Posted May 26, 2011
The game does get easier as you go on, which isn't necessarily a bad thing as the whole point of questing and grinding in RPG's is to become stronger and make it easier to overcome enemies, but in this case it tends to go too far, with most encounters becoming laughably easy. I don't mind becoming a killing machine as a reward for thorough questing and making sure I kill everything standing, but when the epic main quest ends up easier than a chapter 1 nekker fight you know there's something off with the balance. In Gothic you could eventually kill everything and be pretty powerful, but even at the best of times such things would at most make the final fights a bit easier and not a total cakewalk.
I don't want scaled enemies as that's rubbish and leads to leveling being pointless like in Oblivion as you pretty much stay at the same level relative to other creatures all through the game.
The simplest thing to do is to gimp your skills and signs somewhat so they aren't as powerful. They'd still be an advantage, but not an 'Instant Win' like Quen is now for example. Geralt would still get better, but at a slower rate. This would be easy to implement in a patch as it only would affect Geralt's stats while the rest of the world stayed the same.
Another thing that could be done in addition to the above is to increase the baseline level of many of the main plot creeps and some of the side quest ones by a few levels here and there. Not all, so that you still get to satisfyingly slaughter scum if you've developed Geralt high enough by this time, but at least when you face the main plot, you'll be somewhat challenged again, which is as it should be.
Finally, the AI could be reworked so the enemies are smarter, have counters, don't fall for the same old trick over and over such as 'igni, then run away until the creatures lose interest, then back with igni etc.' This would take longest to do and maybe it's outside the scope of just a basic patch, but would create (in conjunction with the above adjustments) the ultimate Witcher combat experience.
I don't want scaled enemies as that's rubbish and leads to leveling being pointless like in Oblivion as you pretty much stay at the same level relative to other creatures all through the game.
The simplest thing to do is to gimp your skills and signs somewhat so they aren't as powerful. They'd still be an advantage, but not an 'Instant Win' like Quen is now for example. Geralt would still get better, but at a slower rate. This would be easy to implement in a patch as it only would affect Geralt's stats while the rest of the world stayed the same.
Another thing that could be done in addition to the above is to increase the baseline level of many of the main plot creeps and some of the side quest ones by a few levels here and there. Not all, so that you still get to satisfyingly slaughter scum if you've developed Geralt high enough by this time, but at least when you face the main plot, you'll be somewhat challenged again, which is as it should be.
Finally, the AI could be reworked so the enemies are smarter, have counters, don't fall for the same old trick over and over such as 'igni, then run away until the creatures lose interest, then back with igni etc.' This would take longest to do and maybe it's outside the scope of just a basic patch, but would create (in conjunction with the above adjustments) the ultimate Witcher combat experience.
