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The Witcher 3: Wild HuntWitcher 3 – My favourite disappointment(17 posts)(17 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted August 25, 2015
So, Witcher 3. It's the most conflicting game I have played in a very long time. This is going to me something between review, analysis and my own personal bitching without actually giving away any spoilers (and I would appreciate it if we kept the whole topic spoiler-free) – if you don't like to read walls of text, turn around now, there's not going to be a TLDR. YOU IGNORANT FOOL! Ehm, anyway, let's get on it, shall we?

I loved Witcher 1 and 2, and let me tell you right away that I also love Witcher 3. I started playing Witcher 1 right after finishing the novels, actually it was one of the few games I purchased on release. Then I figured it was a buggy mess, then waited for patches and then finally got to enjoy the damn thing, nonetheless I still consider it one of the best RPGs I have ever played. Then came Witcher 2, a game improving on most aspects from the original (or changing them completely for better or worse), beating Bioware at their own game so to speak. Witcher 2 felt especially incredible to me due to the fact that the story you built was truly yours – CD Project was not afraid of constructing an experience so 'wide' that 99% of players won't even get to see majority of content. To understand where I'm going you have to realize where I'm coming from – and I'm coming from a player who enjoyed Witcher 1 and 2 for what they were, semi-linear story-driven RPGs with massive focus on choice and consequence. Because then, Witcher 3 came and … Did its own thing I guess?

Witcher 3 and its own thing
See, my main gripe is that I feel like CD Project has been working towards this holy grail of RPGs which Bioware never quite reached, and then, after almost reaching it with the release of Witcher 2, they turned their back on what they built and decided to do something else. Now I'm a huge fan of open world games, but let me be clear on one thing – I do not believe Witcher 3 is a good open world game and I firmly believe it would have been better as a story-driven linear one just as previous two games were.

There are many faults with Witcher 3 and its approach to open world. A ton of relatively easy filler content you need to go trough to reach the good equipment, quests which progressively get worse as you distance yourself further from the main storyline, the weird monster scaling CD Project decided to make use of (and lack of monster/quest level scaling to make sure trying to do as much of the game as possible makes it trivially easy), presumably to give player impression of bigger progress than he's actually making, extremely weird encounter design with encounter zones being all over the place… The list just goes on and on. RPG mechanics don't really work that well either, and all of these aspects just seem to bring down otherwise fantastic combat system. The game is filled with mechanics which don't quite work as a one, big system supporting itself, but instead as a bunch of smaller things undercutting each other.

Nonetheless, when this CD Project's monster gets hit by lightening and raises on its own feet, it actually works. It functions as a singular entity, albeit one which occasionally trips over its own inexplicable tail and then crashes to desktop. Kind of like all the other products CD Project has ever attempted, it's broken on fundamental level, but it's so insanely ambitious and made with so much love, care and duck tape that it's quite difficult to not love it. And holy shit, it's the most beautiful game I have ever laid my eyes on. To me, however, it remains a disappointment. It remains one because I wanted to see what will CD Project do with a genre they single-handedly aced – instead, they started off from the beginning with a slightly different genre which they didn't have enough experience to quite pull off. That's not all I was interested in tho – I was also interested in what is CD Project going to do with my story. Yes, the one I have constructed throughout the previous two games and was looking forward to concluding. Surely, a company focusing on choice and consequence won't disappoint me in that area, right? *sigh*

Witcher 3 and its own story
Oh boy. Right, I love storyline of The Witcher games. In spite of being glorified fan fiction and just not being able to match Andrzej Sapkowski in his writing abilities, Witcher game universe works with the source material with respect, love and a lot of care. It's obvious that writers over at CD Project read the books at least a few times and are very careful not to trample all over the franchise. What about the story they have constructed tho? Well, that's where my possibly biggest disappointment comes from – story continuity.

Witcher 3 pretty much tells its own story and just about completely ignores what I did in the previous games. There are few spots in which this matters, but they're few, far between and not particularly important. That's not what I expected of a company which was not afraid of cutting vast majority of players out of vast majority of content of Witcher 2. Hell, even Bioware managed to handle this better in Mass Effect 3 and that's… Well, I'll let you reach your own conclusions on that statement.

Overall tho? Witcher 3 proved that open world storytelling is far from impossible, and that a well constructed story can work very nicely even in such an environment. I would love to rave on about how CD Project handled this particular aspect, again showing us that they are masters of telling a story, but I do believe guys over at Extra Credits said it much better than I'll ever be able to.

Witcher 3 and my conclusion
Witcher 3, why do you torture me so? I kind of wish it was Cyberpunk 2077 which got the open world treatment. I kind of wish this was a spin-off of Witcher series, with much more linear Witcher 3 in the making, reacting to my choices a lot better. I wish CD Project took a bit more clues from Bethesda on open world design and from Gothic games on encounter design. I wish that instead of creating a 200 hours long experience, CD Project would focus on 50 hours of top quality content. I wish for a lot of things, and there are many things due to which Witcher 3 will never become my GOTY, as opposed to Witcher 1 and 2. With the game's increasing ambition, its pitfalls are also a lot more visible.

On the other hand, this game will be remembered as the shining example of how you do open world storytelling. It will be remembered as a shining example of how you do twitch combat in a story driven RPG. It will, without a doubt, become a classic. Perhaps not my classic, but that doesn't make the achievement of CD Project Red any less significant. Nor does it reduce its significance of the highest quality disappointment I've ever experienced in my life.
Post edited August 25, 2015 by Fenixp
Posted August 25, 2015
Well written. Would have guessed English as a first language. Your location confuses me however.

Although I don't disagree with the points you've made, I think it's important to consider that games are constantly evolving. Games being released today (good ones at any rate) are definitely not what they were 10 years ago. Nor should they be.

I think companies like CDPR need to evolve along with the games they create, developing and perfecting the necessary skills to continue satisfying the future gaming market.

Does The Witcher 3 have some issues, some of which you've outlined above? Sure. But without change we have only stagnation. I am very pleased that CDPR chose to push themselves out of their comfort zone. I think it bodes well for future CDPR projects.

I know I sound a bit like a fanboy here, but I'm really not. I've done my share of bitching about CDPR on a variety of topics. Many would say more than my share. But pushing their work into an open world environment is one of the things that I like.

No, it's not perfect. I hope they learn from their missteps here and that enables an even better product down the road.

I hope we can all agree on one thing... the quality of CDPR's output continues to improve.
Posted August 25, 2015
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Brashen: Would have guessed English as a first language. Your location confuses me however.
Nah, english isn't my first language, I just enjoy reading a lot. And writing. I was half expecting for this to go without replies, but writing is fun.
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Brashen: Although I don't disagree with the points you've made, I think it's important to consider that games are constantly evolving. Games being released today (good ones at any rate) are definitely not what they were 10 years ago. Nor should they be.
Yeah, that's pretty much an argument I expected, and I can't really disagree with it. I really hoped CD Project will wrap up with what they do best - then again, a lot of people can't find fault with the game, which would work in their favour.

Still, my argument is a bit more complex than strictly "I wanted it to be linear" - I firmly believe that with a linear, more driven experience, game would be a fair bit cheaper (in development costs, open world is damn expensive), allowing CD Project for a game even more reactive than Witcher 2 was. While I absolutely agree that evolution is important, I also believe that games with a continuity as strong as Witcher raise some expectations which should be not ignored - as it stands, to me anyway, Witcher 3 no longer feels like part of a trilogy, it feels like a stand alone game. Which is not great, considering events of Witcher 2.
Post edited August 25, 2015 by Fenixp
Posted August 25, 2015
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Fenixp: So, Witcher 3. It's the most conflicting game I have played in a very long time. This is going to me something between review, analysis and my own personal bitching without actually giving away any spoilers (and I would appreciate it if we kept the whole topic spoiler-free) – if you don't like to read walls of text, turn around now, there's not going to be a TLDR. YOU IGNORANT FOOL! Ehm, anyway, let's get on it, shall we?

I loved Witcher 1 and 2, and let me tell you right away that I also love Witcher 3. I started playing Witcher 1 right after finishing the novels, actually it was one of the few games I purchased on release. Then I figured it was a buggy mess, then waited for patches and then finally got to enjoy the damn thing, nonetheless I still consider it one of the best RPGs I have ever played. Then came Witcher 2, a game improving on most aspects from the original (or changing them completely for better or worse), beating Bioware at their own game so to speak. Witcher 2 felt especially incredible to me due to the fact that the story you built was truly yours – CD Project was not afraid of constructing an experience so 'wide' that 99% of players won't even get to see majority of content. To understand where I'm going you have to realize where I'm coming from – and I'm coming from a player who enjoyed Witcher 1 and 2 for what they were, semi-linear story-driven RPGs with massive focus on choice and consequence. Because then, Witcher 3 came and … Did its own thing I guess?

Witcher 3 and its own thing
See, my main gripe is that I feel like CD Project has been working towards this holy grail of RPGs which Bioware never quite reached, and then, after almost reaching it with the release of Witcher 2, they turned their back on what they built and decided to do something else. Now I'm a huge fan of open world games, but let me be clear on one thing – I do not believe Witcher 3 is a good open world game and I firmly believe it would have been better as a story-driven linear one just as previous two games were.

There are many faults with Witcher 3 and its approach to open world. A ton of relatively easy filler content you need to go trough to reach the good equipment, quests which progressively get worse as you distance yourself further from the main storyline, the weird monster scaling CD Project decided to make use of (and lack of monster/quest level scaling to make sure trying to do as much of the game as possible makes it trivially easy), presumably to give player impression of bigger progress than he's actually making, extremely weird encounter design with encounter zones being all over the place… The list just goes on and on. RPG mechanics don't really work that well either, and all of these aspects just seem to bring down otherwise fantastic combat system. The game is filled with mechanics which don't quite work as a one, big system supporting itself, but instead as a bunch of smaller things undercutting each other.

Nonetheless, when this CD Project's monster gets hit by lightening and raises on its own feet, it actually works. It functions as a singular entity, albeit one which occasionally trips over its own inexplicable tail and then crashes to desktop. Kind of like all the other products CD Project has ever attempted, it's broken on fundamental level, but it's so insanely ambitious and made with so much love, care and duck tape that it's quite difficult to not love it. And holy shit, it's the most beautiful game I have ever laid my eyes on. To me, however, it remains a disappointment. It remains one because I wanted to see what will CD Project do with a genre they single-handedly aced – instead, they started off from the beginning with a slightly different genre which they didn't have enough experience to quite pull off. That's not all I was interested in tho – I was also interested in what is CD Project going to do with my story. Yes, the one I have constructed throughout the previous two games and was looking forward to concluding. Surely, a company focusing on choice and consequence won't disappoint me in that area, right? *sigh*

Witcher 3 and its own story
Oh boy. Right, I love storyline of The Witcher games. In spite of being glorified fan fiction and just not being able to match Andrzej Sapkowski in his writing abilities, Witcher game universe works with the source material with respect, love and a lot of care. It's obvious that writers over at CD Project read the books at least a few times and are very careful not to trample all over the franchise. What about the story they have constructed tho? Well, that's where my possibly biggest disappointment comes from – story continuity.

Witcher 3 pretty much tells its own story and just about completely ignores what I did in the previous games. There are few spots in which this matters, but they're few, far between and not particularly important. That's not what I expected of a company which was not afraid of cutting vast majority of players out of vast majority of content of Witcher 2. Hell, even Bioware managed to handle this better in Mass Effect 3 and that's… Well, I'll let you reach your own conclusions on that statement.

Overall tho? Witcher 3 proved that open world storytelling is far from impossible, and that a well constructed story can work very nicely even in such an environment. I would love to rave on about how CD Project handled this particular aspect, again showing us that they are masters of telling a story, but I do believe guys over at Extra Credits said it much better than I'll ever be able to.

Witcher 3 and my conclusion
Witcher 3, why do you torture me so? I kind of wish it was Cyberpunk 2077 which got the open world treatment. I kind of wish this was a spin-off of Witcher series, with much more linear Witcher 3 in the making, reacting to my choices a lot better. I wish CD Project took a bit more clues from Bethesda on open world design and from Gothic games on encounter design. I wish that instead of creating a 200 hours long experience, CD Project would focus on 50 hours of top quality content. I wish for a lot of things, and there are many things due to which Witcher 3 will never become my GOTY, as opposed to Witcher 1 and 2. With the game's increasing ambition, its pitfalls are also a lot more visible.

On the other hand, this game will be remembered as the shining example of how you do open world storytelling. It will be remembered as a shining example of how you do twitch combat in a story driven RPG. It will, without a doubt, become a classic. Perhaps not my classic, but that doesn't make the achievement of CD Project Red any less significant. Nor does it reduce its significance of the highest quality disappointment I've ever experienced in my life.
"Now I'm a huge fan of open world games, but let me be clear on one thing – I do not believe Witcher 3 is a good open world game and I firmly believe it would have been better as a story-driven linear one just as previous two games were."

THIS EXACTLY
Posted August 25, 2015
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elldaz: THIS EXACTLY
All right, first of all, you're quoting wrong ;-) When you click the reply button, a text editor with the entire post you are quoting appears and you can actually edit it freely as long as you don't touch the [.quote_number.]
[./quote.] bits. In other words, you can erase any amount of my post and only leave the bits you want to reply to, like this:
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Fenixp: Now I'm a huge fan of open world games, but let me be clear on one thing – I do not believe Witcher 3 is a good open world game and I firmly believe it would have been better as a story-driven linear one just as previous two games were.
If you want to see the code itself, when replying to this post, you can take a look in the quoted text to see how does it look like. And yes, you can make me say anything
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Fenixp: Badgers are assholes.
Second, I really hate the fact that open world nature makes the game a lot less replayable to me. The game's long. Extremely so. I was happy that I could finish Witcher 2 in 30 hours, mostly because after 90 hours, I have finished it three times and have seen the story from several very interesting perspectives. I don't actually have that much time to play games anymore and I don't enjoy all the filler content. But that's a very subjective issue to have.
Post edited August 25, 2015 by Fenixp
Posted August 26, 2015
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elldaz: THIS EXACTLY
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Fenixp: All right, first of all, you're quoting wrong ;-) When you click the reply button, a text editor with the entire post you are quoting appears and you can actually edit it freely as long as you don't touch the [.quote_number.]
[./quote.] bits. In other words, you can erase any amount of my post and only leave the bits you want to reply to, like this:
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Fenixp: Now I'm a huge fan of open world games, but let me be clear on one thing – I do not believe Witcher 3 is a good open world game and I firmly believe it would have been better as a story-driven linear one just as previous two games were.
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Fenixp: If you want to see the code itself, when replying to this post, you can take a look in the quoted text to see how does it look like. And yes, you can make me say anything
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Fenixp: Badgers are assholes.
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Fenixp: Second, I really hate the fact that open world nature makes the game a lot less replayable to me. The game's long. Extremely so. I was happy that I could finish Witcher 2 in 30 hours, mostly because after 90 hours, I have finished it three times and have seen the story from several very interesting perspectives. I don't actually have that much time to play games anymore and I don't enjoy all the filler content. But that's a very subjective issue to have.
Sorry wasn't aware of the quoting protocol and don't really understand what you are saying or why it is important. I quoted your whole post (which is great) and called out the part that resonates most with my views by just copying it. What was wrong with that?

Anyway I have played all the DA, ME, AC games, Skyrim and Crysis more times than I can remember and in each iteration of the games in those series I have racked up more than 1,000 hours except for the early AC games (prior to AC3). That has meant for most of them I have played them more than 5 times. I think what has started to really kill replaying games is the belief by developers that having a huge world is a priority, that we all want to spend hours crafting and that we all want to collect hundreds of things rather than just play the bloody games. DAI's travelling to find it's shards, landmark, locations and herb and metals collecting made up about 70 hours of a 120 hour play through add at least 15 to 20 crafting stuff and you really only have 30 hrs of gameplay.

W3 is the same and for someone like me who likes to complete everything on the map it fast becomes a chore. I for one only clear the question marks to find loot and cash or loot I can turn into cash. Unfortunately I think except at the very start in White Orchard I used found armor and swords but only till I found the Griffin or Cat gear. Then all those other finds became useless except to sell.

Playing Crysis 3 yesterday what I realised I liked so much and this is the same for ME games is the loot you find is either ammo or cash or it's a new weapon or armor that is different and/or better. Not 20 useless items that I just have to find a way to lug around and then sell. Why not just leave more cash and make the weapons and armor you find more rare and automatically scale to your current weapons DPS or far superior. How good was it in BG where you'd find some weapon or armor and you'd feel like you just won the lottery.

WOW long post sorry guys. In summary I think DAI and W3 demonstrate that the games are too bloated. Too many side quests of no worth, no really great random loot that is instantly usable, too much farming for resources etc... I just want to play the game and have enough money to buy what I need. I know people love the crafting but I'd rather not have to spend 50 hours collecting herbs, metal etc to just still have to pay the blacksmith to make it.
Posted August 26, 2015
I’m still angry at myself for succumbing to the hype CD Projekt RED created about The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. I should have waited for Steam winter sales, so that I’d get full patched game without the Galaxy nightmare (“NOT Authorised” you say what Galaxy? while trying to load a patch).

These are my biggest disappointments and why I’ve uninstalled it (together with Gog Galaxy) for at least a year. I’m not good with words and English isn’t my mother tongue obviously, so bear with me. Just to be clear, I played TW1 2x and TW2 3x and read the novels and don’t think TW3 is a bad game per se.

It starts with the open world and the promise for playing after main quest is done. I’ve left lot of “?” and side quest open because I thought I’ll be able to do later. I cannot. It is not only the empty world devoid of your friends, I could role play this as “lone wolf” ranger type, but the world state shows me again and again to my face that I’ve achieved nothing.

I play with headphones on so I easily pick up all the insults and racial slurs thrown at Geralt. I put up with this during the main quest but refuse to do so afterwards. I am not a masochist and city like Novigrad makes me sick to the stomach.

I don’t need a “happy”, hollywod style, ending. In fact my ending was bitter sweet with Ciri crying a river on Geralt’s shoulder, but I need an environment that encourages me to load a save and explore the world. TW3 fails completely at this.

Next, as other mentioned the loot is so random. So you travel this ancient elven ruin and there’s a chest prominently displayed and you think what would be inside. The anticipation is high, just to realise that it contains a bottle of freaking water. Seriously?

And then you get this unique Vran sword from a hidden chest at last, and now you are like “now we are talking”, right. Yeah, until in Novigrad you find out that almost everything you can buy there is better than that legendary item. This killed my willingness to discover the “?” on the map instantly. Why bother?

And the crafting, once you get your witcher gear together, there is nothing much to do. Same goes for alchemy.
Lastly the “follow you witcher senses” quests, that everyone was like it was the best thing ever. But all you do is following the red marks and listening to Geralt stating the obvious. How innovative, not.

I don’t want to repeat the problems with main quest, especially the villains, because this was written better in the posts before.

So for a last game in the series it just doesn’t deliver what devs promised and that makes me sad.
Posted August 26, 2015
Interesting post, Fenixp, well written. I agree with some points, disagree with some other, I'm not going to list them, as I was quite tired to do so while I was writing my "nitpicting fest" topic (no, it's not self-promotion), just comment of few points, if you don't mind.
Witcher 3 is not quite an open world, it's more like a "big map" more or less story-driven game, where main story is diluted by side-quests, some of which are, at times, better than some parts of main quest, or simply marvellous in their nature. They aren't necessary big, just well-written. Main "logic" conflict here is that while story calls of following it, after all Ciri is not just random pikeman, leaving all side quests aside not only shortens the game, but lessens overall experience. Partially this is broken by lack of linearity, when content was carefully "fed" to us, here we can get most things right from start (yes, we have to wait till we will be able to complete certain quests, wave levelling system).
I can't say Witcher 3 is bad in comparison with Sapkowski's writing. I'd say pan Andrzej shines in short form, not in long one. I may be wrong, but for me last 3-2 books (5th already showed the signs) were quite difficult to read. Not because of "adult" or "difficult" topics, but because of way they were written. Going through them was somewhat comparable to running in neck-deep water. Earlier books were far, far better, faster, enjoyable, and easier to read. Witcher 3 to an extent is reflection of it, because closer to the end it starts being weary on you.
Although I read books like decade and half ago, so I do not remember them to a perfection, I think that for the most part CDPR handled writing just fine, closing some loops and holes left by books. It's not perfect, some things remained in very odd state, yet we have two DLCs incoming, so maybe they will plug the holes. Sadly they won't return some of characters we lost, and that's one part of writing I didn't like. Another part I didn't like comprised of discrepancies between my memories of characters and events described in books, previous games (mostly Witcher 1, because Witcher 2 went all game of thrones and I didn't like the flavour, if you know what I mean), and this game. Final part I didn't liked in writing made mostly of some of quests. While some side-quests are little marvels and masterpieces here and there, some are very nice homage to books, some other looks like Bethesda's Radiant rejects, seriously. If they were in recent Mad Max film, I'm not sure we could even call them mediocre. In addition, vast world at times feels a way too... "empty" is not exactly correct word, I don't mind shift to calm for a change, but the way some areas are just wrong. Add respawning enemies, unlike in Gothic series, where we had once cleaned - always cleaned lands... I can find a logic explanation - war, solid "food base" for monsters, so they constantly migrate in, but seriously, fighting pack of dogs, nekkers, drowners or whoever there is in same freaking spot after you destroyed their nest for fifth time is just too damn annoying. I know this always was a feature in Witcher series, but it wasn't that annoying before.
Gameplay, sadly, isn't perfect, which is a sentence for a big game like that, where raw gameplay (exploring and fighting) represents vast majority of playtime. Sadly I wasn't impressed by UI, character development system, or combat. Even though CDPR are/were updating it, and slightly rectified some of the issues, main problems still there, skill system remains untouched, UI still full of compromises because of consoles, and combat is still repetitive, bland, and dull, even if a bit more responsive than initially. Alas, woe-woe.
As for ignoring decisions from previous games, well, true, that's unpleasant, I wonder how CDPR will handle one particular red-headed medic, but that's how they acted. Even in W2 they made few decisions for us, not asking our opinion, to give us a "better story". I guess they decided to play this card again. And honestly, with all Witcher series issues, I'll take this approach over select the colour of your explosion. Because single quest on Arena on Skellige brought more emotions that entire Conrad Werner arcs and his four war assets points. FOUR, CARL!
To sum things up, I think CDPR simply bit more than they could chew. Game is so big, it needed at least six months of work to fill the world and correct various issues, to make game world more believable, logical, and interesting. But I'm not sure they could afford this delay, not because of financial reasons (by the way, any words on them finally saying their expenses?), but because of competition. Just look at late autumn-winter release schedule, even with all those allegedly 30+millions of bucks spent on marketing, I'm not sure they had chances to compete for attention.
So, can less be more? I suppose. Smaller world could consume less resources, have higher density of various points of interests and their better quality. Yes, I mean those 80+ smuggler caches on Skellige and other objects added as filler.
Last but not least - idea of "16 free DLCs" promo is bad. I understand, I am among minority of those "day 1 gamers" who completed game by early June, but I'd really welcomed that Nilfgaardian suit, or maybe even Skellige suit upon release, not when I was listening Ciri going full Mary Sue telling Geralt how this game being her story (come on, Ciriously, where the fuck did you find "Ciri gone wild" in game's name?). NG+ could fit me better back then, maybe I'd even started replaying game, even though I completed everything and wasn't really in mood repeating it all over again, given that quests have two resolutions - bad and worse.
Still, with all these flaws, this game is still good and like butt of queen of the lake, put others to shame. /grin
Posted August 27, 2015
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elldaz: Sorry wasn't aware of the quoting protocol and don't really understand what you are saying or why it is important. I quoted your whole post (which is great) and called out the part that resonates most with my views by just copying it. What was wrong with that?
Basically, when browsing the site on my phone, it's My post for several screens - Brashen's post - My post again - And your post containing my post yet again for several screen. It takes up space basically, and makes the topic a little bit more difficult to navigate. Besides, you basically quoted me, then quoted me again and then replied which is a bit redundant ;-) Anyway, do as you will - all I'm saying is that you can make your posts a lot easier to read that way.
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elldaz: ...
Yeah, the modern trend of "EVERYTHING needs to be open world and have a skill and crafting system!" is a bit dumb. And especially when it comes to Ubisoft games it's also getting old - I'll just post this and be done with it.
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elldaz: WOW long post sorry guys.
If somebody got all the way to your post ... I don't think he cares :-)
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RudyLis: They aren't necessary big, just well-written. Main "logic" conflict here is that while story calls of following it, after all Ciri is not just random pikeman, leaving all side quests aside not only shortens the game, but lessens overall experience.
Yeah, that does feel really weird. The main storyline quests are very pressing in their nature - yet when Geralt finds out Ciri is probably in deep shit, he goes "Whelp, I can't take on those guys whose spears do 20 times more damage than other spears, gotta do 20 times more damage myself first." All of this gating feels very contrived, especially given the fact than in the past games, Geralt already trained up to be an undominable warrior.
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RudyLis: Although I read books like decade and half ago, so I do not remember them to a perfection, I think that for the most part CDPR handled writing just fine, closing some loops and holes left by books.
Yeah, they did. What I liked about Sapkowki's writing was how easily he was able to construct very interesting characters in relatively small amount of text - then again, admittedly, the last Witcher book I have read was the prequel one he released recently, and that one wasn't even close in quality to his older stuff.
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RudyLis: If they were in recent Mad Max film, I'm not sure we could even call them mediocre.
Huh?
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RudyLis: And honestly, with all Witcher series issues, I'll take this approach over select the colour of your explosion. Because single quest on Arena on Skellige brought more emotions that entire Conrad Werner arcs and his four war assets points. FOUR, CARL!
Well yes, that's sort of why I hoped CD Project will improve upon what Bioware started. I'm not talking about endings of Mass Effect 3 specifically, I never particularily cared about its main storyline as I've seen it plenty times before, but I did care about stories of your companions and side characrters - and there was a LOT of different dialogues and slightly different scenes based on your past decisions in ME3. Name a single game which would go to bigger length to respect what you did in previous games and offer you closure for your decisions, even if it sometimes was in the form of shitty was assets - because I can't think of a single one. I mean there's at least one massive event, quite important for the lore concerning certain alliance, which is not even possible to achieve without prior saves.
Posted August 27, 2015
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Fenixp: Yeah, that does feel really weird. The main storyline quests are very pressing in their nature - yet when Geralt finds out Ciri is probably in deep shit, he goes "Whelp, I can't take on those guys whose spears do 20 times more damage than other spears, gotta do 20 times more damage myself first." All of this gating feels very contrived, especially given the fact than in the past games, Geralt already trained up to be an undominable warrior.
Precisely when game's "narration through gameplay" fails. It did failed same way at start of Witcher 2. I understand they created new skill&item systems, but nullifying previous experience of the main character looks weird. Being weak and amnesiac was fine at start of Witcher 1. At start Witcher 2 Geralt should have regained most of his combat-related memories, including potions and bestiary. At start of Witcher 3 he should have his memory back in full capacity, thus negating entire training and looking for recipes. Basically to get Geralt the way he meant to be played, we have to start NG+. And even there it wouldn't work entirely right. At this aspect Mass Effect had it done better, at least regarding transferring skillpoints. Though seeing SR2 in ME3 was quite painful, really. Where is all my loot? Where's my fish? Why I had to purchase that armour and guns all over again?
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Fenixp: Huh?
"Witness me!" and all that. Hard to explain if you haven't seen the movie, sorry.
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Fenixp: Well yes, that's sort of why I hoped CD Project will improve upon what Bioware started. I'm not talking about endings of Mass Effect 3 specifically, I never particularily cared about its main storyline as I've seen it plenty times before, but I did care about stories of your companions and side characrters - and there was a LOT of different dialogues and slightly different scenes based on your past decisions in ME3. Name a single game which would go to bigger length to respect what you did in previous games and offer you closure for your decisions, even if it sometimes was in the form of shitty was assets - because I can't think of a single one. I mean there's at least one massive event, quite important for the lore concerning certain alliance, which is not even possible to achieve without prior saves.
ME storyline really, I mean REALLY reminded me of Star Control, up to, ehm, "blue babies"., if you get my meaning. :D Still, old story or not, story itself matters as well as narration. And that's where ME3 failed miserably. Stories of team-mates, companions, and associates are important too, no objection here, but even there Bioware did something odd. Diana Allers instead of Emily Wong? Seriously? Emily Wong killed IN TWITTER? Come on, if Picard and Riker would assemble whole crew there wouldn't be enough hands on deck for a proper facepalm. Not to mention Kelly Chambers, who got less attention than white crayon or black chalk.
In this aspect Witcher wasn't far off, take Shani, for instance (I hope she'll get more attention than Kelly /grin). IIRC in original release of W2 there was no mentioning of her, story of breaking up was added in one of patches. I understand from global story of war Iorveth and Saskia are "strategically insignificant", but again, dropping out characters (yet keeping their VO actors) this way looks odd for studio famous for their attention to details. True, I played Roche's path save, not Iorveth, but a lot of people said there is no mentions of him in game other than Gwent card.
I may be wrong, but there are two "concepts", about giving either pretty linear, but "better" story as more time could be invested into development, or giving "worse", but branching story, giving player sense of involvement into process. I think main difference here is that while CDPR globally picked first way, they still offer sense of involvement, but only within one game, as we do see consequences of our choices and for me they feel better than most if not any choices I made in ME series. Maybe because ME decisions do not exactly feel that engaging. If they feel at all. What's the difference between options in Geth-Quarian conflict if you won't get into War Assets table? Short part of cutscene showing Geth and/or Quarians and Tali's presence on board? Genofage resolution? We may get Wrex angry (or so I've heard), but what else? Shepard's reaction on Miranda's death in case of their romance? Bleaks in comparison with STEEEEEEEEEEEEEVE! even if you never talk with Cortez at all. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Not that I like Witcher approach, where certain "decisions" made for me and I was informed of them post-factum, such as breaking up with Shani after W1, or with Triss after W2 (even if you didn't wanted to, as I guess most people who haven't read books care little about Yennifer), or being lectured by Yennifer for all "doings" with Triss even if you've been deliberately avoiding Triss in previous games. Consistency is important and being reprimanded for developers misdoings is not most pleasant thing. :D
Posted August 29, 2015
Lots of good points in this thread.

I think there will always be disagreements on exactly what features any product should have. That's one of the great things about our world... there are lots of choices.

Personally, I don't think W3 should be compared with something like Crysis. I think they are too different. I like them both for what they bring to their respective genres. If someone prefers FPS, then they shouldn't bother playing W3. But please don't ask that W3 be turned into a FPS. There are plenty of those choices out there. Go play them. That's cool. :)

I like open world games and although I don't think W3 is the perfect open world game, I do think it comes close to perfection with the quality of storytelling.

I've noticed a recurring them here and that is the complaint that there is too much filler. I'm sure when you really think about it, you know that is your own issue, not an actual issue with the game. If you feel the need to complete everything, that is a personality trait. Not the fault of the game. I like having lots of things to do that simply give me an excuse to spend more time in the game world. If you do not, then you don't have to. Freedom of choice. A wonderful thing. :)

When I eat pizza, I typically don't eat the crust. I eat the part I really like, and leave the part I don't. I don't fret over the fact that the pizza shop didn't make a crust that I just love to eat.
Posted August 29, 2015
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Brashen: I've noticed a recurring them here and that is the complaint that there is too much filler. I'm sure when you really think about it, you know that is your own issue, not an actual issue with the game. If you feel the need to complete everything, that is a personality trait. Not the fault of the game. I like having lots of things to do that simply give me an excuse to spend more time in the game world. If you do not, then you don't have to. Freedom of choice. A wonderful thing. :)
Problem with that argument is that aside from the question marks which are obviously just filler content, there's no way to tell what's just pointless filler and what's good, quality content. Some Witcher contracts are just doing the same things over and over. Others are excellent little stories in themselves. Some treasure hunts have very nice stories backing them up. Others are just pointless fetch quests. Some sidequests really have absolutely nothing to them. Others grow into amazing content.

To further your pizza analogy, it's like they gave you a pizza cut into tiny pieces of same size and blindfolded you so you have to eat all of it to find the bits you actually like.

I like that Skyrim clearly separates actual, big quests from little tasks you can do around the game. It doesn't work perfectly, but it works well enough to know intantly whether this quest is going to be the copy paste filler or a big quest line doing something to separate itself - most of the time anyway.
Post edited August 29, 2015 by Fenixp
Posted August 30, 2015
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Brashen: I've noticed a recurring them here and that is the complaint that there is too much filler. I'm sure when you really think about it, you know that is your own issue, not an actual issue with the game. If you feel the need to complete everything, that is a personality trait. Not the fault of the game. I like having lots of things to do that simply give me an excuse to spend more time in the game world. If you do not, then you don't have to. Freedom of choice. A wonderful thing. :)
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Fenixp: Problem with that argument is that aside from the question marks which are obviously just filler content, there's no way to tell what's just pointless filler and what's good, quality content. Some Witcher contracts are just doing the same things over and over. Others are excellent little stories in themselves. Some treasure hunts have very nice stories backing them up. Others are just pointless fetch quests. Some sidequests really have absolutely nothing to them. Others grow into amazing content.

To further your pizza analogy, it's like they gave you a pizza cut into tiny pieces of same size and blindfolded you so you have to eat all of it to find the bits you actually like.

I like that Skyrim clearly separates actual, big quests from little tasks you can do around the game. It doesn't work perfectly, but it works well enough to know intantly whether this quest is going to be the copy paste filler or a big quest line doing something to separate itself - most of the time anyway.
I certainly may be missing something here (that wouldn't be anything new! ;), but I thought the main quest line was clearly defined in the journal.
Posted August 30, 2015
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Brashen: I certainly may be missing something here (that wouldn't be anything new! ;), but I thought the main quest line was clearly defined in the journal.
That would be assuming that only the main questline is good content and everything else is a bad filler.
Posted August 30, 2015
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Brashen: I certainly may be missing something here (that wouldn't be anything new! ;), but I thought the main quest line was clearly defined in the journal.
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Fenixp: That would be assuming that only the main questline is good content and everything else is a bad filler.
Ok. :)
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