|
So I've been playing through the witcher 1. Finally got through after about 40 hours of gameplay. Pretty insane for 2.25 euro. Good game, albeit slow paced. Theres a few spoilers in this blog, so if you dont want the plot ruined dont read my shit.
So now I am playing the sequel The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings EE.
Here's a few things that bugs me like hell.
1. The first game had the same problem, irrational ways to reach or leave areas. For some reason the goddamn witcher cannot jump down a fence or through some stupid bushes. It just seems like a silly timesink to restrict the movement so much.
2. Omg the fucking doors! I hate them so much, sometimes they are load, sometimes not. But they enforce some slow pace everytime I have to go in and out of the first town. Run run run Witcher till you hit a door that somehow forces the lightning reflex witcher to casual strut through the fricking door.
3. The difficulty - This game has a tendency to thrash me at every corner. First the endregna queens who are insane fresh off the boat. The Wraith event that requires you to kill 8-9 wraiths is difficult. And then theres the main boss (letho) off the games series that just get thrown at you with a spammable quen sign, bombs and aard signs. You on the other hand dont get to chug a single potion. I was playing on normal and it felt like I couldnt get it down, and thought well then I'll turn the difficulty down a notch to easy and voilá I just use one Yrden sign and proceed to melee him down in one-two burst. There's a HUGE gap between normal and easy difficulty.
4. Speaking of potions, what is the reason that you need to sit down and drink the fucking potions if time doesnt pass anyway? In the first game you could chug pots whenever, and albeit good they were part of the game. Whats with the hole premeditated bullshit?
5. The whole interface seems dumbed down to xbox/ps3/we. I dont need a stupid stupid wheel interface everytime I want to check my inventory or use potions/
6. The axii persuation minigame: Press axii in conversation; proceed to win over every fricking person on the planet; profit. It just seems flat. The intimdation dialog is much more fun and interesting than the jedi mind tricks.
Other than that I like the game. Lol.
 
|
My only problem is (like any other modern game) the mouse latency, due to it being developed for console. The main menu is seemless, but any ingame menus are horrible, and oh god was arm wrestling a pain... maybe the potions and inventory systems are good, but ill be damned if ill enjoy them if i dont have RAW mouse input.
Other than that i love it. Love the characters, the vocabularies (hilariously casual throwing of F-bombs everywhere), the crisp graphics, the combat.
the villain and the hero
i cant comment on the difficulty. Im playing hard, but it doesn't seem to bad. the fights are challenging and i die and need to redo a few of them from time to time. exactly what i expect.
|
i didnt liek the story. the cannon storyline that they introduce at the start was in 100 percent conflict with what i did in the 1st game
|
On July 26 2012 13:18 Warpath wrote:
My only problem is (like any other modern game) the mouse latency, due to it being developed for console. The main menu is seemless, but any ingame menus are horrible, and oh god was arm wrestling a pain... maybe the potions and inventory systems are good, but ill be damned if ill enjoy them if i dont have RAW mouse input.
Other than that i love it. Love the characters, the vocabularies (hilariously casual throwing of F-bombs everywhere), the crisp graphics, the combat.
the villain and the hero
i cant comment on the difficulty. Im playing hard, but it doesn't seem to bad. the fights are challenging and i die and need to redo a few of them from time to time. exactly what i expect.
Yeah the menus remind me of Skyrim. Terrible and not fun to use.
The characters are great, just like in the first. Sometimes the dialogue is a bit tame when you use the axii sign as mentioned.
What signs do you use and what character skills/talents have you used? Cause I am apparently terrible at this game lol.
Arm wrestling so far has been easy. I lose real quick if I get out of the zone though
The dice interface seems like a step down too now that I think off it. Even with medium texture, the dice are slightly hard to read and the first game had a big menu that easily displayed what the opponent and you had.
The kings are probably the most fun characters.
|
I wish there wasn't so much stuff to pick up everywhere... takes way to much of my time but i don't like leaving perfectly good planks just go to waste sitting in a barrel!
|
On July 26 2012 13:25 Advocado wrote:
What signs do you use and what character skills/talents have you used? Cause I am apparently terrible at this game lol.
Just use the shield sign (can't recall the name), then just walk up and hit until your shield is gone then roll away. Rinse and repeat and most fights are a cake walk, even on the highest difficulty.
Edit: I use the swordsman talents, Haven't tried the other two paths but I'm pretty sure this is the best.
|
Letho really sucks first time you meet him, but after a while you look back on him and think 'wow I died to that?' Things like potion drinking with the whole meditating really bugged me too, it just slows the gameplay to such a pace that I didn't use it at all after the first time. That and you actually have to know what's coming to know what potions to drink, which you obviously don't in your first playthrough. Lastly, the menus are terribly tedious indeed, wiht the garbage weird mouse not clicking anywhere you want it to.
|
On July 26 2012 12:34 Advocado wrote:
So I've been playing through the witcher 1. Finally got through after about 40 hours of gameplay. Pretty insane for 2.25 euro. Good game, albeit slow paced. Theres a few spoilers in this blog, so if you dont want the plot ruined dont read my shit.
So now I am playing the sequel The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings EE.
Here's a few things that bugs me like hell.
1. The first game had the same problem, irrational ways to reach or leave areas. For some reason the goddamn witcher cannot jump down a fence or through some stupid bushes. It just seems like a silly timesink to restrict the movement so much.
2. Omg the fucking doors! I hate them so much, sometimes they are load, sometimes not. But they enforce some slow pace everytime I have to go in and out of the first town. Run run run Witcher till you hit a door that somehow forces the lightning reflex witcher to casual strut through the fricking door.
3. The difficulty - This game has a tendency to thrash me at every corner. First the endregna queens who are insane fresh off the boat. The Wraith event that requires you to kill 8-9 wraiths is difficult. And then theres the main boss (letho) off the games series that just get thrown at you with a spammable quen sign, bombs and aard signs. You on the other hand dont get to chug a single potion. I was playing on normal and it felt like I couldnt get it down, and thought well then I'll turn the difficulty down a notch to easy and voilá I just use one Yrden sign and proceed to melee him down in one-two burst. There's a HUGE gap between normal and easy difficulty.
4. Speaking of potions, what is the reason that you need to sit down and drink the fucking potions if time doesnt pass anyway? In the first game you could chug pots whenever, and albeit good they were part of the game. Whats with the hole premeditated bullshit?
5. The whole interface seems dumbed down to xbox/ps3/we. I dont need a stupid stupid wheel interface everytime I want to check my inventory or use potions/
6. The axii persuation minigame: Press axii in conversation; proceed to win over every fricking person on the planet; profit. It just seems flat. The intimdation dialog is much more fun and interesting than the jedi mind tricks.
Other than that I like the game. Lol.
Some thoughts:
1. THIS! OMG THIS! They almost ruined a good game with this shit. Almost. In Vergen for example it takes forever to walk across the town and sometimes it's really dificult to navigate.
2. Don't agree with this one. I think transitions are pretty smooth overall.
3.4. It's bulshit that you have to "meditate" before drinking a potion. Made me change difficulty from hard to medium so I don't have to do it in every corner (finished the first game on hard ezpz using a bunch of alchemy).
5. Interface is fine imo.
|
On July 26 2012 19:28 d00p wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On July 26 2012 12:34 Advocado wrote:
So I've been playing through the witcher 1. Finally got through after about 40 hours of gameplay. Pretty insane for 2.25 euro. Good game, albeit slow paced. Theres a few spoilers in this blog, so if you dont want the plot ruined dont read my shit.
So now I am playing the sequel The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings EE.
Here's a few things that bugs me like hell.
1. The first game had the same problem, irrational ways to reach or leave areas. For some reason the goddamn witcher cannot jump down a fence or through some stupid bushes. It just seems like a silly timesink to restrict the movement so much.
2. Omg the fucking doors! I hate them so much, sometimes they are load, sometimes not. But they enforce some slow pace everytime I have to go in and out of the first town. Run run run Witcher till you hit a door that somehow forces the lightning reflex witcher to casual strut through the fricking door.
3. The difficulty - This game has a tendency to thrash me at every corner. First the endregna queens who are insane fresh off the boat. The Wraith event that requires you to kill 8-9 wraiths is difficult. And then theres the main boss (letho) off the games series that just get thrown at you with a spammable quen sign, bombs and aard signs. You on the other hand dont get to chug a single potion. I was playing on normal and it felt like I couldnt get it down, and thought well then I'll turn the difficulty down a notch to easy and voilá I just use one Yrden sign and proceed to melee him down in one-two burst. There's a HUGE gap between normal and easy difficulty.
4. Speaking of potions, what is the reason that you need to sit down and drink the fucking potions if time doesnt pass anyway? In the first game you could chug pots whenever, and albeit good they were part of the game. Whats with the hole premeditated bullshit?
5. The whole interface seems dumbed down to xbox/ps3/we. I dont need a stupid stupid wheel interface everytime I want to check my inventory or use potions/
6. The axii persuation minigame: Press axii in conversation; proceed to win over every fricking person on the planet; profit. It just seems flat. The intimdation dialog is much more fun and interesting than the jedi mind tricks.
Other than that I like the game. Lol. Some thoughts: 1. THIS! OMG THIS! They almost ruined a good game with this shit. Almost. In Vergen for example it takes forever to walk across the town and sometimes it's really dificult to navigate. 2. Don't agree with this one. I think transitions are pretty smooth overall. 3.4. It's bulshit that you have to "meditate" before drinking a potion. Made me change difficulty from hard to medium so I don't have to do it in every corner (finished the first game on hard ezpz using a bunch of alchemy). 5. Interface is fine imo.
Vergens map is ridiculously bad imo. If you have to find someone, you'll see a random dot on the map. You go there, nothing! Then you have to look for an entrance to the house beneath. Where is it? I don't want to spend 15 minutes just to find the entrance.
Nope, the doors are terrible. You can't just straight up run into it and walk through. When you get to it, you can't click 'open'. Then you stand right infront of it, but there is still no option to open. You have to actually walk back a bit and approach the door again to mystically get the 'open' option.
I didn't use any potions the entire game, simply because they were not practical. Yes, they are nice, but how would I know what potion to use beforehand? 'Yeah, I might come across monsters spraying poison in the next 5 minutes, better use my potion... O-o
Interface is ok, mouse latency is godawful. I hate it.
Also I have to agree, easy is way to easy, and normal is way too hard for a smooth gaming experience.
I mean, who the hell likes to 1hit-> run 1hit-> run -> 1hit run.. through the entire game?! You are a fucking mutant, but have to run away from 3 guys with shovels?! Seriously what the fuck.
E: Also I just remembered how BROKEN Letho is. It's just impossible to beat him convincingly:
When he is going after you, doing a heavy hit, you dogde and roll behind him.
Now you are facing his back. You do a quick stroke RIGHT into his back. Nope. While he's standing with the back to you, he will parry your attack, without moving an inch. You'll see sparks and hear the sound of 2 swords meeting: Oops! You just sliced trough his entire body and hit his sword! Too bad. Now he just instantly turns around, punches you with an aard and throws a grenade right in your face. Noob!
|
Poorly structured post ahead >.<
I played a couple of playthroughs after release, both on hard difficulty. Sure, I died a lot but I never felt weak the way you guys describe o.O
Letho was a bitch but not impossible. He was fairly limited in attack patterns and could easily be kited. After going through one playthrough he was a pushover even on hard difficulty.
I wholly agree on mouse latency. Unghhhhh. Interface was terrible but thankfully not something you had to deal with all the time.
My biggest complaint with the game however is the final act. It felt unfinished. Poorly polished and little content in comparison to the other acts.
Also, the shield sign was way OP.
Otherwise I really don't mind that the game wasn't 100% streamlined (although more than TW1). All in all I consider it being the game I enjoyed most out of 2011, right next to Dark Souls. It felt more like a game rather than just another interactive movie which seems to be the norm in RPGs nowadays :<
I'm really looking forward to doing another playthrough on the new difficulty (dark or whatever) and trying out more builds when I have more time.
|
Finished a Dark playthrough pretty recently, so my opinion of your difficulty complaint is 'lol'. Everything can be beat by getting a hang of dodge timings. Everything. Letho is a wake-up call boss for players to really learn you need to pay attention to attack patterns, and actually use dodge (or just attack->block counter->hit) to get behind him for consistent hits.
Potions being less interesting than TW1 is true though, felt a bit let-down with those. I pretty much only used Swallow/Rook/Tawny every time a battle was coming up, because you can only use a few at a time. Maybe you can do more interesting stuff with the -neg effects abilities and more powerful potions, but I could get good effects by just putting points into attacks anyways so idk.
|
On July 27 2012 19:16 Dfgj wrote:
Finished a Dark playthrough pretty recently, so my opinion of your difficulty complaint is 'lol'. Everything can be beat by getting a hang of dodge timings. Everything. Letho is a wake-up call boss for players to really learn you need to pay attention to attack patterns, and actually use dodge (or just attack->block counter->hit) to get behind him for consistent hits.
I don't really know where your're coming from with this "lol". We weren't really (at least I wasn't) complaining about the difficulty but rather about the fact that that alchemy was almost impossible to utilize. I mean you have these cool potions you made but when the fighting statrs you can't use them. And if you drink pre-emptively there is always a cut scene and the potions will have weared off. This was done way better in the original Witcher and it felt like alchemy mattered. For some reason they fixed a thing that wasn't broken.
And of course it's completely beatable with Hard but I still died a bit too much for my taste so I switched. I don't play these kind of games "to push myself" or whatever. I play the most enjoyable difficulty and in The Witcher 2 I felt like there wasn't one. The game gets easier once you get a good build going though. Abusing quen is a lame thing to do.
|
United Kingdom16710 Posts
1. I don't really mind. Every game has restrictions like these of some kind, and Witcher 2 never advertised itself as an open world RPG.
2. They are a little annoying, but you just have to learn to tune it out.
3. The only problem with the difficulty is that it gets progressively easier during the later chapters. I found the prologue/chapter 1 very well balanced across all difficulties.
4. I guess they were trying to go for a more tactical approach to potion usage than just spamming stuff whenever you need them. Still not sure how I feel about it really. I do like the whole preparation angle, but it can get a little tiresome to predict when you're going to encounter a foe, and drink the appropriate potions beforehand.
5. The Interface was not a problem for me. Everything can still be done through hotkeys, and the wheel design doesn't necessarily mean it was created with console in mind. Infinitely better than the vanilla Skyrim interface.
6. The whole dialogue system seemed like a missed opportunity. Failure always seemed random to me, and there's no clear indication of which dialogue skills you've acquired and how that affects future usage. It's just sorted of added in the skill section without further explanations. Definitely something they can work on for future titles.
My biggest problem with the game was that it was quite short, and the plot ended quite abruptly and with barely any resolutions at all. This, of course, was addressed with the enhanced edition patch, but it still feels a little bit like a drop off a cliff than a conclusion to an otherwise fantastic story.
|
On July 30 2012 15:56 d00p wrote:Show nested quote +On July 27 2012 19:16 Dfgj wrote:
Finished a Dark playthrough pretty recently, so my opinion of your difficulty complaint is 'lol'. Everything can be beat by getting a hang of dodge timings. Everything. Letho is a wake-up call boss for players to really learn you need to pay attention to attack patterns, and actually use dodge (or just attack->block counter->hit) to get behind him for consistent hits. I don't really know where your're coming from with this "lol". And of course it's completely beatable with Hard but I still died a bit too much for my taste so I switched. I don't play these kind of games "to push myself" or whatever. I play the most enjoyable difficulty and in The Witcher 2 I felt like there wasn't one. The game gets easier once you get a good build going though. Abusing quen is a lame thing to do.
From right there. God forbid we have a game that even tries to be challenging.
I don't agree that Quen is 'abuse' so much as another way to block attacks that 1-hit you (ie: most bosses) - oh, sure, you could get away with not using it, but combat is more about quen/dodge than damage reduction because no reduction will save you from actually taking a direct hit from some enemies. If you're really spamming Quen, you're not going to do much damage due to fatigue, as well.
I agree on alchemy though, having many potions running and continually using them as per TW1 was a lot more interesting and made alchemy a bigger part of the game. That said, the areas where you will need potions are pretty obvious most of the time (go here to fight person X, pre-boss fights, etc). I've always played with very low investment into the alchemy side, so potions for me were especially minimal.
|
The operator or whatever optional boss was a pain in the ASS. The room is so damn small I felt like I got lucky when I beat him. He dies fairly quickly, but you die in like 4 hits (pretty much sums up this game). Loved it though. After going through a bunch of mediocre rpgs including dragon age 2, ME3, skyrim, this one was really fun, mostly cause of its difficulty. It dumped on my computer though.
Instant health pot regen would be op, and make the game too easy. I used pots 100% of the time and I thought it was good, but not overly so. It's just that extra thing that's really useful, but not completely a crutch.
|
Personal thoughts.
Things I Didn't Like
1. I agree with you 100% through the doors. You have to stand a bit back to open them, and deep in the middle of some randomass dungeon there are 10 doors to navigate through. Considering I have timed see-in-the dark potions on, I don't want to be spending 20% of that time opening fucking doors!
2. Frigging Loc Muinne. They dropped wreckage in the most random places so instead of rationally walking across town, you have to find a way that isn't destroyed to cross maybe 20 feet of distance in about a minute.
3. The game's difficulty ramps up at the end of Act 2 (to the point where I had to switch to Easy for a bit) and then just drops off. The dragon was nothing compared to say, Vandergrift.
4. Meditating to make/drink potions. Why.
5. There are maybe 100 talent points to invest into, and you'll probably unlock under 25 in a playthrough.
6. Persuasion/intimidation/axii always works. To the point where the neutral option is useless.
7. Quen and Ydren. Everything else is useless in combat. Also, you can't just use Igni or Aard in some cases, but instead have to manually right click and push "Use Aard/Igni".
8. Using the mouse instead of the E button to make actions.
9. Lack of fast travel
10. Acts 1 and 2 were amazing and had hours of gameplay, Act 3 barely took me 15 minutes. Also where the hell were the sidequests for Act 3? I couldn't find them so I just went on my merry way to rescue Triss.
11. Autosaving was crap in the second act.
Things I Liked
1. The storylines. The key decisions you make in the game radically change Acts 2 and 3, and who you interact with. And you have to do the game twice to see both sides of Act 2.
2. Characters had good personality and motives.
3. Lots and lots of plot twists to keep you entertained.
4. The option to not fight Letho if you feel tired after playing the game for a few hours. And just chug some vodka w/ him instead.
5. The decency to put in quicksaving.
6. Sword combat system was fairly nice. I like the mechanic where you can duck out, do your thing, then roll back into the fight.
7. The story itself. My favorite part was where you get rid of the mist by changing the course of history and screw with the wraiths.
|
On July 31 2012 07:21 [UoN]Sentinel wrote:
3. The game's difficulty ramps up at the end of Act 2 (to the point where I had to switch to Easy for a bit) and then just drops off. The dragon was nothing compared to say, Vandergrift.
Wait what. The dragon 1-shots you on higher difficulties and has a variety of attacks. Vandergrift does significantly less and is defeated by just bashing him head-on then rolling away after 2 hits.
Axii is also useful in higher difficulties, especially early on when you can barely kill things one on one.
I agree with the relatively low content of Act 3 though, even with the various sidequests (and there are some!), I really wish it was a full Act like the others.
|
I believe there was more content in the enhanced edition if you didn't play that for act 3. Not that much more though to be comparable to act 2.
|
On July 31 2012 10:34 Dfgj wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2012 07:21 [UoN]Sentinel wrote:
3. The game's difficulty ramps up at the end of Act 2 (to the point where I had to switch to Easy for a bit) and then just drops off. The dragon was nothing compared to say, Vandergrift. Wait what. The dragon 1-shots you on higher difficulties and has a variety of attacks. Vandergrift does significantly less and is defeated by just bashing him head-on then rolling away after 2 hits. Axii is also useful in higher difficulties, especially early on when you can barely kill things one on one. I agree with the relatively low content of Act 3 though, even with the various sidequests (and there are some!), I really wish it was a full Act like the others.
The dragon you can just sidestep and strike him in the side of the head. Vandergrift would just hit me anytime I came too close, and instead of walking into my Ydrens he'd just stand there like a champ and call arrows down on me instead.
|
On July 31 2012 11:09 [UoN]Sentinel wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2012 10:34 Dfgj wrote:On July 31 2012 07:21 [UoN]Sentinel wrote:
3. The game's difficulty ramps up at the end of Act 2 (to the point where I had to switch to Easy for a bit) and then just drops off. The dragon was nothing compared to say, Vandergrift. Wait what. The dragon 1-shots you on higher difficulties and has a variety of attacks. Vandergrift does significantly less and is defeated by just bashing him head-on then rolling away after 2 hits. Axii is also useful in higher difficulties, especially early on when you can barely kill things one on one. I agree with the relatively low content of Act 3 though, even with the various sidequests (and there are some!), I really wish it was a full Act like the others. The dragon you can just sidestep and strike him in the side of the head. Vandergrift would just hit me anytime I came too close, and instead of walking into my Ydrens he'd just stand there like a champ and call arrows down on me instead.
This is all true, but I found consistently sidestepping the Dragon while staying close enough to keep her from flying back harder than just rolling up to Vandergrift, hitting him a few times, then rolling away. That and the whole 'hit for 1000 damage and firebreath quen off' thing made the dragon more annoying for me.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
