The second boss doesn't have any obvious weakness, so it's not really the games fault for not pointing it out. It's all about learning his patterns and interrupting them before he can push you away. It takes a lot of trial and error but eventually you know how it can be done, even if you fail doing so the next 10 times. The worst part was that I didn't anticipate the fight, even though it was quite clear something was going down. So I never got to prepare with potions the first time around, which really really helps (had to reload before the quest activated). It can also help out, for a while, if you gather places of power on the way before activating the quest. This is however, something that came in hindsight I admit. I've also recently noticed that traps does not take as much time as I thought to place, even in battle, so putting up a shield and cramming the place with traps can also help.
After finding the Tutorial tab and checked out the manual I really can't say I had any more problems with my character at least. Kiting enemies is still just as useful as it ever has been and will help narrow out their lines instead of trying to aim for the nearest enemy and roll for the guy in the back (okay, the aiming is really stupid). I have yet met an enemy I simply cannot run away from that isn't a boss or QTE moment.
I don't know, is it plain out bad design to expect players to check out the game manual nowadays?
<!--quoteo(post=1848504:date=May 26 2011, 01:12 PM:name=Monkfish)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Monkfish @ May 26 2011, 01:12 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1848504"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If you got to the second boss and still didn't know what the ###### to do..man I just can't imagine how you function in day to day life without seriously injuring yourself because that's just a retarded thing to say.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I know what to do against regular enemies, don't attack them in large groups, make sure you stay out of the middle, use signs to keep them broken up, focus on one at a time, take out the weakest first, etc etc.
But then the game throws a dude who turns invincible literally 90% of the time, throws area effect ranged attacks at you, is essentially immune to most of your magics because of the aforementioned invincibility, has way more health than you, can block indefinitely, and you're locked in a tiny room without any chance to use your potions beforehand because you already fought a miniboss and had two long conversations before getting to him.
Basically the game keeps changing the rules, which is kind of cheap.
Same goes for the first boss, right out of the gate if you aren't moving straight away it smacks you with the tentacles and does a crapton of damage, then as you're wondering what the hell happened it smacks you with another one and usually kills you, so that's your first death. Assuming you're not still wondering what the hell happened your next run will have you dodge the tentacles with only a scrape or two (and at this point you probably reloaded some distance earlier and used a few potions to help you out, so you should recover that health). But then you have to figure out how to actually damage it. It doesn't have any accessible weak points so you need to wait for the game to flat out tell you 'use the stun sign' although it isn't clear exactly how. Once you figure out you need to trap the tentacles you get one down and hack the glowy thing off. And what do you know you cut off a tentacle.
Thing is, now the game says 'hey watch out it's getting angry' so you think 'oh crap I should move' but hilariously enough, moving is the exact opposite of what you should do, because the only safe place is exactly where you just cut off a tentacle, so the correct response to the game telling you to watch out, is to do absolutely nothing at all.
Your next response is probably to go for the next door tentacle, but surprisingly that one won't smack down on you, actually that tentacle just swipes you back into the middle of the arena and if you're unlucky that can get you a double smack from the other tentacles, which can bring you rather close to death.
At this point you've probably encountered the main problem with the stunning mechanic, in order to stun tentacles you need to lure them over the sign, but the thing is, if you start moving as soon as the tentacle moves to attack, it's probably going to MISS the sign, so generally, you either miss the sign or get hit trying to aim the tentacle at it, making a simple mechanic really bloody annoying.
Assuming you manage to get three of the tentacles down (which involves the previously unusable tentacles suddenly changing behaviour, good job there consistency) the game throws your second pretty much unavoidable death at you, assuming you are perfect the rest of the fight right off the bat. After flailing around a bit the monster apparently gets crushed by a bridge, which you think 'hey that must have killed it' except it didn't. Instead it throws an almost undodgeable rock at you without any warning doing an absolute assload of damage and probably stunlocking you. Congrats, second unavoidable death.
Assuming you manage to figure out that you need to hide behind the rubble, you now are faced with figuring out what else to do, I mean you can't move out from behind your rock really, so what do you do? Well first you probably go for the tentacle on the ground, because you only killed three and there's four with the little glowy things on right? No! That tentacle smacks you into the open and the other one throws another rock at you, so you probably die again. Finally, you eventually figure out that you have to climb the (apparently climbable, although it doesn't look it from where you land) bridge fragment and the boss just automatically loses the last third of its life bar.
The thing about all of this is the game doesn't make any of this clear, you have to figure it out, and it's not remotely like the rest of the game, because the boss fights have special rules that don't come up anywhere else. And the really annoying bit is that the game just flat out kills you if you don't get it absolutely right. And the camera angles aren't too good either in this game, usually the camera is stuck behind some foliage or something, or it's pitch black, or you're fighting a giant squid which means you can either see the tentacles or the floor but not both so you can't actually tell where it's going to hit very accurately.
The game is just full of hidden mechanics and what amounts to a huge series of cheap shots where it pulls some new mechanic out of its ass and throws it at you and then kills you when you fail to understand it immediately. This makes it rather tedious as it forces you to reload a lot and replay the same stupid cutscene full of piss jokes to get to the bit where you died.
It is almost enjoyable when I am just out grinding for money, except for the fact that I'm grinding for money, but at least that part features consistent mechanics and the opportunity to fight or leave and the game gives you the opportunty to do a bit of self determination, what a novel thing for an RPG to do...
The rest of the time it's just dropping you in scripted sequences with annoying limitations and horribly disadvantageous positioning because the main character is apparently brain dead when I'm not controlling him.
It's kind of like if portal 2 had a little robot following you around, and if you stopped to think about the puzzle for more than about ten seconds, the robot kills you. He also kills you if you don't move in the correct direction to solve the puzzle within ten seconds.
Not having obvious solutions is fine, if the point of the game is to solve puzzles, but if the point of the game is to solve puzzles, maybe you want to give the player time to think about it instead of killing them and then making them wait another 5 minutes to get back to where they were in order to have another 10 second window of looking at the puzzle before they die again.
<!--quoteo(post=1848527:date=May 26 2011, 02:44 PM:name=Svenpa)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Svenpa @ May 26 2011, 02:44 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1848527"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I don't know, is it plain out bad design to expect players to check out the game manual nowadays?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I think it is, and that's coming from someone who used to read the Warcraft 2 manual for fun. I'm going to use FPS examples here because I don't play the Witcher 2.
First of all, we've been conditioned against it for a while. Manuals have been getting increasingly useless. I'm an experienced gamer, I don't need to know that W makes me walk forward and R is for reloading. There's no universal agreement on how grenades are thrown, but increasingly it's just a single key that I can find in the keybindings.
This brings me to my second point, sorting the new from the old. Somewhere buried among "press W to walk forward" and "press R to reload" there may be "press F to activate emergency shields." That's important information, it's something that goes against the simple FPS conventions and if you don't explain that in an in-game tutorial the player's probably never going to know about it. There's a chance that someone completely new to the genre will read the manual cover to cover, but an FPS veteran will skim it at best (and that's if you're very lucky), and they're not going to read the keybind list in-depth. Anything you can't reasonably expect them to know from other games, you HAVE to either point out specifically with its own heading or include in the in-game tutorial.
Finally, seperate manuals in particular are outdated. Integrate that ######. Integrate it like a mother-######. Take an example from Just Cause 2: Plenty of alien concepts in that game, but they're well-explained in the tutorial. In fact, by the end of the tutorial you've learned quite a few new concepts, so you've probably forgotten several things already, which is why the game keeps prompting you, even with the basic stuff. Stand next to a car door and there'll be a floating E over it, indicating that that's how you get into the vehicle. If you're standing on top of the vehicle there'll be key-prompts at the side of the screen telling you both how to jump to an adjacent car, how to enter the car you're currently standing on, and how to simply jump off. Yes, the hand-holding seems a bit exaggerated at times, but there really are quite a few original concepts to memorize, so the constant reminders are welcome. And you can probably turn them off in the settings once you're tired of them, I haven't checked. And furthermore, whenever you're looking at the map (and you'll do that often), the in-game manual is two clicks away. Again, the IN-GAME MANUAL. I'd much, much rather pause the game and look at the manual on the screen than having to leaf through a paper manual or alt-tab to a pdf document. So integrate like a mother-######, and watch the miracles hapen.
<!--quoteo(post=1848335:date=May 25 2011, 10:20 AM:name=dux)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (dux @ May 25 2011, 10:20 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1848335"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The prologue/introduction in this game is possibly one of the most difficult and most unforgiving I've experienced in recent memory. However, once I got past its many frustrations it blossomed into a lovely game. Although it has lost its damp celtic feel; which I'm sad about. A well spent £24.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> There is really nothing to be ashamed about in changing difficulty to easy.
Prologue which some people call tutorial isn't a tutorial. It's first part of the game. Tutorial is what you have in the journal in form of ~20 entries.
Kayran - as far as I remember you were being taught that fight with it will be hard for at least 30 minutes of playing before starting the fight. That includes ostmurk, Loredo's trap and book on kayrans. You're also supposed (for your own mental health) to try to do easier side quests before engaging big boss.
Chris you're correct when it comes to all the ways in which you can get stuff wrong and die but people playing normal difficulty already found out that they would get killed often. If you're playing on easy (and people switch difficulty on bosses or even earlier after noticing normal difficulty here isn't everyone's normal) you don't get stuff thrown at you, tentacles are slower and as far as I remember less of them need to be cut off to trigger QTE. There's clear progression - you die by tentacle -> you know to avoid it. You know how to trap -> you trap and cut all tentacles. You fail QTE -> you do it again. 5-10 deaths later on easy (and maybe 20 on normal) you get ###### killed.
You're just blowing ###### out of proportions even if it's really, really harsh. People playing on normal get through it or lower difficulty and are just fine. To sum up - dying often = fine, dying really painfully often = fine too, dying without knowing what killed you = bad.
Well except that on easy the combat becomes 'hit mouse 1 until everything dies or your finger drops off'.
I do prefer it over 'die repeatedly/take forever to kill things' but jesus christ this game has boring fighting. Quite literally the only real attack you get throughout the entire game is 'press mouse1 to hit things with your sword'.
I mean even the worst RPGs out there have the option to use maybe a shield, or a bow, or to play a spellcaster, but spellcasting is incredibly weak in this game and reallly only serves to give you an opening in which to hit the enemy with your sword.
There's no positioning, no strategy, no interessting use of different spells with different effects, you just hit mouse1 and press Q or R to stun people so you can better press mouse 1. Although generally you're better off not using magic because of course using magic makes your sword attacks do less damage. The fastest way to kill anything remains hitting it with your sword until it falls over.
I mean neverwinter nights did that for fighters, but it at least had the courtesy to automate the swings so you didn't have to keep clicking. And everyone with half a brain played a class with some magic or a rogue at least which rewards you for positioning well.
The witcher gives you one weapon, five spells, and a bunch of throwables which are all copies of the two most similar spells. That's a really good RPG loadout that is.
<!--quoteo(post=1848567:date=May 26 2011, 05:16 PM:name=Chris0132)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Chris0132 @ May 26 2011, 05:16 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1848567"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->There's no positioning, no strategy<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I think that people raped by nekkers even on easy disagree with you.
<!--quoteo(post=1848569:date=May 26 2011, 04:26 PM:name=MOOtant)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (MOOtant @ May 26 2011, 04:26 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1848569"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think that people raped by nekkers even on easy disagree with you.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well, ok, the positioning and strategy boil down to 'stay away from enemies if you aren't hitting mouse1'.
But it's not like say, getting into a good position in stalker to snipe from, or circling around slower enemies to hit them in the weak spot, or putting your back to a wall to keep them in your field of view, or controlling them with area denial spells or all of the things you would normally get in a good RPG.
There is very little variety in how you fight most enemies, you really just keep away from them and then periodically mash mouse1 until they die. There aren't any weaknesses to exploit or limitations, you can't say 'oh that guy is a mage so send the striker after him and the tank can go aggro these guys so that our mage can AOE nuke them' or even the single character equivalent of that, the game just doesn't give you any options, your one option is 'run in, hit them with the sword, use magic to make them more vulnerable to being hit with the sword, hit them with the sword some more, for EVERY SINGLE FIGHT.
It's like they took DnD, made a class that is kind of like a striker only not that good at it, and then told him that he has to go fight a campaign designed for a four man party. He can't use magic to solve problems, but magic clearly exists in the world, he can't use ranged weapons despite the intro basically being a huge advertisement campaign for how much better crossbows are than anything else, he can't open locks or bash down doors despite them mostly being attached to wooden shacks and the resident mage character blowing up a a bloody portcullis in the first act, and he can't even take a hit worth a damn.
So really he feels like the weakest bugger in the game, and there's all these other people you'd rather play as, but you can't.
I'm hearing many more complaints about the difficulty than I'm hearing praise about the game, and yet its reviews average 90%. Very strange. I do want to try it but there's no way in hell I'm shelling out $50 for a game that might frustrate me into quitting within the first hour.
<!--quoteo(post=1848687:date=May 27 2011, 06:06 AM:name=DiscoZombie)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (DiscoZombie @ May 27 2011, 06:06 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1848687"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I'm hearing many more complaints about the difficulty than I'm hearing praise about the game, and yet its reviews average 90%. Very strange. I do want to try it but there's no way in hell I'm shelling out $50 for a game that might frustrate me into quitting within the first hour.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> It's very simple. If you play on easy, read some of the tutorial and won't rage after dying 1-2 times in prologue then you'll be able to focus on story. If you select normal and can't keep up with the difficulty you'll be so frustrated that any kind of story will at most annoy you. Reviews can be split into: 1. chose easy, had fun, gave high score 2. chose normal, died, put some effort into it, had fun, gave high score 3. chose normal, died, got frustrated about the game, gave score like 6/10
Group #2 doesn't consist of just blind idiots giving 9/10 because of nice graphics. Every review in that group that I saw listed inventory, doors, bad performance with early drivers and so on. OT: All game scores are inflated since quite some time and I routinely see 9 for game that is like boring 8 (for instance IGN - review vs user scores).
There are lots of tiny issues here and there and you simply won't see them if you got engrossed by the game. They are forgiven by great majority of reviewers (both metacritic scores)
I heard some whining about not being RPG but I haven't seen any other game where your choices matter so much. I find story being non-linear far more interesting than spending hundreds of hours slowly improving some character stats. It certainly isn't a game where you start with blank character and shape it in any way you want.
When it comes to difficulty - I played and I loved Betrayal at Krondor which was pretty hard. Biggest problem with W2 can be that you have totally different expectations than what it is.
Difficulty whiners are very loud while there's barely any reason to shout when you're satisfied with the game. Take that into account. TBH game is so cheap that I don't know why anyone would not risk spending that $30-35. (Steam version costs more but that's just Steam)
So far I really enjoy myself whenever I'm not just running from point A to B, and I can't really see where Chris is coming from. While I would like some more exact control over what sword move I use, saying that it's just "mouse1 over and over" doesn't seem any more relevant than it would be for a FPS or Diablo, and I never expected to be much of a magic user (though they do feel disappointingly weak compared to witcher1).
<!--quoteo(post=1848726:date=May 27 2011, 12:35 PM:name=Align)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Align @ May 27 2011, 12:35 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1848726"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->So far I really enjoy myself whenever I'm not just running from point A to B, and I can't really see where Chris is coming from. While I would like some more exact control over what sword move I use, saying that it's just "mouse1 over and over" doesn't seem any more relevant than it would be for a FPS or Diablo, and I never expected to be much of a magic user (though they do feel disappointingly weak compared to witcher1).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Just wait until you get to level 20+, mage is pretty badass even if the adrenalin activated sign 'helitrope' is just an melee sort of an enhancement.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Available now at the game's official site and through auto update on Steam, patch 1.1 allows for keyboard re-mapping, mouse inversion[...]<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1848726:date=May 27 2011, 11:35 AM:name=Align)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Align @ May 27 2011, 11:35 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1848726"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->So far I really enjoy myself whenever I'm not just running from point A to B, and I can't really see where Chris is coming from. While I would like some more exact control over what sword move I use, saying that it's just "mouse1 over and over" doesn't seem any more relevant than it would be for a FPS or Diablo, and I never expected to be much of a magic user (though they do feel disappointingly weak compared to witcher1).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
There is an awful lot of just running from point A to point B.
In fact that's what most of the quests entail, go talk to this guy, go kill this stuf on the other side of the map, run back to this guy.
In an FPS you have to pick the right gun and aim, in the witcher you don't have any other weapons and he automatically bounces around the place without you pressing the movement keys. Turn easy on and you literally don't have to press anything other than mouse1 in most fights, and he jumps around by himself.
I didn't ever play diablo but I assume half the point is using your special abilities to deal with monsters efficiently, like lining them up and throwing a spear through a bunch of them, or clustering them together and fireballing them. Witcher doesn't have any of that.
<!--quoteo(post=1848762:date=May 27 2011, 05:37 PM:name=lolfighter)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (lolfighter @ May 27 2011, 05:37 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1848762"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It didn't have those from the beginning?!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm sitting with 1.0 atm and you can remap but only through the launcher when in windows, not ingame.
On another note on the patch, I hope you guys got the game through somewhere else than steam because steam does not allow .exe patches and the witcher 2 data file is 9gb so you have to redownload those 9gb to get the new patch. Enjoy. The actual patch is like 12mb.
<!--quoteo(post=1848776:date=May 27 2011, 05:39 PM:name=Svenpa)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Svenpa @ May 27 2011, 05:39 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1848776"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I'm sitting with 1.0 atm and you can remap but only through the launcher when in windows, not ingame.
On another note on the patch, I hope you guys got the game through somewhere else than steam because steam does not allow .exe patches and the witcher 2 data file is 9gb so you have to redownload those 9gb to get the new patch. Enjoy. The actual patch is like 12mb.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Pretty sure that's bollocks.
Considering every other game I own will download a small amount of data for a patch, not the whole data file.
Considering every other game I own will download a small amount of data for a patch, not the whole data file.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Take a <a href="http://www.gog.com/en/forum/the_witcher_2/steam_patch_size_9_281_8_mb" target="_blank">look</a> <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/thewitcher2/show_msgs.php?topic_id=m-1-59247233&pid=975399" target="_blank">around.</a>
I even saw a screenshot of it on the infamous /v/ channel but I can hardly say that's reliable.
<!--quoteo(post=1848784:date=May 27 2011, 07:06 PM:name=sherpa)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (sherpa @ May 27 2011, 07:06 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1848784"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Disappointed with L.A. Noire so will use that to trade-in.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Not to derail the thread, but how? I'm pretty hyped about LA Noire.
Everything else aside, right now I feel like bashing someone's skull in. That fight against Letho sucked so damn hard, he kept making himself invincible and I couldn't do ###### but run away and pray that none of his ranged attacks hit me and took out ~1/4th of my health. And then it turns out I only had to get him to 50% health... ugh.
<!--quoteo(post=1848786:date=May 27 2011, 06:16 PM:name=Svenpa)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Svenpa @ May 27 2011, 06:16 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1848786"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Not to derail the thread, but how? I'm pretty hyped about LA Noire.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's like Assasins Creed 1- there's definitely potential but there's no variety. I'm towards the end of the homocide cases, and every case so far is :
1. Go to crime scene. Get clues. 2. Chase/shoot/talk to someone. 3. Interrogate suspect, or start new case and go back to 1.
Also disappointed to see that you can't get cases "wrong". Regardless of how good/bad you did, you always get the guilty person.
Interrogation gets old, quickly. Your responses to their statements follow a set pattern:
1. They look at you when talking. It's the truth. 2. They look away when talking, but you can't prove their statement is a lie. Click "doubt". 3. They look away when talking, and you can prove their statement is a lie. Click "lie".
Downloaded just the patch for me. I mean... as far as I can tell anyways.
Patch is pretty good tho. Performance is better, troll trouble included an so on.
Also, yeah, most quests are just talk to A or B... BUT and that is a big but *badumtisch* talking to people is actually fun in this game, since they usually have something interesting to say.
Having finished the game all I can say is it felt totally backwards with the skillpoints you allocate. All types of crowd control is given late in the game, but all types of crowds practically diminish after getting to mid chapter 2 (Ioverth path), not counting <span style='color:#000000;background:#000000'>the battle of Vergen</span>. I would've had most use of them earlier instead of later where there are more single powerful enemies than masses of enemies. I just felt cheated from the satisfaction of cutting down 10 enemies with ease just for once.
I already feel like the "tutorial" is the hardest part. Trying to do that on insane is well... insane. But once you get past that it gets a lot easier.
Alright, so I've played through it twice now (not with all side quests though), and I'm glad I read a little about it here before starting; I might have raged quite a bit at the difficulty otherwise.
My first playthrough was a little painful when it came to combat, mostly because of my tendency to just rambo in and slice everything - which worked in TW1 with the stance mechanics. I also didn't use the Quen sign until around the end of chapter one, which was pretty dumb from my part. Gameplay enjoyment skyrocketed once I decided to be less cocky and actually think a little even if it meant standing still for a few seconds. I played everything on Normal except a few encounters on Easy. As for the story, I really liked it and was impressed at the amount of choices and the impact they have. I was kind of overwhelmed with all those kingdom names and overall lore, though.
Then I took TW2 for another playthough, this time only on Normal, even if I have to retry 99 times. I thought it'd still be hard but it turned out to be a smoooooooth ride. First, I didn't waste points in stuff like "deflect arrows" and "throw daggers" (I know, daggers are powerful, but investing those points in the combat tree turned out way more useful for me), I was able to identify threats much more easily and was overall more careful. I also had a better grasp of the equipment and crafting system. Simply put, it was so easy that I sometimes wondered if there was a bug or something. Main bosses stay the same, so once you know how it goes, it's a piece of cake (especially if you know how to prevent the Kayran from starting to throw rocks). I think I only died 7-8 times in total, and that includes facing the unknown in a whole different chapter II and a new side of chapter III. I only drank potions 2 or 3 times during the whole game, sometimes because I was confident, other times because I didn't feel like jumping a few saves behind to prepare accordingly.
I think most people agree there is a lack of teaching at the beginning and many players stick with habits from other games and rush in blindly. I'd have a few suggestions for that but it's kind of pointless to post them here.
Aside from that, there's little I dislike about the game. Minor annoyances like getting doors slammed in my face by my allies or having to trick the combat AI from time to time didn't bother me too much and I don't recall running into game breaking bugs. Some NPCs blocked me a couple of times but being persistent ends up making them move. The potion drinking mechanic is a shame though; in TW1 you could drink potions on the spot, and I think this would solve many difficulty problems in this game.
I really encourage people to play through it again and side with the "enemy" of their first game if they want to better understand what's going on. I'm still clueless about a few things though, so it might take more than that.
Character dialogs are impressive especially compared to TW1. However I feel that some characters had great potential but were underdeveloped, namely Saskia and Ves. The former has some quite awesome skills and is said to be central to the rebel uprising, but her dialogs with Geralt are pretty dry: <span style='color:#000000;background:#000000'>"You have to support us!", gets poisoned, you save her, "Thanks bro!", she saves you, "Just don't tell anyone I'm a dragon.", you beat her in dragon form and release her from mind domination, "I'd rather bang a dwarf, or maybe an elf. Farewell."</span>. The latter is one of the first character you see in the game and is portrayed as a closed, rigid woman with a hard past but shows more of her emotions later on <span style='color:#000000;background:#000000'>with the baby's birth at Loredo's and when her crying/jumping in Geralt's arms at the end of Act II (royal side)</span>. I expected some good character development afterwards but I found nothing (<span style='color:#000000;background:#000000'>I went for Triss in Chapter III so maybe there's something more if I go with Roche</span>). So yeah, either I missed something or it's just not there. Maybe some DLC?
My two orens. A great game once the difficulty side is taken care of.
P.S. You guys mentioned elves backstabbing you again and again; can you be more specific? I fell I missed something :p
Edit: If you're not planning on playing the same character anymore, you might want to deal with the saved games. I've accumulated 2.75GB of those in two playthroughs.
<!--quoteo(post=1849616:date=Jun 2 2011, 03:46 PM:name=dux)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (dux @ Jun 2 2011, 03:46 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1849616"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->When I get time to play I find myself holding the walk key a lot purely so I can enjoy the eye candy around me. It really is a visual feast.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Really?
I found it incredibly generic, it's literally one of the most generic looking fantasy settings I've seen in a very long time.
I mean, the lord of the rings games were less generic looking than this, and they are based off the book that invented the stock fantasy setting.
The resolution is ok, textures have lots of pixels, models have lots of polygons, game has lots of shaders etc etc, but the actual stuff they make with it isn't very eye catching at all. Bit like someone took the setting of some low budget fantasy game like two worlds or spellforce or something and just made it high res.
If I'm honest I probably prefer oblivion, if you get a good viewpoint the vistas you can see in oblivion are really rather nice, if a bit dated nowadays. Or crysis, not so much for its resolution so much as it does stuff like having a giant frozen tropical island with a huge alien tower in the middle, stuff that has an impressive design to it rather than just having a lot of texture detail or whatnot.
It's a bit like halo when you see the pillar of autumn crashed into the desert, it's pretty cool even if it's really horribly textured and stuff, the game lacks anything like that, too much focus on samey-looking caves or cramped cesspit towns.
Comments
After finding the Tutorial tab and checked out the manual I really can't say I had any more problems with my character at least. Kiting enemies is still just as useful as it ever has been and will help narrow out their lines instead of trying to aim for the nearest enemy and roll for the guy in the back (okay, the aiming is really stupid). I have yet met an enemy I simply cannot run away from that isn't a boss or QTE moment.
I don't know, is it plain out bad design to expect players to check out the game manual nowadays?
I know what to do against regular enemies, don't attack them in large groups, make sure you stay out of the middle, use signs to keep them broken up, focus on one at a time, take out the weakest first, etc etc.
But then the game throws a dude who turns invincible literally 90% of the time, throws area effect ranged attacks at you, is essentially immune to most of your magics because of the aforementioned invincibility, has way more health than you, can block indefinitely, and you're locked in a tiny room without any chance to use your potions beforehand because you already fought a miniboss and had two long conversations before getting to him.
Basically the game keeps changing the rules, which is kind of cheap.
Same goes for the first boss, right out of the gate if you aren't moving straight away it smacks you with the tentacles and does a crapton of damage, then as you're wondering what the hell happened it smacks you with another one and usually kills you, so that's your first death. Assuming you're not still wondering what the hell happened your next run will have you dodge the tentacles with only a scrape or two (and at this point you probably reloaded some distance earlier and used a few potions to help you out, so you should recover that health). But then you have to figure out how to actually damage it. It doesn't have any accessible weak points so you need to wait for the game to flat out tell you 'use the stun sign' although it isn't clear exactly how. Once you figure out you need to trap the tentacles you get one down and hack the glowy thing off. And what do you know you cut off a tentacle.
Thing is, now the game says 'hey watch out it's getting angry' so you think 'oh crap I should move' but hilariously enough, moving is the exact opposite of what you should do, because the only safe place is exactly where you just cut off a tentacle, so the correct response to the game telling you to watch out, is to do absolutely nothing at all.
Your next response is probably to go for the next door tentacle, but surprisingly that one won't smack down on you, actually that tentacle just swipes you back into the middle of the arena and if you're unlucky that can get you a double smack from the other tentacles, which can bring you rather close to death.
At this point you've probably encountered the main problem with the stunning mechanic, in order to stun tentacles you need to lure them over the sign, but the thing is, if you start moving as soon as the tentacle moves to attack, it's probably going to MISS the sign, so generally, you either miss the sign or get hit trying to aim the tentacle at it, making a simple mechanic really bloody annoying.
Assuming you manage to get three of the tentacles down (which involves the previously unusable tentacles suddenly changing behaviour, good job there consistency) the game throws your second pretty much unavoidable death at you, assuming you are perfect the rest of the fight right off the bat. After flailing around a bit the monster apparently gets crushed by a bridge, which you think 'hey that must have killed it' except it didn't. Instead it throws an almost undodgeable rock at you without any warning doing an absolute assload of damage and probably stunlocking you. Congrats, second unavoidable death.
Assuming you manage to figure out that you need to hide behind the rubble, you now are faced with figuring out what else to do, I mean you can't move out from behind your rock really, so what do you do? Well first you probably go for the tentacle on the ground, because you only killed three and there's four with the little glowy things on right? No! That tentacle smacks you into the open and the other one throws another rock at you, so you probably die again. Finally, you eventually figure out that you have to climb the (apparently climbable, although it doesn't look it from where you land) bridge fragment and the boss just automatically loses the last third of its life bar.
The thing about all of this is the game doesn't make any of this clear, you have to figure it out, and it's not remotely like the rest of the game, because the boss fights have special rules that don't come up anywhere else. And the really annoying bit is that the game just flat out kills you if you don't get it absolutely right. And the camera angles aren't too good either in this game, usually the camera is stuck behind some foliage or something, or it's pitch black, or you're fighting a giant squid which means you can either see the tentacles or the floor but not both so you can't actually tell where it's going to hit very accurately.
The game is just full of hidden mechanics and what amounts to a huge series of cheap shots where it pulls some new mechanic out of its ass and throws it at you and then kills you when you fail to understand it immediately. This makes it rather tedious as it forces you to reload a lot and replay the same stupid cutscene full of piss jokes to get to the bit where you died.
It is almost enjoyable when I am just out grinding for money, except for the fact that I'm grinding for money, but at least that part features consistent mechanics and the opportunity to fight or leave and the game gives you the opportunty to do a bit of self determination, what a novel thing for an RPG to do...
The rest of the time it's just dropping you in scripted sequences with annoying limitations and horribly disadvantageous positioning because the main character is apparently brain dead when I'm not controlling him.
It's kind of like if portal 2 had a little robot following you around, and if you stopped to think about the puzzle for more than about ten seconds, the robot kills you. He also kills you if you don't move in the correct direction to solve the puzzle within ten seconds.
Not having obvious solutions is fine, if the point of the game is to solve puzzles, but if the point of the game is to solve puzzles, maybe you want to give the player time to think about it instead of killing them and then making them wait another 5 minutes to get back to where they were in order to have another 10 second window of looking at the puzzle before they die again.
I think it is, and that's coming from someone who used to read the Warcraft 2 manual for fun.
I'm going to use FPS examples here because I don't play the Witcher 2.
First of all, we've been conditioned against it for a while. Manuals have been getting increasingly useless. I'm an experienced gamer, I don't need to know that W makes me walk forward and R is for reloading. There's no universal agreement on how grenades are thrown, but increasingly it's just a single key that I can find in the keybindings.
This brings me to my second point, sorting the new from the old. Somewhere buried among "press W to walk forward" and "press R to reload" there may be "press F to activate emergency shields." That's important information, it's something that goes against the simple FPS conventions and if you don't explain that in an in-game tutorial the player's probably never going to know about it. There's a chance that someone completely new to the genre will read the manual cover to cover, but an FPS veteran will skim it at best (and that's if you're very lucky), and they're not going to read the keybind list in-depth. Anything you can't reasonably expect them to know from other games, you HAVE to either point out specifically with its own heading or include in the in-game tutorial.
Finally, seperate manuals in particular are outdated. Integrate that ######. Integrate it like a mother-######. Take an example from Just Cause 2: Plenty of alien concepts in that game, but they're well-explained in the tutorial. In fact, by the end of the tutorial you've learned quite a few new concepts, so you've probably forgotten several things already, which is why the game keeps prompting you, even with the basic stuff. Stand next to a car door and there'll be a floating E over it, indicating that that's how you get into the vehicle. If you're standing on top of the vehicle there'll be key-prompts at the side of the screen telling you both how to jump to an adjacent car, how to enter the car you're currently standing on, and how to simply jump off. Yes, the hand-holding seems a bit exaggerated at times, but there really are quite a few original concepts to memorize, so the constant reminders are welcome. And you can probably turn them off in the settings once you're tired of them, I haven't checked. And furthermore, whenever you're looking at the map (and you'll do that often), the in-game manual is two clicks away. Again, the IN-GAME MANUAL. I'd much, much rather pause the game and look at the manual on the screen than having to leaf through a paper manual or alt-tab to a pdf document. So integrate like a mother-######, and watch the miracles hapen.
There is really nothing to be ashamed about in changing difficulty to easy.
Prologue which some people call tutorial isn't a tutorial. It's first part of the game. Tutorial is what you have in the journal in form of ~20 entries.
Kayran - as far as I remember you were being taught that fight with it will be hard for at least 30 minutes of playing before starting the fight. That includes ostmurk, Loredo's trap and book on kayrans. You're also supposed (for your own mental health) to try to do easier side quests before engaging big boss.
Chris you're correct when it comes to all the ways in which you can get stuff wrong and die but people playing normal difficulty already found out that they would get killed often. If you're playing on easy (and people switch difficulty on bosses or even earlier after noticing normal difficulty here isn't everyone's normal) you don't get stuff thrown at you, tentacles are slower and as far as I remember less of them need to be cut off to trigger QTE. There's clear progression - you die by tentacle -> you know to avoid it. You know how to trap -> you trap and cut all tentacles. You fail QTE -> you do it again. 5-10 deaths later on easy (and maybe 20 on normal) you get ###### killed.
You're just blowing ###### out of proportions even if it's really, really harsh. People playing on normal get through it or lower difficulty and are just fine. To sum up - dying often = fine, dying really painfully often = fine too, dying without knowing what killed you = bad.
I do prefer it over 'die repeatedly/take forever to kill things' but jesus christ this game has boring fighting. Quite literally the only real attack you get throughout the entire game is 'press mouse1 to hit things with your sword'.
I mean even the worst RPGs out there have the option to use maybe a shield, or a bow, or to play a spellcaster, but spellcasting is incredibly weak in this game and reallly only serves to give you an opening in which to hit the enemy with your sword.
There's no positioning, no strategy, no interessting use of different spells with different effects, you just hit mouse1 and press Q or R to stun people so you can better press mouse 1. Although generally you're better off not using magic because of course using magic makes your sword attacks do less damage. The fastest way to kill anything remains hitting it with your sword until it falls over.
I mean neverwinter nights did that for fighters, but it at least had the courtesy to automate the swings so you didn't have to keep clicking. And everyone with half a brain played a class with some magic or a rogue at least which rewards you for positioning well.
The witcher gives you one weapon, five spells, and a bunch of throwables which are all copies of the two most similar spells. That's a really good RPG loadout that is.
I think that people raped by nekkers even on easy disagree with you.
Well, ok, the positioning and strategy boil down to 'stay away from enemies if you aren't hitting mouse1'.
But it's not like say, getting into a good position in stalker to snipe from, or circling around slower enemies to hit them in the weak spot, or putting your back to a wall to keep them in your field of view, or controlling them with area denial spells or all of the things you would normally get in a good RPG.
There is very little variety in how you fight most enemies, you really just keep away from them and then periodically mash mouse1 until they die. There aren't any weaknesses to exploit or limitations, you can't say 'oh that guy is a mage so send the striker after him and the tank can go aggro these guys so that our mage can AOE nuke them' or even the single character equivalent of that, the game just doesn't give you any options, your one option is 'run in, hit them with the sword, use magic to make them more vulnerable to being hit with the sword, hit them with the sword some more, for EVERY SINGLE FIGHT.
It's like they took DnD, made a class that is kind of like a striker only not that good at it, and then told him that he has to go fight a campaign designed for a four man party. He can't use magic to solve problems, but magic clearly exists in the world, he can't use ranged weapons despite the intro basically being a huge advertisement campaign for how much better crossbows are than anything else, he can't open locks or bash down doors despite them mostly being attached to wooden shacks and the resident mage character blowing up a a bloody portcullis in the first act, and he can't even take a hit worth a damn.
So really he feels like the weakest bugger in the game, and there's all these other people you'd rather play as, but you can't.
I would personally expect it to get around 70 on metacritic, good elements, but overall suffers from being broken/lacking in too many key areas.
Buy it if it goes on offer for like 50% or 75% off, but don't pay full price for it.
It's very simple. If you play on easy, read some of the tutorial and won't rage after dying 1-2 times in prologue then you'll be able to focus on story. If you select normal and can't keep up with the difficulty you'll be so frustrated that any kind of story will at most annoy you. Reviews can be split into:
1. chose easy, had fun, gave high score
2. chose normal, died, put some effort into it, had fun, gave high score
3. chose normal, died, got frustrated about the game, gave score like 6/10
Group #2 doesn't consist of just blind idiots giving 9/10 because of nice graphics. Every review in that group that I saw listed inventory, doors, bad performance with early drivers and so on. OT: All game scores are inflated since quite some time and I routinely see 9 for game that is like boring 8 (for instance IGN - review vs user scores).
There are lots of tiny issues here and there and you simply won't see them if you got engrossed by the game. They are forgiven by great majority of reviewers (both metacritic scores)
I heard some whining about not being RPG but I haven't seen any other game where your choices matter so much. I find story being non-linear far more interesting than spending hundreds of hours slowly improving some character stats. It certainly isn't a game where you start with blank character and shape it in any way you want.
When it comes to difficulty - I played and I loved Betrayal at Krondor which was pretty hard. Biggest problem with W2 can be that you have totally different expectations than what it is.
Difficulty whiners are very loud while there's barely any reason to shout when you're satisfied with the game. Take that into account. TBH game is so cheap that I don't know why anyone would not risk spending that $30-35. (Steam version costs more but that's just Steam)
While I would like some more exact control over what sword move I use, saying that it's just "mouse1 over and over" doesn't seem any more relevant than it would be for a FPS or Diablo, and I never expected to be much of a magic user (though they do feel disappointingly weak compared to witcher1).
While I would like some more exact control over what sword move I use, saying that it's just "mouse1 over and over" doesn't seem any more relevant than it would be for a FPS or Diablo, and I never expected to be much of a magic user (though they do feel disappointingly weak compared to witcher1).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Just wait until you get to level 20+, mage is pretty badass even if the adrenalin activated sign 'helitrope' is just an melee sort of an enhancement.
It didn't have those from the beginning?!
While I would like some more exact control over what sword move I use, saying that it's just "mouse1 over and over" doesn't seem any more relevant than it would be for a FPS or Diablo, and I never expected to be much of a magic user (though they do feel disappointingly weak compared to witcher1).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
There is an awful lot of just running from point A to point B.
In fact that's what most of the quests entail, go talk to this guy, go kill this stuf on the other side of the map, run back to this guy.
In an FPS you have to pick the right gun and aim, in the witcher you don't have any other weapons and he automatically bounces around the place without you pressing the movement keys. Turn easy on and you literally don't have to press anything other than mouse1 in most fights, and he jumps around by himself.
I didn't ever play diablo but I assume half the point is using your special abilities to deal with monsters efficiently, like lining them up and throwing a spear through a bunch of them, or clustering them together and fireballing them. Witcher doesn't have any of that.
I'm sitting with 1.0 atm and you can remap but only through the launcher when in windows, not ingame.
On another note on the patch, I hope you guys got the game through somewhere else than steam because steam does not allow .exe patches and the witcher 2 data file is 9gb so you have to redownload those 9gb to get the new patch. Enjoy. The actual patch is like 12mb.
On another note on the patch, I hope you guys got the game through somewhere else than steam because steam does not allow .exe patches and the witcher 2 data file is 9gb so you have to redownload those 9gb to get the new patch. Enjoy. The actual patch is like 12mb.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Pretty sure that's bollocks.
Considering every other game I own will download a small amount of data for a patch, not the whole data file.
Considering every other game I own will download a small amount of data for a patch, not the whole data file.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Take a <a href="http://www.gog.com/en/forum/the_witcher_2/steam_patch_size_9_281_8_mb" target="_blank">look</a> <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/thewitcher2/show_msgs.php?topic_id=m-1-59247233&pid=975399" target="_blank">around.</a>
I even saw a screenshot of it on the infamous /v/ channel but I can hardly say that's reliable.
Determined to finish Witcher 1 before I get 2. Disappointed with L.A. Noire so will use that to trade-in.
Not to derail the thread, but how? I'm pretty hyped about LA Noire.
It's like Assasins Creed 1- there's definitely potential but there's no variety. I'm towards the end of the homocide cases, and every case so far is :
1. Go to crime scene. Get clues.
2. Chase/shoot/talk to someone.
3. Interrogate suspect, or start new case and go back to 1.
Also disappointed to see that you can't get cases "wrong". Regardless of how good/bad you did, you always get the guilty person.
Interrogation gets old, quickly. Your responses to their statements follow a set pattern:
1. They look at you when talking. It's the truth.
2. They look away when talking, but you can't prove their statement is a lie. Click "doubt".
3. They look away when talking, and you can prove their statement is a lie. Click "lie".
Patch is pretty good tho. Performance is better, troll trouble included an so on.
Also, yeah, most quests are just talk to A or B... BUT and that is a big but *badumtisch* talking to people is actually fun in this game, since they usually have something interesting to say.
If you want to go max stats, play an MMO.
My first playthrough was a little painful when it came to combat, mostly because of my tendency to just rambo in and slice everything - which worked in TW1 with the stance mechanics. I also didn't use the Quen sign until around the end of chapter one, which was pretty dumb from my part. Gameplay enjoyment skyrocketed once I decided to be less cocky and actually think a little even if it meant standing still for a few seconds. I played everything on Normal except a few encounters on Easy. As for the story, I really liked it and was impressed at the amount of choices and the impact they have. I was kind of overwhelmed with all those kingdom names and overall lore, though.
Then I took TW2 for another playthough, this time only on Normal, even if I have to retry 99 times. I thought it'd still be hard but it turned out to be a smoooooooth ride. First, I didn't waste points in stuff like "deflect arrows" and "throw daggers" (I know, daggers are powerful, but investing those points in the combat tree turned out way more useful for me), I was able to identify threats much more easily and was overall more careful. I also had a better grasp of the equipment and crafting system. Simply put, it was so easy that I sometimes wondered if there was a bug or something. Main bosses stay the same, so once you know how it goes, it's a piece of cake (especially if you know how to prevent the Kayran from starting to throw rocks). I think I only died 7-8 times in total, and that includes facing the unknown in a whole different chapter II and a new side of chapter III. I only drank potions 2 or 3 times during the whole game, sometimes because I was confident, other times because I didn't feel like jumping a few saves behind to prepare accordingly.
I think most people agree there is a lack of teaching at the beginning and many players stick with habits from other games and rush in blindly. I'd have a few suggestions for that but it's kind of pointless to post them here.
Aside from that, there's little I dislike about the game. Minor annoyances like getting doors slammed in my face by my allies or having to trick the combat AI from time to time didn't bother me too much and I don't recall running into game breaking bugs. Some NPCs blocked me a couple of times but being persistent ends up making them move. The potion drinking mechanic is a shame though; in TW1 you could drink potions on the spot, and I think this would solve many difficulty problems in this game.
I really encourage people to play through it again and side with the "enemy" of their first game if they want to better understand what's going on. I'm still clueless about a few things though, so it might take more than that.
Character dialogs are impressive especially compared to TW1. However I feel that some characters had great potential but were underdeveloped, namely Saskia and Ves. The former has some quite awesome skills and is said to be central to the rebel uprising, but her dialogs with Geralt are pretty dry: <span style='color:#000000;background:#000000'>"You have to support us!", gets poisoned, you save her, "Thanks bro!", she saves you, "Just don't tell anyone I'm a dragon.", you beat her in dragon form and release her from mind domination, "I'd rather bang a dwarf, or maybe an elf. Farewell."</span>. The latter is one of the first character you see in the game and is portrayed as a closed, rigid woman with a hard past but shows more of her emotions later on <span style='color:#000000;background:#000000'>with the baby's birth at Loredo's and when her crying/jumping in Geralt's arms at the end of Act II (royal side)</span>. I expected some good character development afterwards but I found nothing (<span style='color:#000000;background:#000000'>I went for Triss in Chapter III so maybe there's something more if I go with Roche</span>). So yeah, either I missed something or it's just not there. Maybe some DLC?
My two orens. A great game once the difficulty side is taken care of.
P.S. You guys mentioned elves backstabbing you again and again; can you be more specific? I fell I missed something :p
Edit: If you're not planning on playing the same character anymore, you might want to deal with the saved games. I've accumulated 2.75GB of those in two playthroughs.
Really?
I found it incredibly generic, it's literally one of the most generic looking fantasy settings I've seen in a very long time.
I mean, the lord of the rings games were less generic looking than this, and they are based off the book that invented the stock fantasy setting.
The resolution is ok, textures have lots of pixels, models have lots of polygons, game has lots of shaders etc etc, but the actual stuff they make with it isn't very eye catching at all. Bit like someone took the setting of some low budget fantasy game like two worlds or spellforce or something and just made it high res.
If I'm honest I probably prefer oblivion, if you get a good viewpoint the vistas you can see in oblivion are really rather nice, if a bit dated nowadays. Or crysis, not so much for its resolution so much as it does stuff like having a giant frozen tropical island with a huge alien tower in the middle, stuff that has an impressive design to it rather than just having a lot of texture detail or whatnot.
It's a bit like halo when you see the pillar of autumn crashed into the desert, it's pretty cool even if it's really horribly textured and stuff, the game lacks anything like that, too much focus on samey-looking caves or cramped cesspit towns.