crafting materials, make it more about finding the blueprints and getting enough core materials through exploration and questing than having to browse a menu for 20 minutes crafting specific materials and then having to google where I find the one random type of leather that I'm missing or something like that

Make exploration a bit more rewarding and reduce the hand holding while moving around. For as great as the world is, it still often falls into the "follow the GPS on your minimap" type of exploration.
 

Gediminas

Banned
i am happy with pretty much everything. combat is subjective, does not matter what kind of combat you gonna do, there are always those who are unhappy. just stick to your guns CD Project. i am happy with combat, i have both hand in right places, right and left.

improve world exploration, more meaningful reward, maybe more risk - more reward.
i would like, that they give us more swords, suits, armor, etc.. maybe more dungeons to explore.. maybe, a little bit better skill tree where you could choose, master one or two abilities versus to be not so powerful but more versatile :)
 
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TheShocker

Member
Take a good hard fucking look at what Ubisoft did with AC Odyssey regarding EVERYTHING gameplay wise (especially movement).

I am dead serious.
I love Odyssey. It’s my favorite AC game, but Geralt doesn’t need to move like an AC character. Sure the combat in The Witcher needs refinement, but the world in Odyssey feels tedious at times compared to TW3. I feel like side quests and discovering new locations was more satisfying than in ACO as well.
 

Madonis

Member
Honestly, I don't think they need to make any radical changes....besides maybe introducing a new protagonist, since Geralt was good for the role but his story should be over. I've heard complaints about combat and movement needing to be improved, but in my experience those worked just fine, so I'd hope for only small tweaks.
 
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Take a good hard fucking look at what Ubisoft did with AC Odyssey regarding EVERYTHING gameplay wise (especially movement).

I am dead serious.

Odyssey was a great game. I beat the main story, most of the first DLC, still need to start/finish Atlantis. Excellent game. It doesn't have shields like Origins which was silly to put it lightly, but it was better in almost every other way. I was trying to go back and play Origins again and it's a bit of a struggle, Odyssey is really good. Cannot wait for AC: Ragnarok.

Witcher could definitely benefit from better animations or traversal. Doesn't have to be like an AC game, but that jumping and climbing, lol. He's Geralt, it shouldn't be a struggle to pull yourself up a ledge. "I can see in the dark and regenerate health, but that ledge, fuck man who do you think I am?"

Also probably doesn't help that each Witcher game has been vastly different than the previous. They might benefit from honing in on a specific style and refining it. Maybe Cyberpunk will help in that regard, even if it is first-person.
 

Roni

Gold Member
I don't think the combat is that bad, it starts out difficult and gets easier as you level up. Standard RPG stuff. The Dodge ability that gives you 100% damage reduction was just broken as fuck, though. Combat got boring after I got it, but I kept it as I had been playing for 70 hours already and wanted to get to the ending.

They need to improve combat against air creatures and underwater ones. The expensive option would be to R&D a gameplay loop that's similar to what Shadow of the Colossus had.

I wouldn't mind them just ripping off Assassin's Creed for the time being in terms of underwater gameplay to save money and create something totally unique for the next one yet.

I don't think they can scale the amount of writing the game has. The Witcher 3 is already the game with the most quality writing, by far. Both quests and sidequests are just the right amount of unique and modular.

Instead of trying to increase the amount of writing, they should focus on making the open world systemic.

Give the player agency over politics, religion and social life in general.
 
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BadBurger

Is 'That Pure Potato'
Witcher 3 ended so well for me, I am not sure I need more story (I chose Triss). But maybe if they make a game far in the last? A young Geralt, newly mutated?
 

EDMIX

Member
Back in August CDPR spoke about a dual franchise business model (similar to FO and TES for Bethesda):



witcher3_en_wallpaper_the_witcher_3_wild_hunt_geralt_with_trophies_1920x1080_1449484678.jpg


Recently, they made peace with the creator of Geralt. The last we heard of this was earlier in the year. CDPR paid Sapkowski an undisclosed sum, and that was that. We thought the ends all tied up. However, a formal agreement around the Witche rights and IP might hint at more video games



While this could mean remasters of Witcher 1/2 with QoL, it coudl also mean a new title after Cyberunk 2077 given the RoI the game has seen these past few years. So, question time for Gaf - what would you like to see improved from The Witcher 3 if a new game was to be released???

1. Roach - is fine for like 40% of the game but the rest is shocking. Try getting that fast and furious achievement. The sticking to scenery, the crazy turning round, the nto quite knowing whether you've entered gallop mode or not.
2. Underwater - this sucked completely. From diving and surfacing and the crossbow one shot on drowners. Needs to be much much better
3. Combat - I never minded the combat as much as other people and am going through again on deathmarch, but bombs need to be deployed much quicker and the battle stance needs changing, it's like moving in glue.

I agree with all of your suggestions with fixes.

1. Number 1 for me is the NPCs, they are just brain dead in Witcher series. Many loooooooove bad mouthing Bethesda, but their NPCs clearly understand you exist, you are in their world and you are either stealing, fighting them etc and they behave as such, heck its why MANY of us are able to over look and give a pass to the combat in Elder Scrolls as the world is so well crafted in how the NPC behave. So no, you stealing and the shop owner either attacking you or getting the guards and you paying a fine, going to prison is NOT a Bethesda exclusive concept for anyone to feel thats not needed in Witcher series, folks...that should be the damn default for ALL GAMES WITH NPC IN SUCH WORLDS! Speaking of questionable combat...brings me to the next point.

2 .The combat was just god awful, I'm willing to even have the team just contract Platinum games to do the combat.

3. Dear god.....stop with the political jargon. As someone that played all 3 games and read some of the books and finished BOTH games again right before playing 3, the entire political thing in the world is so damn boring its not even funny, the team is so arrogant about this, they start off Witcher 3 telling you about all this crap as if you really care THAT much about it, even coming off of both titles I felt how they were telling the story was really insulting as they started acting like you are obsessed with the world, thus they can just casually start telling you junk about its politics and king as if you care.

I my person opinion, leave that junk to the lore and back story and focus the series on just going town to town killing a new monster, that to me has always been the appeal of the series.

PleaseDontBanMe PleaseDontBanMe Facts sir.
DS_Joost DS_Joost Agreed, I ended up liking AC Origins and Odyssey more then Witcher 3.
 
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EDMIX

Member
More than anything a world that makes you want to explore it and feel rewarded for doing so. Interesting and unique things to find instead of just another fucking goblin nest, bandit camp or locked up prisoner. I actually liked Witcher 1 and 2 more than 3 because both of those were tight consistently fun and interesting games whereas Witcher 3 I felt had moments of that filed with a shit ton of boring and bloat

I'm in the same boat, I like Witcher 1 and 2 waaaaaay more then 3. 3 felt like it had just so much boring filler.
 

Lanrutcon

Member
Useless thread. The answer is combat. Guys at the back? They're saying combat. Ladies in the front? combat. Open the phonelines so the viewers can call in? ...combat. Polls? coooombat. Tealeaves? Babylonian prophecies? motherfucking COMBAT.

But surely the combat isn't that bad, right? Dude. In isolation it's fine. Compared to ANY GODDAMN ACTION RPG that isn't ass? Complete shit. We live in a post-Dragon's Dogma/Soulsborne/AC/Nier world.
 
I'm really more into modern/sci fi RPGs especially that CD working on CyberPunk now..I can't, I refuse to go back.

Plus you're probably looking a release of W4 at the end of new gen.
 

Madonis

Member
1. Number 1 for me is the NPCs, they are just brain dead in Witcher series. Many loooooooove bad mouthing Bethesda, but their NPCs clearly understand you exist, you are in their world and you are either stealing, fighting them etc and they behave as such, heck its why MANY of us are able to over look and give a pass to the combat in Elder Scrolls as the world is so well crafted in how the NPC behave. So no, you stealing and the shop owner either attacking you or getting the guards and you paying a fine, going to prison is NOT a Bethesda exclusive concept for anyone to feel thats not needed in Witcher series, folks...that should be the damn default for ALL GAMES WITH NPC IN SUCH WORLDS! Speaking of questionable combat...brings me to the next point.

Bethesda gives you more "alive" NPCs, in terms of reaction and movement within an open world, but they're usually a lot more flat in terms of personality and writing.

It would be good to combine both approaches, mind you.
 
Improve the combat and make it so your weapons don't break every other fight. Also, more sidequests where you do something other than the usual "get quest > go to marked location > stumble around using witcher sense > kill monster > run back to quest giver" thing. That shit made me quit W3 20 hours in.
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
No Ciri at all. Make the main story secondary to all the side quests in the world. Literally make the game about just being a Witcher doing Witcher shit wherever and whenever.

Do we need an epic main story, I guess but just about anybody I hear talk about Witcher 3 adore it for all of the filler content that just exists for you to do, I don't hear anybody going on about how that Ciri story was so great.

I enjoyed the main campaign, but yeah, Wild Hunt/end of the world stuff with Ciri was not the main attraction for me.
 
Obviously combat and movement but hopefully they get rid of the weapon degradation. Revamp the bow to be useful. Make more encounters with stealth or a way to beat it without just going in and fighting.
 

Atrus

Gold Member
There's room to improve the combat, the usefulness of potions, and the game economy. Later updates greatly improved Witcher 3's intial UI issues so hopefully they learn from that. Having more in game plot consequences to your actions is also welcome.

Overall, I hope that after selling a bajillion copies of these games they know that radical changes aren't needed, just refinements and evolution as the technology allows.
 
Animation, animation, animation. And face designs. Skill tree could be more fun too. Also the usefulness of upgrades, potions, oils etc.
 
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D

Deleted member 471617

Unconfirmed Member
- Movement needs to be more fluid, smooth and responsive.
- Combat needs to be the same which can easily be done by allowing you to free roam in battles instead of Geralt going into a "locked stance" during combat.
- Add in underwater combat ala AC Origins/Odyssey.

Of course, all of the above would have to be better since Ciri would be the main protagonist. The thoughts of being able to time travel with her magic and the possibilities, oh man. Day one for me.
 

BouncyFrag

Member
No hair clipping through armor would be nice. Also cut down on all the crafting items and nightmare inventory management.
 

fourfourtwo

Neo Member
I found it strange that you couldn't cook all the raw food that Geralt accumulates during his travels. I believe the explanation in the lore of the series is that Geralt's mutations allow him to digest raw meat, but for the sake of immersion, it would be nice to allow food to be "crafted" on a fire.

Other things to improve immersion could be to stop the respawn of animals in settlements, with the farmers becoming hostile to Geralt if he massacres their livestock to harvest food. This could be paired with a more restrictive inventory, so that Geralt has to rely more on inns to replenish his health during travels. Maybe it becomes expensive in areas where he's pissed off villagers, but free in areas which he's helped to liberate. Being able to purchase a house in Novigrad to hold all of his books, mounting the trophies from all the monsters he's slayed, storage of armour sets and rare swords (lots of "special" swords were useless) might be nice.

The trailers for TW3 made the world seem a really hostile place, but Geralt was fine in the cities. In Assassin's Creed, Ezio would be randomly attacked by thugs looking to rob him. Maybe mechanics could be introduced where Geralt has to de-arm himself to stop attracting attention from Whoreson's bandits, etc.

The combat was pretty good, but maybe it could be made more in-depth or varied? It felt like rolling around and parrying made the game too easy, even on death march. 2-handed weapons, additional cross-bows, bows/arrows could be suitable additions.

The signs could also use balancing, Quen made it way too easy to go into fights gung-ho. Shortening the length of time it works, increasing the cool-down, or adding in drawbacks could work - e.g. casting Quen would last for 5 seconds, but only negate 75% of damage, and stop him from combat rolling. Or Axii would slow down his quick attack, and so on.

Those are a few suggestions I could think of off the top of my head. I platinum'd the game and thought it was truly excellent, definitely my favourite game of the generation.
 

xool

Member
The signs could also use balancing, Quen made it way too easy to go into fights gung-ho. Shortening the length of time it works, increasing the cool-down, or adding in drawbacks could work - e.g. casting Quen would last for 5 seconds, but only negate 75% of damage, and stop him from combat rolling. Or Axii would slow down his quick attack, and so on.

iirc they spent the 6 months after release nerfing the fuck out of everything sign related, sucking all the fun out .. I really don't want more of that
 

Fake

Member
I enjoyed the main campaign, but yeah, Wild Hunt/end of the world stuff with Ciri was not the main attraction for me.
The Ciri Arc get a bit boring after some point, but the Bloody Baron Arc is by far the best from the entire game.

When I finish the Bloody Baron Arc I get bored so quick. Blood and Wine at least put me back at the game.
 

JORMBO

Darkness no more
I've never managed to beat the game. The combat and animations are really bad. The quests are usually just run to a place, use witcher senses then kill something. The writing and world are really well done. I just wish the gameplay was better.
 
3rp person combat against multiple enemies will always look clunky and be bad imo. They should focus more on 1v1 miniboss battles, and less random encounters with bunch of monsters. Those always gave a bad look to the game.
 
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