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[Croatoan]

The Witcher 3 was an incredible game, and it will likely be my GOTY if Fallout 4 cannot top it. There was an issue with the game that took away from some of my immersion though. I call this problem Monster Bloat.

Monster bloat is really another form of Map Bloat (or quest bloat) that many open world games suffer from. The difference with monster bloat is that it actually harms the setting and believability of your game world.

Having a monster every 10 feet in a game like Bloodborne makes sense, that world is introduced and depicted as being overrun by monsters. The Witcher 3, on the other hand, is a world where people mostly go about their daily lives unhindered, save for what is supposed to be rare monster attacks. Unfortunately, for the people of the Witcher-verse, they seem to be completely unaware that there are literally 100s of monsters surrounding them at all times. So much so that you cannot run more than 300 yards in any direction of a town without crossing paths with some dastardly thing out to kill you or eat you. Yet, supposedly, these people feel safe enough to allow their children to run around unwatched and to tend to their crops with no weapon or guards. Furthermore we are lead to believe that people traveled between towns trading things, which is hilarious when you realize how many of these monsters or enemy encounters happen right on the roads (generally I think the bandits and raiders were handled well though).

Had the Witcher 3 slashed their random monster count by like 60%, and removed a lot of the useless question marks, I think it would have only helped to catapult the game into being the perfect open world RPG. Devs seem to feel the need to "Fill Space" in their open world games right now, I guess to justify their size, but in my opinion this messes with the immersion and pace of the game world in a negative way. Sometimes less is more after all.

 

[GulAtiCa]

Yeah, I've been enjoying the game a lot so far, but I agree too. I found it funny and odd how there is a bunch of Drowners or so not 10, 15 meters from the guards in front of Crow's Perch in Velen.

 

[Karl Hawk]

I'd agree with you, but then people would complain about how there are not a lot of interesting enemies to kill if you had your way.

 

[Lady Siara]

From memory, most of the merchants I've encountered out on the roads either had a group of hired guards or needed to be saved.

Seems like a bad line of work.

 

[Heimbeck]

They should have got rid of the question marks on the map for sure, they should be things you find as you explore instead of something you seek out.

 

[Karl Hawk]

They should have got rid of the question marks on the map for sure, they should be things you find as you explore instead of something you seek out.

You can turn off the question marks in the map. Its in the options.

Why CDPR made the question marks on by default is beyond me. Maybe they were worried about how people playing the game would feel there isn't much to do?

 

[Croatoan]

Yeah, I've been enjoying the game a lot so far, but I agree too. I found it funny and odd how there is a bunch of Drowners or so not 10, 15 meters from the guards in front of Crow's Perch in Velen.

Yeah, it would have also been better if they would have replaced some of the monsters with dangerous wildlife too. Maybe instead of drowners you have like a big alligator that is tough to kill but minding its own business.

There is literally a cutscene in the game that bugged out and had drowners crossing a bridge and attacking the guards I was talking to because they were too close to each other...lol.

 

[HanzSnubSnub]

I see your point, yes there are monsters that literally surround villages but the townspeople just go about there business. But if there were less encounters, I think the game would become boring and less interesting since you would rarely encounter monsters outside of contracts and quests.

I'm quite happy with this design choice that cdpr made. I like how it is now, but I'm curious to hear other opinions.

 

[Croatoan]

I'd agree with you, but then people would complain about how there are not a lot of interesting enemies to kill if you had your way.

The Witcher Contracts had a lot of interesting enemies to kill though. So did the side quests and some of the treasure hunts.

I will say that the treasure hunts were also pretty worthless in the long run.

 

[Maedhros]

From the books, this seems to be the case. I don't really see anything inconsistent.

 

[Pillville]

I'd rather have more monsters than more realism. There are a LOT of things that don't really make sense it games. It's because reality is boring.

 

[Johnny Cage]

Well at the end of the day it is a game. I'd be annoyed if I really had to search to find some monsters.

 

[nynt9]

This article is a very interesting read about balancing map density and size in terms of realism versus gameplay: https://www.kingdomcomerpg.com/de/blog/posts/a-lesson-in-cartography-in-potato-land

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

From memory, most of the merchants I've encountered out on the roads either had a group of hired guards or needed to be saved.

Seems like a bad line of work.

No they don't. They are walking by their lonesome self selling useless stuff.

They don't even play Gwent so they might as well get eaten for all I care.

I've had a much bigger issue with identical models being used all the time, even a high vampire transforms into a simple Katakan in combat. Basilisk, griffin, cokcatrice all use the same model except the head and textures.

 

[Karl Hawk]

They don't even play Gwent so they might as well get eaten for all I care.

I understand, Gwent is a serious business after all.

 

[Tovarisc]

Density isn't so high that you trip over packs of monsters when running around in forest, in fact often I would just end up running around and exploring without encountering anything for quite some time. Wolves are most common occurrence, but then you are running in thick forests that aren't tamed by people.

 

[theWB27]

I've always thought it funny how some call for realism while talking about monsters in a fantasy world.

We aren't playing a simulator..we are witchers and we need stuff to kill. Thanks CDPR for not slashing the monster count for the sake of realism.

Also...I strongly feel there weren't enough BIG monsters to slay.

 

[JoeNut]

i actually don't think there are many at all..

 

[Lady Siara]

No they don't. They are walking by their lonesome self selling useless stuff.

Was probably thinking of an early sidequest then.

And yes, they are utterly worthless.

 

[EmSeta]

I hate that you basically don't get any XP for killing monsters. Screw "realism", mild grinding is fun. Right now enemies are only annoying.

 

[ps3ud0]

I think theres enough 'meat' in the game that all the question mark stuff could have quite easily been removed and nothing would have been lost really.

The quality of the quest-like missions just makes the game special that the random encounters don't feel that necessary. Seems like busy work...

Truly a great game however

ps3ud0 8)

 

[teokrazia]

useless question marks

They should remove Question Marks from interface.
Without them experiencing those lands acquires more sense, things have a splendid natural flow.

 

[UrbanRats]

If you don't fill your open world map with shit every two steps, people complain that "there's nothing to do", so i interpret this (something that i also hate, btw) as a response to that.

 

[Alebrije]

Got your point OP but its just a video game not a real life simulador , so walk large áreas with out any fight and the only think to do is look your surroundings and some rabbits/deers would be boring for a lot of people.

Anyway there are some áreas when monster encounters are scarse specially at high places

 

[Aikidoka]

Yeah, I don't think really anything about the Witcher 3 game world is consistent and a lot of the story just feels contrived. CDPR handle the bandits poorly in that Geralt slaughters hundreds of them without any comment and hesitation and then CDPR try to insert random moral choice bits about killing some ne'er-do-well (e.g.,

Spoiler

the crap that is Find Whoreson Quest

). And then there are problems like Ciri being practically all-powerful when you play as her (kills everyone in 1-hit basically) but during cutscenes she's rendered inept cuz "plot". And also the whole prosecuted sorceress dynamic doesn't really hold up at all given the things they are capable of doing.

 

[Jibbajabbawockky]

I thought The Witcher did a pretty good job with the monsters actually. I mean, its a dangerous world. The towns and cities themselves are where most of the people are and kind of anything outside of that is dangerous and the people in the world basically act as such. That's why there are so many witcher contracts. That's why you see so many destroyed or derelict villages and houses. It makes sense to me that you have drowners down by the water and grave hags in the graveyards and so forth. From an in game lore POV, I think that stuff was handled fine.


As for the question marks, eh, they're there if you want to do them but you can obviously just turn them off or ignore them alltogether. Its not like Inquisition where basically every side quest in that game was the equivalent of a question mark in TW3.

 

[Danneee]

I'm not eclxperiencing this at all. I think the monster density is perfect and are mostly concentrated to small groups further into forests or away from settlements.

 

[bonesmccoy]

The monster stuff grated a bit for me because the story indicates several times that monsters are in steep decline and that there's no longer a need for Witchers. Yet every village is beset by them.

The mobs at least make sense. There's a nasty war on, and a big chunk of the game occurs in a failed state.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

I thought The Witcher did a pretty good job with the monsters actually. I mean, its a dangerous world. The towns and cities themselves are where most of the people are and kind of anything outside of that is dangerous and the people in the world basically act as such. That's why there are so many witcher contracts. That's why you see so many destroyed or derelict villages and houses. It makes sense to me that you have drowners down by the water and grave hags in the graveyards and so forth. From an in game lore POV, I think that stuff was handled fine.


As for the question marks, eh, they're there if you want to do them but you can obviously just turn them off or ignore them alltogether. Its not like Inquisition where basically every side quest in that game was the equivalent of a question mark in TW3.

From a lore perspective the Witcher profession is dying. Geralt finds way too much work and for too much reimbursement going by the books. Witchers are poor their work barely pays for their recuperation and equipment, Geralt is swimming in gold.

 

[Heimbeck]

You can turn off the question marks in the map. Its in the options.

Why CDPR made the question marks on by default is beyond me. Maybe they were worried about how people playing the game would feel there isn't much to do?

Sorry, I meant them being on by default.
There really isn't a need for that, I turned them off straight away.

 

[TimeEffect]

I dont see the big deal. It never felt like a problem for me.

People lived in a world full of other wild animals, why not "monsters"? Monsters don't need to constantly attack people, but if you're going outside of a town unprotected, they are probably going to bother you.

It makes sense that they would thrive there and not attack towns or groups of people, and that there would be a decent number of them, but too many that it felt overrunned

 

[LifEndz]

Yeah, it was kinda weird to go into a town with children running around and women and men doing chores and what not when there are monsters less than 100 yards away. No more a deal breaker than random dudes starting a fight with Geralt, one of the most dangerous people in the world.

 

[EGM1966]

It's a common issue but I actually didn't find Witcher 3 that bad. In that, mostly, in a village it feels pretty safe and many roads are free of monsters. Ultimately its a balance between total realism and totally fake for gameplay and I didn't find W3 too bad TBH.

Bethesda games tend to suffer much worse from this. The balance of "stuff to do/fight" vs space for normal world always feels too tight for me in their games. I always feel there's too many foes on too many paths too much of the time.

I would like to see some games go even further with clearing up the map and trusting the experience to be worth it (more like SOTC). With just a little more thinning out and perhaps a little more focus of monsters in very specific out of the way areas W3 would be perfect.

TBH with W3 going open world I would have preferred less POI and more contract work, ideally randomly generated (of course games for years seem to have shied away from improving random quests to ensure games "clear out" of tasks presumably so you can buy the next one). I'd have liked more hidden vampires or creatures to find in the large cities for example, or more monster nests that are bigger/tougher to clear out on the fringes of areas as contracts.

 

[Tovarisc]

Yeah, it was kinda weird to go into a town with children running around and women and men doing chores and what not when there are monsters less than 100 yards away. No more a deal breaker than random dudes starting a fight with Geralt, one of the most dangerous people in the world.

Just like some real people in war zones and such all around the world Some people live in very dangerous conditions their lives and are just kinda used to it and deal with it. As well as they can.

 

[TimeEffect]

Yeah, it was kinda weird to go into a town with children running around and women and men doing chores and what not when there are monsters less than 100 yards away. No more a deal breaker than random dudes starting a fight with Geralt, one of the most dangerous people in the world.

Haha, this was always the thing that bothered me.

 

[Aikidoka]

Just like some real people in war zones and such all around the world Some people live in very dangerous conditions their lives and are just kinda used to it and deal with it. As well as they can.

That would make sense if the people in the Wild Hunt actually altered their behavior based on that. Right now, it doesn't seem like they are adapting but just ignoring.

Interestingly, the monster guide in game has little snippets that suggest of people's altered behaviors. For example, we're told that workers always take a break at noon for fear of noonwraiths, yet the game kind of completely contradicts this knowledge. The Devil in the Well questline actually makes no sense b/c the father could just go to the well at any time except noon and get the water he needs.

 

[Haunted]

On the other hand, it explains so many of the secondary quests where people went missing literally 50 meters outside of the village, still in plain view of the main road and all the buildings.

 

[zer0das]

And also the whole prosecuted sorceress dynamic doesn't really hold up at all given the things they are capable of doing.

Considering dimertium exists and is used in bombs and shackles, and not every sorceress is on the level of Phillipa, Yennefer, or Triss, it isn't that hard to believe. I think Dijkstra even mentioned a lot of them were just alchemists/herbalists.

As far as monsters go, I think certain monsters are a bit too abundant. There are too many wolf packs roaming the woods, drowners are everywhere, as are sirens in Skellige. Everything else seemed fairly reasonable to me. There are several mentions that necrophages are everywhere because of the recent large battles and the abundance of corpses. And the large number of bandits also could largely be attributed to the war.

 

[Leatherface]

I'd rather have more monsters than more realism. There are a LOT of things that don't really make sense it games. It's because reality is boring.

This is my train of thought. I immerse myself in the experience presented and really don't put a lot of thought into how ridiculous or unrealistic it may or may not be. I just take it for what it is and enjoy.

 

[funkypie]

Most of the monsters are actually wild wolves and bandits.

 

[J-Tier]

No more a deal breaker than random dudes starting a fight with Geralt, one of the most dangerous people in the world.

This was one thing that bothered me. I suppose if random villagers were so powerful, it might explain why the monsters kept away lol.

I was so pissed when there was the one where you couldn't save the guy no matter what and you ended up having to kill them and then getting blamed for wrongful murder.

I reset that so many times to find out that it was pointless. Damned "level 50" random villagers

 

[Papercuts]

This constantly bugged me as I got into areas like Novigrad. You'd think so many people wouldn't try to ambush or pick a general fight on the guy covered in scars holding two giant swords.

 

[BriGuy]

I felt I barely encountered much of anything before I quit playing outright, and even when I did, it became a herky-herky mess that wasn't satisfying or engaging at all. The whole affair was pretty boring and overrated, but that's a discussion for another thread.

 

[RubberJohnny]

Velen and Skellige are supposed to be practically-wilderness hellholes though, there's plenty of dialogue about how awful and unhospitable Velen is, and Skellige is survivable because the natives have mental warrior-culture that involves never backing down for a fight.

Plus there's death everywhere and a war on, and most of the monsters are necrophages or ghosts.

Justified in lore, in other words.

 

[family_guy]

I thought it was funny how a few peasants would move back into a town you cleared out that was full of ghouls.

 

[Fitts]

It doesn't help that the enemies aren't fun to fight either.

 

[KingV]

I didn't think it was too bad, you can literally just ride Roach right past most monsters.

Of course, I also thought the combat was OK.

 

[theWB27]

I felt I barely encountered much of anything before I quit playing outright, and even when I did, it became a herky-herky mess that wasn't satisfying or engaging at all. The whole affair was pretty boring and overrated, but that's a discussion for another thread.

So why bring it in here in the first place?

 

[Yeef]

Have you been to places other than Velen? Velen is filled with Drowners and hags, as one would expect from a swamp. The rest of the map doesn't really have a ton of actual monsters, but does tend to have lots of aggressive wildlife like wolves and bears.

 

[RazorbackDB]

Get the whirlwind skill and hold x until everyone is dead, more on topic I didn't think it was that bad, it sticks to the classic rule of sticking to the road if you wan't to be safe, get out of the road and it'll be dangerous.