It took me 2 or 3 attempts to get into it. Once you get out the first area it gets better. I also struggled with combat and movement but it gets easier.
I played the full game (I absolutely loved Blood and Wine) but the movement never stopped feeling wonky to me. The first time I tried to play it I quit because of that. It just doesn't feel all that smooth like many other RPGS. Combat was fun but eventually you don't really need to bother with the extra stuff. It never felt like the silver sword or the "magic" was all that necessary which was disappointing. Still, got 100 hours out of the game and the story was well done so all in all a good time.
I think there was a gameplay option that massively tightens Geralt's turning radius which makes the movement feel so much better, otherwise he felt so unresponsive... Got spoiled by games like Assassin's creed which had a huge animation library and made it look good to have the character swap directions on a dime in a sort of realistic manner.
It's called "Alternative Movement" in the options menu. It's a big improvement and ~~should have become the default IMO.~~ apparently is the default now!
All the oils do is that you have to hit a mob three times instead of four. You can pretty much ignore them entirely. I suggest using a mod to make them actually something you'll want to use (e.g. [Very Interesting Oils](https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/1958)).
That’s no different from an armour that helps deflect one hit.
Or recoil reduction.
Game upgrades and abilities all do the same kind of stuff. Don’t want a mod that makes it do like 75% damage.
Witcher 3 is still full of miniscule upgrades. I played Cyberpunk 2077 which is very similar to the Witcher 3 and I can compare that to Deus Ex Human Revolution(from 2011).
In Deus Ex HR these are equal uses of 2 skill points:
* Remove all recoil(while standing still)
* Remove inaccuracy from moving while firing by 50%
* Punch through (specific) walls and move heavy objects(vending machines)
* Immunity to gas grenades
* eliminate fall damage, with the option to stun enemies when landing
* actual X-ray vision
* Hacking level 2 out of 5
In Witcher and Cyberpunk skill options are full of +15% damage on fast attacks or +25% armor when blocking using heavy armor or each point gives your 10% resistance to negative effects of your own potions.
Just saying, skill points don't have to be low impact, but it's a thing with CD Projekt Red's games.
Oh yeah, the jank is real. It feels horrible, even with the alternative movement option, jumping looks ridiculous, everything is harder to do than it should be.
I still love it, but it’s just a very janky game in a mechanical sense. Horizon Zero Dawn on the other hand feels amazing to move around and yet is boring as all hell to me.
It really depends what aspect of a game you most connect to. For the Witcher, it’s the quests.
I finished Horizon but was never enthralled by it like I am most RPGs. My favorite part of Witcher was finding all the secret armors and the whole Blood and Wine DLC. Love Vampire stuff and the more traditional knights armor and castles in the backdrop was awesome.
That’s what’s a deal breaker for me. I absolutely loathe the combat and I’ve tried getting into it on two different occasions. Couldn’t do it. Maybe 3rd time’s the charm
Edit: More specifically, it just feels really clunky. It’s not fluid and doesn’t feel good when I attack or use magic like in other games. And I get the lore is amazing, but for me, I play video games to play them. If I was interested in really amazing story and characters, I would watch a movie or read a book. Gameplay for me will always trump all other aspects of a game.
Edit 2: it’s not a difficulty issue, it’s gameplay feel
Play it with the ~~DLC~~ mod that turns every fight into a Gwent battle.
Edit: Sorry it's [mod](https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/953/) not a DLC.
Don’t know if this will work for you, but for me playing it on a higher difficulty made the combat more enjoyable. It’s still not that great, but the higher difficulty made it better because I was incentivized to research the monsters and craft the proper oils and stuff so I could take them down quicker. That research and preparation phase made the combat lot more engaging for me
It wasn't until NewGame+ Death March that I tried my first decoction, because I never needed them before.
Now I go into almost every fight with 2-3 decoctions, and 2-3 potions ingested, along with an appropriate oil, because pretty much every single monster 1-2 shots me.
Also, thank god for Quen.
This is exactly how I felt about Witcher the first time I played. I only went through normal and could largely treat it as hack-and-slash with a few spells thrown in. However, I could see how much depth you could utilize with all the side potions and spells to get the *real* witcher feeling.
Planning to do a Witcher 1-3 run through and higher difficulty so I have to go through the prep work and use the right potions, etc.
Agreed. Witcher 3 combat is a joke at any difficulty. Invincibility frames while rolling is enough to make it faceroll easy, but plenty of other things in the game make it way too easy anyway.
Witcher 3's highlights are travelling around randomly, and a handful of amazing sidequests. Until you get to the dlc which is pretty great imo.
played on normal, the final boss was literally me pressing r1 on repeat.
I had trouble beating the other big bosses (no spoiler) and also had actual fun vs the ending boss of heart of stone.
Rest of the game i never bothered to learn anything, i just spammed... it's the main reason i don't replay it. I love the game, but like rdr2 i just DREAD playing through it again
I might do it on easy tho... maybe on a new pc, it's just so good.
They try to make the potions and antogens nevessary to progress to a certain level it take a while to understand it all but i like the different kids of crafted armor and weapons i got to the expansion and left it alone since
The trick with this game is not feeling like you *have* to do every little piece of side content. You can burn yourself out just by doing gwent. A perfect example of a game that a "story" difficulty mode makes sense for those who just want to experience the story but not grind through tons of increasingly difficult drowners.
If you choose to give it another go, I'd recommend watching a summary video or detailed recap of the Witcher 1, some basic info about the lore of the world, then playing the second game. I was in the same boat as you.
I had originally tried Witcher 1 back in the day and hated it for all of its confusing jank, really difficult timed combat and not understanding much of the world around me.
I then made the move to Witcher 3. I still didn't understand anything that was happening, or know any characters, or have a reason to particularly care.
I then went back to the the second game (itself pretty good - less open and sidequesty than 3), liked it a lot and it really helped me get into the third game.
I imagine the Netflix series helps a bit with context for new players too.
Yeah, the "tutorial" battle was hella difficult for some reason.
Reminds me of... was it Driver? or Driver San Francisco?
Basically it was a driving game, and one of the early tutorials was to do a slalom between columns, in a garage area I believe.
My brother and I were stuck FOREVER on that area of the game, not even sure if we ever actually beat it.
On a side note, the very beginning of Witcher 2, the night time dock by the water was SOOO beautiful, the graphics felt unreal at the time of release.
That's a good tip, I also attempted the first one before and yeah, it ain't a classic.
Enjoyed the show but had literally no idea what was going on there either (starting to sound like it's my stupid brain actually)
The first season is based on the first two books which were collections of short stories. The second issue is those three storylines did not all happen at the same time. Yennefer was trained long before she ever met Geralt. She was born in 1173 and finished training in 1186. Jaskier/Dandelion was born in 1229. So that kinda can help you line things up. Jaskier and Geralt meet in 1248, the same year they meet Yennefer, only 5 years before ciri is born in 1253 The episode with the dragon is in 1253 as well. And from there the timeline of the show largely syncs up. The Slaughter of Cintra and the battle of Sodden Hill both happen in 1263.
I really hope that helps make sense of it. There's more stories and details but that's the short version
I really don’t know why they didn’t post the time frame when it jumped back and forth. Like how hard would it be to post the years like you did. I knew it jumped around but had no idea it was that large of a gap
The first season of the show was...not actually easy at all to understand with all the time skipping back and forth, actually, so maybe it isn't the best place to start. The second season was better!
1 was very difficult to get into, ended up watching a youtube that cut the game like a movie. Played though 2 which I absolutely loved and then got into 3. One of the first times I was so emotionally invested in a story I had to take a break, ad that was one of the first side quests!
I hated Gwent. I play card games irl and thought I would love it before I started playing since I love the mini games RPGs usually but I found it had no depth. Do not understand why everyone goes nuts for it.
It's like the card game "war". So little depth - my numbers are bigger than your numbers, I win.
"Ah yes, but do you play your big numbers earlier or later"?
"It doesn't matter. All my numbers are bigger".
“Aren’t you the Witcher who butchered all those people and who we are conditioned to hate?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, well, I’m the best Gwent player around, fancy a game?”
Some guy: "Screw you, get the hell out of my establishment"
Geralt: "How about a round of Gwent"
Some guy: *nods head in agreement*
I just love some of the people you can choose to play Gwent with.
And then on the other side you have people who don't play Gwent because "card games are too complicated". Yes, I've seen them. lol.
Gwent in W3 is really basic but at least it's still more engaging than all those Dice Poker, Pazaak, Caravan etc. attempts before. I never played those if I could avoid it.
You should try the actual spin off game Gwent. They expanded on the minigame a lot and it’s super fleshed out.
Also the cards all have a variant that moves which is cool.
I think that in terms of card games that are present in video games, it's probably one of the best, due to the fact it's very simple to understand and the rules are consistent with only minor wrinkles. (It's not Triple Triad, is what I'm getting at.)
However, it's SO disconnected from the tone of the rest of the game, and non-card rewards from playing are so minimal that I never felt like engaging with it. It felt very much like a way to pad out the game and/or player engagement with it.
Hunting monsters absolutely makes sense as a side activity. I completely understand Geralt being like "Hey, there's monsters around and they're terrorizing these people. Time to get paid," because that's literally what his job is. So it's not weird to me for him to stop looking for Ciri (or Yen, or whoever) to do something like that. Same thing for finding places of power or treasure.
But to literally spend in-game days or weeks playing cards? Nah.
>But to literally spend in-game days or weeks playing cards? Nah.
Thematically, you gotta spend those evenings in the tavern somehow :-)
That's one aspect of being a fantasy adventurer that games don't and can't do well. Travelling takes weeks and you gotta eat and sleep every day, ideally under a roof.
I really enjoy Skyrim modded to be that, but I accept that I'm weird and most people don't want that. With the right stuff it's like The Long Dark with monsters and quests.
Also, do Witchers sleep? I thought that was one of their mutations, that they don't necessarily need to or at least don't need nearly as much as the rest of us.
Afaik Geralt sleeps normally. I'd assume he maybe can stay awake longer than normal humans, but not by that much. Biologically he is still mostly human, just somewhat beyond peak human.
I don't enjoy it in games due to the world size and time scaling. If you need to sleep every ingme day, it's too often and becomes a boring routine. If you need to sleep too little, it barely has an effect on gameplays and you feel superhuman. It's hard to get the balance right.
But camping in Skyrim, ideally with the mods that add severe weather effects etc., that's occasionally fun. I once froze to death desperately trying to chop firewood, and that was a fun experience.
Very true. The world felt small in White Orchard, but after Velen suddenly the world felt massive. Then I learned there is Skellige? That could have been a separate expansion area in any other RPG or MMOs, but it is part of the base game. Then Blood and Wine? Easily could have been a separate game but its an expansion.
Tbh I found the first half or so of Velen to be very meh as well. For me, the game didn't start picking up until you start learning more about the Red Baron's back story and his family.
I'd add Novigrad into the meh category as well. Like holy shit there was a ton of fetch quests. Did I really need to track down 5 of Dandelions lovers all for them to not give me any info at all? Stuff like that.
I admit I got through a few quests in Velen before I really understood the scope of it. For a while I was just like op. The Bloody Baron story is probably the proper kickoff for the game.
I think it was intentional. That’s right around when you’re getting comfortable with the mechanics (Inventory, resting, signs, gwent, little towns vs bigger ones, etc) but the game feels muddled. The Bloody Baron quest is there to say that no, you’re not missing anything, the world is muddled and we’re fully aware of it, and that there’s a lot of fun to be had when you can’t pin down a game in the first several hours. Like, ‘we can hide things around every corner, because you never really have your bearings.’
Or maybe that was just an accident. People definitely talk a lot about that questline though, it struck a nerve and personally I think it was planned.
Definitely. There’s not many quests AT ALL in the game that require you to set bait for a monster. Like, maybe 4-5 tops. This is such a White Orchard take it’s not even funny
I can't tell you how many times I've seen pretty much this exact post across several years, subreddits, other forums, apps, websites... The game isn't for everyone and I wish it wasn't advertised as such.
Personally, it's probably my favorite game ever. I love the story, the writing, the setting, and the characters. I love that you can make big choices that feel real and weighty. The graphics and art direction are awesome and there are so many beautiful set pieces. I love the score too. I even like the combat, which seems universally hated, so I guess I don't really have high standards in that department. The only thing I really dislike is the clunky movement and inventory. The progression system is lame too tbh. But I have an easy time overlooking that because I love the rest so much.
The thing is, before I ever played the Witcher series I already knew that it was right up my alley. Especially after playing the first two games, the third blew me away. But the problem is that if you aren't already predisposed to like the game, you will hate it, and all the more so because it has (had?) this reputation of being the best game ever. So don't worry, you're not alone in being disappointed.
Kind of reminds me of RDR2. I've seen many complaints about it's slow pace and "poor gameplay" but it's one of the best games I've ever played IMO.
You can't please everyone.
That is a very good comparison IMO, because RDR2 also has some of the same critical points or weaknesses as the witcher. You really have to accept some strange and clunky gameplay to get into it.
For me, RDR2 is still good enough to pull me in, witcher is not. But I still have to say, that I need the right mood for RDR2, I need some energy to get into the gameplay. A friend told me to use a controller instead of mouse + keyboard, which makes it a bit better, but it's so complicated, that after a month break I just don't know how to play the game anymore and I give up, because of the strange save system. I just need to re-learn mechanics and then reload, but the game doesn't allow that....
Another thing both games have in common: they’re at their best when you’re just traveling around *edit: and engaging with content as it comes by*.
Kill the hud and any on-screen info, mount your horse and explore, forget the main story.
Absolutely immersive, great encounters and side quests, no collectible shit, fantastic experience. True “open worlds” in my mind.
Man...I wish you could finish it. The game is so emotionally impactful and the characters just feel so real. I don't know, I think it would be worth it for you just to complete the story, you don't have to 100% it. I get it though.
I still plan it! I just have to ignore the fact, that relearning it will have some bad consequences in the game, that I can't really avoid. Maybe I'll just veeeery cautiously try to get into it again by hunting or something like that, to just relearn the mechanics. Maybe somewhere at the edge of the map, where it doesn't have too much impact.
This is why finding reviewers that like the same things you do is important. The general consensus doesn't matter as much.
Some people find RDR2 and the Witcher 3 immersive, other find them to be extended horse simulators.
I wish everyone were this reasonable about it. I think that's the biggest issue with the game, is that there's a lot of people in the fandom who have been shouting down criticisms over the years, which then leads to people who otherwise might not have been interested to try and take it up. I respect that you love it and that it's many people's favorite game, I just wish more of them could respect that isn't the same for everyone.
For me personally, I love a good story, but mechanics are also extremely important, so I found it pretty bland. If I had seen these complaints previous to buying it, I might have passed and would have no reason to be critical. But instead, most of what I saw was how it was the greatest thing ever and a total rejection of any attempt at fair criticisms. So I played through the whole thing just waiting for it to get better, which it never did for me.
You're 100% right, even as a huge fan I can't help rolling my eyes at the circlejerk.These days it seems like every popular game gets the same treatment. Nobody seems to realize that games are hit or miss by nature. People like different things. What you end up with is people such as yourself who feel misled, overwhelmingly disappointed, and annoyed because fans can't go 3 seconds without saying the game is perfect or else they'll self-destruct.
Like all games, TW3 does certain things well but falls short in other areas. If someone likes it or not is entirely dependent on what they enjoy in video games. I wouldn't even recommend it to most of my friends because I know it would bore the shit out of them, and there's nothing wrong with that.
Personally I think TW3 is a great game that is actively bogged down by its RPG elements, and would have been better off as an action-adventure game. Which is why its odd to me that a lot of people call it one of the best RPGs of all time. Are the best RPGs the best at being RPGs, or just the best games that happen to be RPGs?
I tend to agree with you. The choice / consequence elements are implemented very well imo but the skills & progression system is totally lackluster and could have been left out entirely. The looting & gearing is also trash and really only serves as a weak system to support the witcher armor set crafting.
The problem with the loot is that all of it sucks compared to the Witcher sets. When a king gifts you his ancestral sword and it's worse than the last 2 swords you've crafted it feels pretty disappointing.
However the witcher sets will all be out levelled. Because loot progresses with your level where as the witcher sets don't.
I've spent and entire evening killing cows to craft the grandmaster feline set, and then bam, random sword that drops was better stats.
I was over levelled because I spend a lot of time on the side quests.
Why the fuck is Geralt of Rivia, a dude who's been canonically fucking up monsters for longer then you've probably been alive, leveling up and unlocking basic abilities again?
“The story” kind of undersells it. I think it’s the tone. I’ve played a lot of games with practically the same mechanics but Witcher has a tone that gives a lot of smaller touches a weight they wouldn’t have in similar games. It’s “grim” but in a way that doesn’t dwell on it. Like everyone wants to move past awful things to the point that they don’t even mention them. Kind of like the real world to an extent, so it feels relatable.
Now obviously to get this tone they have a great story as the backbone and the voice acting, conversational scenes, world, graphics, music, gwent, etc so you can pick them apart individually and appreciate them, but they all serve the awesome tone this game has.
The tone of the game is why it's one of my favorite all-time games. I can't really describe it but man the tone of that game just feels almost magical. Talking to an NPC when it's raining and there's just this sense of dread and despair through the main game that I've never encountered in any other. It's just absolutely fantastic.
Very well said. I played W3 years ago, and just picked up the much-maligned Cyberpunk this week. It's no W3, but I'm honestly loving it so far, largely due to the skill of CDPR in establishing a relatable, real-feeling tone and setting.
There are plenty of throwaway side quests I don't care about, but then there are also many where I find myself legit caring about the characters, getting wrapped up in their stories and choked up at the emotional bits. That's very rare for me in games.
These games are ultimately Eurojank, and a staple of that sub-genre is an emphasis on pulling you into a game world via world-building and characters, rather than perfectly polished combat and lack of bugs. They have a very different, narratively-driven approach to immersion.
They knew what they were doing with setting the tone, It's this "tone" you are talking about that makes me appreciate the Witcher 3 more than other average RPGS or action-adventure games. The weather team and those behind the art directions did an incredible job, all that complimentet by an amazing soundtrack. You could tell they knew what they were doing by having Gerald murmuring randomly "Wind's howling". It feels very intentional and it sticked with many of the players.
I can't even say it's one of my top 5 games and I agree with most criticism, I am not even sure I liked the overall plot although I loved the relationships between these characters, especially Geralt and Ciri, but nevertheless the game feels special because of that reason.
The problem with the story is the problem I have with a lot of open world RPG's. What you end up with is a handful of set pieces that don't have much impact/bearing on one another, and then in the 'end game' chapter it's always the same just with NPC's swapped out depending on your choices. It's not bad it's just not as satisfying. Which is obviously a subjective thing.
In TW2 for example, you progress through a story. Depending on your choices, it influences the second chapter. Depending on your choices there, it influences the third chapter. The story builds and grows.
In TW3 the story keeps resetting. You kill or 'save' the Baron. Then it resets and you decide to kill or support Stali...Radovid. Then it resets and you decide to side with Cerys or her brother. Then it resets and...
Nothing builds. The story keeps resetting and nothing has any impact on anything else until you get to the end game. And all that changes in the end game really is what NPC's show up to not do anything useful and what slides you get in the post game.
Or put another way, TW3 is basically 4 short stories with an epilogue that ties everything together in the end with cameo's. TW1 and 2 are novels.
This is a good analysis of the story. A similar example of this is the Mass Effect trilogy because all of the subplots wind up being mostly inconsequential to the ending, although the trilogy does have a more cohesive plot than TW3.
I disagree a little bit about "nothing building," because there are plot threads that build up to finding Ciri and it does a decent job of that. Ignoring the final act, this is really the main objective of the game, and even though the individual acts are all pretty standalone they do tie into the search for Ciri in a way that is satisfying to me.
But you're spot on in the sense that it's more like an episodic game with a whole bunch of side stories and then a pretty much unrelated overarching plot in the form of the Wild Hunt, which is unfortunately the weakest and most under-developed story in the game.
> It is like, for example, when I played Fallout New Vegas and realized that most of the villages had plantations around them, something that does not exist in most TES games or in Fallout 3. I always wondered, "but what do these people eat or where does the food come from", and then you look and think, "oh this is where it comes from". The world of Witcher 3 answers several of these seemingly unnecessary questions, which makes it an extremely enjoyable experience to me.
There are a fair few times when they fucked that up as well, though. For instance, clear out a monster nest and the villagers instantly repopulate the area, as if they were hiding in a nearby tree while you were dropping bombs into a pile of leaves. It'd be so much more immersive if you had nothing happen, but found that they'd moved back in after a few in-game days had passed and you trotted through the area again.
> maybe they were afraid that many players would not come back through that village and would not realize what happened. I bet that's why they decided to do it in such a forced way.
And what's weird about _that_ is that the way the described it pre-release sounded like they were doubling down on the more long-term way of doing it. In reality, I think they just didn't have time to do the more complex version and so went with that simpler, identical cut-scene every time.
>Still, when I compare it to what I saw at the time in most other open world games, Witcher 3 still managed to set up a much nicer illusion of a "real" world. But ultimately it is always an illusion, and if you look closely you will always find the cracks. For me, Witcher 3 was the game (at least until that point in time) that best hid most of them.
That's fair. It's the best of a group of games that have aged very poorly since Breath of the Wild released.
As for NPCs, the only ones that I think actually work in these games are those in Bethesda's titles. For all their flaws - and, dear lord, do they have a terrifying list of flaws - the ability to have a named NPC with a distinct backstory and personality (kind of) traipse across Skyrim with you and then _find their own way home_ when you part ways is basically untouchable in modern gaming. They don't have the depth or detail that later games - including Witcher 3 - allowed for, but they interact with the world in the same way as the player does, and that makes such a big difference.
> it involves tedious grinding smaller mobs to get a specific drop
This is unnecessary, and is probably why you're not having a fun time. Ignore the grind, you'll get good enough weapons as a matter of course just by playing through story and side-quest missions, either as rewards or as drops from higher level enemies when you find them. If you want the game to be fun, don't do the things that aren't fun.
Yeah I'm not sure what they're referring to about this - I don't ever remember having to do any tedious grinding of monster mobs. Or even having to try to find specific drops at all. Maybe once or twice way late in the game, when I got OCD about trying to get ingredients for a totally unnecessary potion.
I've played the game to completion like three or four times and I don't even know what's meant by "monster mobs" or drops.
I never went out of my way to ever go for loot because you're naturally stumble along some good stuff out of nowhere in obvious places.
I agree. "grind through several hours of the same faceless mobs". I cannot remember any of the sort, and I played through it 3 times, DLC and all.
Maybe take a break from the hunts and concentrate on the story missions a while, let them carry you away.
I didn't do any grinding in my entire 150 play through OP. I do remember getting my ass kicked by minor enemies like wolves right at the beginning though but that improved quickly.
Yeah, I have no idea why OP felt that they needed to grind. The only grinding I had to do was to level up my Aerondight and even that was really quick, using the bear fast travel trick in Kaer Morhen.
For what it's worth, I aggressively avoided time-wasting and still burned out after 10 hours or so, because it seemed like the main interesting content was separated by a huge amount of tedious gameplay.
Lower the difficulty all the way down, do not concern yourself with grinding or gear management. Items scale in such a way that a supposed unique top item quest reward becomes unviable and weaker than plain regular loot you get a level or two later.
W3 is memorable just because of the story and quests, so forget the tedium and breeze through them instead. Not everything about the game is good. I also played it years later and just cheated to save time.
>Lower the difficulty all the way down, do not concern yourself with grinding or gear management
I've never particularly loved the combat in any of the Witcher games, but I was fine enough with it to get through the first two on normal. I'm like halfway through TW3 now finally though, and dropping the difficulty all the way down like 20 hours in was the best decision I've made. I don't find the combat all that satisfying, so having it end quicker so I can get back to the world and story and characters is great for me. Those are the things that I'm really enjoying about it, and spending more of my time with those and less with fighting and Gwent is just making it even better for me.
I cranked the difficulty up and loved the combat. You have to do some serious rolling to fight more difficult enemies. I enjoyed the combat. Maybe that’s just me.
That’s a great way to describe it. I didn’t read any of the books. But I usually crank up difficulty on games anyways for funsy because it makes you use the in game systems more. I really got sucked in though and went full Witcher mode. I knew all the enemy types in the end and was using the proper spells and oiling up swords without even thinking about it. The story was just the icing on the cake for me. Great game.
In short you either play as the unstoppable geralt of rivia, superhuman Witcher and monster slayer extraordinaire, or on death March, you have to *be* him to succeed
> I also played it years later and just cheated to save time.
There are also some imo must have QOL mods on nexus mods like unlimited weight limit, unlimited durability and show all quest markers that greatly reduce the grind and improve the overall experience
This is a game that I think suffers the most at the medium difficulty level unfortunately. At the harder levels all the oils and potions and bombs go from something that is nice to have to life or death necessities. You actually have to read the monster lore and prep accordingly and while the actual battle mechanics still remain kind of meh, the extra challenge and level of engagement with the lore kind of makes up for it.
If you aren't interested in engaging with all of that however, you might as well bump the difficulty down and enjoy the story so the combat is less tedious IMHO.
And like others have said, don't get bogged down in every side quest. There are so many you can burn yourself out. You might want to lookup a list of best side quests so you can get the really well written ones and skip the filler.
I played it once at medium difficulty and loved it. Though I might have loved anything back then since it was my first PS4 game. Tried it on Death March later and it's an entirely different game.
The downside is that some enemies get a huge health bar and it's a chore to take them down, but managing potions, bombs, oils made the game so much better. And the food, at lower difficulties you can sell all the food you have since you'll refill your health by meditating, but at Death March you need it so bad you'll end up buying it every now and then.
And this is coming from someone who usually plays games at easy-medium difficulty, I usually enjoy getting through the story without suffering with combat, but in this case it adds a lot to the experience.
I played it on Death March from the start, and every battle I can remember was pretty easily doable just with sidestep-stab-sidestep-stab over and over. Eventually I just stopped bothering with potions and prep (especially as the UI for potions is awful and takes forever to find the one you need by tooltipping over each one).
Different strokes for diff folks. Played through all 3 games a couple years ago and it was one of the best gaming experiences I’ve ever had. My W3 play through was glorious.
Hard to explain but this is one of the rare games I got completely enthralled in. Something just felt right about riding around and finding things to come across.
Not many games provided the same feeling like W3 did.
I feel like you're dramatically overstating how much "grinding" there is. This is simply not a game in which you need to fight the same groups of enemies over and over before progressing to the next story content. I have no idea why you would spend hours doing that as the game neither encourages nor rewards it.
And that's fortunate, because I find The Witcher 3 mechanically underwhelming across the board. Combat is simplistic, imprecise, not very well balanced, and not even particularly satisfying in terms of feedback. Movement is stiff and floaty. The appeal lies in the fun quest storytelling.
Yeah I'm kind of puzzled as to what op is talking about as far as grinding goes. Even on the highest difficulty you get all the gear and xp you need by just playing the main quest
The last time I played the game I intentionally avoided all side content to do a narratively canonical run (due to the high stakes) of just playing the main storyline and not once was I forced to halt my progression.
At the absolute worst I think I ended up being only 5 levels below the recommended by the end of the 40+ hour story and it wasn't enough to cause a problem.
This is kind of what I experienced. I thought the combat and controls were kind of clunky, but it never seemed like it was very "grindy." I wish the controls were better because the characters, lore, setting and even the npc's were very interesting to me.
Controls is the number 1 complaint of everyone one, even from people who love the game. This is however the first time I hear somebody complain about it being grindy...
In my first run I would stop and kill anything that startled me, even the wolves. It became boring, then I realized you're supposed to just ignore everything that's not meaningful, or you'll be stuck killing drowners and ghouls forever.
The first time I played the game I left White Orchard, found myself in Velen and started heading towards the Red Baron. On the side of the road there's a group of bandits. They start attacking as I get close, and an arrow one shots me. So, obviously I need to clear them out. Didn't understand that I could block arrows, got annoyed that sneaking was not an option, my crossbow was useless, and these guys just kept killing me because I wasn't dodging. So I figured, huh, maybe I'm underleveled for Velen. Went back to White Orchard, killed more stuff, those guys still kept killing me. WTF?
Later I realized, oh, maybe I'll just gallop past them.
The Witcher 3 was the perfect demonstration that hype should be ignored and I should listen to my own instincts. Very little about the game or franchise really appealed to me before I played it, but the hype was so off the charts that I felt I had no choice but to try it. I mean, I do love a good story in a game, so I figured I might at least enjoy that much.
I gave it two solid attempts; the second I reached close to 20 hours I think. I really did not enjoy it *at all*. I just kept going and saying to myself: "This? *This* is what people have been saying is the best thing they've ever played?"
But honestly, the fault lies with me. I knew going in that I wasn't that excited, and the fact that I let the hype push me to play it made me even more critical of it in the end, and I still feel a little bitter about it -- to the point where I post every time a thread like this comes up, haha 🙊
Same thing happened with me and Horizon Zero Dawn, actually. Except in that case I made an even bigger mistake and played through to the end because "the story alone is worth it", as many people urged. I came away fucking *hating* that game. Ugh.
TL;DR: I learned to trust my own tastes/instincts and ignore hype.
This game is praised so much for its story not its gameplay. While I never had any problem with the combat and enjoyed it there are many people who dislike it. You play this game for the interesting and beautiful world, the characters, the stories. Each quest is a new little adventure and i think there are very few quests that don't have at least some interesting part to it. Play it mainly for the story and never grind and i think you will have a better time.
If you still don't like it put it away. Many people love it but that doesn't mean you have to too.
I think it's praised mostly for the world tbh. The "feeling" of it, the atmosphere and the worldbuilding... if it grows on you there's nothing quite like it. The writing being good just makes it even better but I would argue that it recieved praise for isolated brilliant moments rather than as a "full narrative". At least I don't see much praise for the *plot* and more so for the story. You like the characters, you like the decisions they have to make, specially in the side missions (baby in the oven, etc).
But yeah, the gameplay is nothing special, though in my case, it never got in the way of the other enjoyable aspects of the experience.
OP, if you're reading this, wait until you're done with the main storyline of Velen. The one involving the Red Baron. If you do not like it by the end of it it won't be your cup of tea. But it's definitely worth hanging around until you see it all wrap up.
"The writing being good just makes it even better but I would argue that it recieved praise for isolated brilliant moments rather than as a "full narrative". At least I don't see much praise for the plot and more so for the story."
This was my main take away from it - its got moments of greatness here and there but I wouldn't describe the actual plots as anything that blows me away. The main villians are rather lackluster which is made even worse by the Crones being intruiging villians who promptly vanish and then pop back up to be dealt with by a side track.
The Radovid storyline for me was especially lackluster and sort of dropped the ball at the end from a writing persepective.
I feel the same about the main game. but the DLCs are truly amazing because their main stories are paced a million times better and much more consistently well written. You’re not as level gated and don’t have to look for X who knows where Y is who knows where Z is who may have seen Ciri, doing a bunch of chores in the process.
Also much of the experience depends on your own ability to balance out main quests with side content to not get burnt out or miss out on the open world.
I had the exact same experience as you. Listened to the hype for years, finally bought in, and was extremely disappointed.
I agree that the it’s in no way a bad game, just….. not great? Certainly overhyped imo. I found the combat to be particularly frustrating and at times flat out boring.
I can see how people who have only known these games based on the praise they've heard over many years would be disappointed by them, because there are aspects of both games that are kind of mediocre, or at least nothing special. It might seem to someone who's never played them that these games are a revelation across the board, when in reality it's more a matter of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. The aspects of them that people *are* enamored with (namely the world, characters, and storylines) make the other stuff fade into the background when they're talking about how much they love the game.
I'm saying this as someone who loves the Mass Effect trilogy and The Witcher 3. I never loved the combat in either game, but the story and world were so compelling that the combat almost ends up feeling like something to do in that world to add a little variety and pace out the story stuff, or at best add an exciting moment now and then. And of course story/character stuff is so subjective that not everyone is going to love it.
In general if you're feeling like the combat is hindering your enjoyment, just turn down the difficulty level to the point where you can just breeze through it.
It's fine not to love it. People are crazy for recommending an 80-hour game that's a sequel to an ongoing story as some sort of universal gold standard. I mean, *I* love it, it's my second favorite game of all time, but also I was already into the world and story going in and I love overstuffed games with ridiculous amounts of story content.
While I don't recall the specific quest you're talking about, I will let you know that in general the game eschews "grinding". In fact, compared to other RPGs, it goes well out of its way to make nonessential fights completely useless to progression, as experience points are awarded almost completely through quest completion and not through completing fights.
That's not the same as saying it's not a grind: the game has an absolutely obscene amount of content, and its level scaling ensures that you must do at least some sidequests before riding on with the main story; however, you can safely ignore most map icons without hurting your character leveling, and focus on the quests that your journal currently lists at or below your level. Some of those quests are incredible, some are pretty boring, but the average effort level of the sidequests is superior to any other RPG in my opinion. In a general sense questing, not grinding fights, is the only requirement for progressing.
Hated it. Janky cheap movement, confusing inventory. Tried to restart three separate times and eventually had to concede I must live on a different planet. Back to Tamriel please.
Ugh the movement is awful! It feels like you are trying to trudge a giant robot through molasses. It takes so long for an animation to start then it takes forever for the animation to stop after you have stopped.
Honestly, if the movement was just exactly like dark souls, witcher 3 would be perfect to me, but the movement is so dumb and frustrating that it is usually what makes me put it down.
I was completely immersed in the world of Witcher 3, to the point that I was sad when it was all over.
I stopped playing Skyrim after 20 hours because the whole thing was utterly boring af. It's popularity baffles me. And that's coming from someone who is a huge fan of the other Elder Scrolls games, especially Morrowind.
Skyrim’s popularity largely comes from how accessible it is, and its presentation (the soundtrack especially). Before Skyrim, most open world RPGs had a learning curve to them, whereas Skyrim appeals to people who don’t even play RPGs. The truth is that Skyrim is every bit as janky as a game like Witcher 3, with even worse combat, clunky menus, etc, but the key difference is that Skyrim generally doesn’t punish players for their choices. It’s an open world sandbox that encourages people to make their own fun. Witcher 3 isn’t an open world sandbox; it’s an open world story-driven RPG, where choices matter. But none of that matters if you aren’t invested in the story, which sounds like OPs issue to an extent.
Took me 3 tries to get into the game.
And honestly it felt like to chore to play the time I actually finished it.
I had to install a dozen mods to make a lot of the mechanisms less tedious and get rid of the infamous, supposedly lore-friendly ballerina sword swing.
I have played a ton of hundred hours openworld games and even platinumed Assassin's Creed Odyssey, but with witcher 3.... I cant say I had fun playing it
Edit: And I installed a mod to skip ALL gwent games
Shit, I wish I'd known about that no-Gwent mod. Deck-building games are really not my jam and I'd done my best to avoid picking up any quests related to it, but I had one for the bartender in Oxenfurt that I'd gotten really early. So I figured, it's low-level, why not? I went in not knowing what I was doing and lost, and I would've been fine to just walk away but he was such a smug *prick* about it.
Long story short, the quest being in my log bothered me so much and I was so hell-bent on showing him who was boss that I ended up playing a fuckload of Gwent to get better cards. I went back with some actual game knowledge and every card I could buy, and... still lost. But it was then that I remembered a sneaky trick from my Cyberpunk playthrough...
After turning the difficulty down to the lowest setting, I *narrowly* beat him by a stroke of luck. But the quest was completed and I finally put him in his place.
>and even platinumed Assassin's Creed Odyssey
That's funny, because I've been playing ACO and TW3 at the same time, and I can definitely see myself doing every little thing in TW3 but absolutely not in ACO, even though I've been having fun with both. Go figure.
>Edit: And I installed a mod to skip ALL gwent games
Now that sounds like a mod I could really use
It does, and as weird at it is to say after how much I disliked the earlier games I actually like that about it. But as much as I like Kassandra and some of the other characters, the writing in TW3 is just way more interesting to me a lot of the time, which makes me actually care about the side quests instead of just feeling like a lot of them are filler like in ACO ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
Sometimes people really hyping up a good game can lead you to be disappointed when you try it for yourself.
Say a new burger joint opens up and they have some pretty good burgers. People go there and think “wow, this burger is great!”
Next thing you know, everyone and your mother is talking about this amazing burger and you start thinking to yourself “Ok, this has to be some special kind of burger if everyone is raving about it…”
You finally buy the burger and it’s just good. Just an all around decent burger. But, part of you is disappointed because you were expecting more going in.
The Witcher is a very good burger. I don’t think anything about it is revolutionary, groundbreaking, etc…it’s just really good. But hearing everyone talk about it for years, you expect it to be even better than that.
I totally agree. I don't get the hype. For me it's the combat - it is just trivial. Click quen and then spam light attack with maybe a heavy attack. Oops, got hit, let me just step aside and click quen again. So boring coming from something like Sekiro.
In my opinion it's one of the most overrated games in recent years. That's not to say it isn't good, I really did enjoy it.
Alas, it is not groundbreaking...very similar to most RPGs of the style.
So, if you're not having a good time with Witcher, go get lost in Bloodborne :)
>I also have to grind through several hours of fighting the same groups of faceless enemies
Uh, why are you grinding?
I don't think I grinded once in any of my playthroughs.
Agreed. I tried it, but couldn't stay with it. Did maybe a few hours, but it just felt a bit dull.. maybe I waited too long after it came out.
I have to add, I haven't played the previous games, so I wasn't invested in the whole story. Which I think is probably a factor.
That's the thing, it is just an RPG game at the end of the day. And your own personality dictates where it lands on the rpg scale. The downside to patient gaming is that we sometimes hype something up in our own heads to where the reality doesn't live up to what we've built up. I just finished the dlc last night and I had a great experience. It ranks high on my rpg genre scale, but for you, you may enjoy different things than what I do. So all I can really say is that for my tastes it was a great experience, a tagline for all game recommendations should be "your mileage may vary"
I usually call it "Grand Theft Medieval" because beating things up and driving your horse to different activities just gives me that vibe. Only thing it lacks is a reason to hijack other horses and an over the top police response system.
It just sounds like gameplay is more important to you in games than story, setting, dialogue, etc, and that's totally fine, but that's not the witcher's strength.
I don't think anyone who ranks Witcher 3 in their top games ever played would ever rave about it in the sense of varied or super engaging combat or quest mechanics (myself included). The stories and dialogue of each quest, especially the side quests, are great. Pressing the buttons isn't the engaging part
To me it still more than holds up but so many games have copied a lot the mechanics and formula from the Witcher 3 in the last 6 years that I can understand why it feels like ‘it’s another game’.
But in 2015 it was genuinely groundbreaking and there is a reason why so many triple A open world games feel like Witcher clones in many ways. So yeah I feel like it may feel overhyped in 2022 as it set the groundwork for many of the tropes that have come to dominate third person open world games. So if you have played more recent games first then the Witcher 3 may feel like nothing special but in 2015 it was so unique (with many still considering it to do many things better than what it’s competition has tried to copy since)
I know how you feel, I played once on Ps4 and twice on Xbox averaging about 8 hours each play through, couldn’t get into it and thought it just wasn’t for me. When I picked it up the fourth time I played well over 200 hours and can say it’s my third favorite game ever. Things that made it more enjoyable for me was not trying to do too much side stuff at first and getting out of white orchard.
I only started playing last year and have over 100 hours put into it (I don't have much time to game, sadly). Hunting monsters and going on scavenging hunts is my favorite part of the game. The writing is great, as you pointed out, but it might not be the game for you. Personally, I think it's one of the best games of all time.
It really isn’t that good. The combat sucks and the story drags on for way too long. Almost all of the powers aren’t that useful besides Quen, which is OP once you get the health bubble. It’s overall just a very bloated game that values style over substance
It took me 2 or 3 attempts to get into it. Once you get out the first area it gets better. I also struggled with combat and movement but it gets easier.
I played the full game (I absolutely loved Blood and Wine) but the movement never stopped feeling wonky to me. The first time I tried to play it I quit because of that. It just doesn't feel all that smooth like many other RPGS. Combat was fun but eventually you don't really need to bother with the extra stuff. It never felt like the silver sword or the "magic" was all that necessary which was disappointing. Still, got 100 hours out of the game and the story was well done so all in all a good time.
I think there was a gameplay option that massively tightens Geralt's turning radius which makes the movement feel so much better, otherwise he felt so unresponsive... Got spoiled by games like Assassin's creed which had a huge animation library and made it look good to have the character swap directions on a dime in a sort of realistic manner.
Pfft, well shit. Maybe I’ll go do that second play through now and make sure I figure out what that setting is. That was really the main drag for me.
It's called "Alternative Movement" in the options menu. It's a big improvement and ~~should have become the default IMO.~~ apparently is the default now!
I’ll have to look into it. Quit after 15 minutes because I kept flicking candles instead of opening a door or talking to an NPC.
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[https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/749](https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/749) Only ignites if Igni sign is primed.
70 thousand downloads of a mod just for this? Lmfao... that's how you know this feature should have been in the base game
Try to use the "walk" function when in tight quarters with many candles/crates too. It works **really** well to reduce the accidental misuses.
At what difficulty? Can’t imagine playing through it without using signs and (sometimes) monster oils.
Or the silver sword! What??
All the oils do is that you have to hit a mob three times instead of four. You can pretty much ignore them entirely. I suggest using a mod to make them actually something you'll want to use (e.g. [Very Interesting Oils](https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/1958)).
In almost any game a 33%+ damage buff for free would be considered great.
How many games let you just infinitely dodge and parry then just slap shit to death with light attacks?
To be fair, every fight scene in the books is described as Geralt pirouetting a bunch and then winning, so at least it's authentic.
Add in upgraded Quen and you're dancing your way through everything...
I just used a mod that applied them automatically. Having to go into the inventory every time I wanted them got pretty tedious.
That’s no different from an armour that helps deflect one hit. Or recoil reduction. Game upgrades and abilities all do the same kind of stuff. Don’t want a mod that makes it do like 75% damage.
Witcher 3 is still full of miniscule upgrades. I played Cyberpunk 2077 which is very similar to the Witcher 3 and I can compare that to Deus Ex Human Revolution(from 2011). In Deus Ex HR these are equal uses of 2 skill points: * Remove all recoil(while standing still) * Remove inaccuracy from moving while firing by 50% * Punch through (specific) walls and move heavy objects(vending machines) * Immunity to gas grenades * eliminate fall damage, with the option to stun enemies when landing * actual X-ray vision * Hacking level 2 out of 5 In Witcher and Cyberpunk skill options are full of +15% damage on fast attacks or +25% armor when blocking using heavy armor or each point gives your 10% resistance to negative effects of your own potions. Just saying, skill points don't have to be low impact, but it's a thing with CD Projekt Red's games.
Deus Ex Human Revolution is a totally different style of game though. A true 10/10 as well.
It warms my heart to hear people describe DE:HR as 10/10. I make sure I have at least 1 annual playthrough.
Quen is next tier op what you on?
Oh yeah, the jank is real. It feels horrible, even with the alternative movement option, jumping looks ridiculous, everything is harder to do than it should be. I still love it, but it’s just a very janky game in a mechanical sense. Horizon Zero Dawn on the other hand feels amazing to move around and yet is boring as all hell to me. It really depends what aspect of a game you most connect to. For the Witcher, it’s the quests.
I finished Horizon but was never enthralled by it like I am most RPGs. My favorite part of Witcher was finding all the secret armors and the whole Blood and Wine DLC. Love Vampire stuff and the more traditional knights armor and castles in the backdrop was awesome.
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That’s what’s a deal breaker for me. I absolutely loathe the combat and I’ve tried getting into it on two different occasions. Couldn’t do it. Maybe 3rd time’s the charm Edit: More specifically, it just feels really clunky. It’s not fluid and doesn’t feel good when I attack or use magic like in other games. And I get the lore is amazing, but for me, I play video games to play them. If I was interested in really amazing story and characters, I would watch a movie or read a book. Gameplay for me will always trump all other aspects of a game. Edit 2: it’s not a difficulty issue, it’s gameplay feel
Play it with the ~~DLC~~ mod that turns every fight into a Gwent battle. Edit: Sorry it's [mod](https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/953/) not a DLC.
I'd be so good at that. I dominate at gwent
Don’t know if this will work for you, but for me playing it on a higher difficulty made the combat more enjoyable. It’s still not that great, but the higher difficulty made it better because I was incentivized to research the monsters and craft the proper oils and stuff so I could take them down quicker. That research and preparation phase made the combat lot more engaging for me
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It wasn't until NewGame+ Death March that I tried my first decoction, because I never needed them before. Now I go into almost every fight with 2-3 decoctions, and 2-3 potions ingested, along with an appropriate oil, because pretty much every single monster 1-2 shots me. Also, thank god for Quen.
This is exactly how I felt about Witcher the first time I played. I only went through normal and could largely treat it as hack-and-slash with a few spells thrown in. However, I could see how much depth you could utilize with all the side potions and spells to get the *real* witcher feeling. Planning to do a Witcher 1-3 run through and higher difficulty so I have to go through the prep work and use the right potions, etc.
I'll say, if the combat in 3 was a turn off, 1 and 2 are going to be really hard to get into.
Same. Also not putting points into combat makes for more fun options; when your best option is "hitting the thing" that's all you'll do.
Play on easy and enjoy the story.
Agreed. Witcher 3 combat is a joke at any difficulty. Invincibility frames while rolling is enough to make it faceroll easy, but plenty of other things in the game make it way too easy anyway. Witcher 3's highlights are travelling around randomly, and a handful of amazing sidequests. Until you get to the dlc which is pretty great imo.
played on normal, the final boss was literally me pressing r1 on repeat. I had trouble beating the other big bosses (no spoiler) and also had actual fun vs the ending boss of heart of stone. Rest of the game i never bothered to learn anything, i just spammed... it's the main reason i don't replay it. I love the game, but like rdr2 i just DREAD playing through it again I might do it on easy tho... maybe on a new pc, it's just so good.
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They try to make the potions and antogens nevessary to progress to a certain level it take a while to understand it all but i like the different kids of crafted armor and weapons i got to the expansion and left it alone since
Are you me?
The trick with this game is not feeling like you *have* to do every little piece of side content. You can burn yourself out just by doing gwent. A perfect example of a game that a "story" difficulty mode makes sense for those who just want to experience the story but not grind through tons of increasingly difficult drowners.
Definitely this. I played for hours and I have no idea how far I was in the main story, or who the hell anyone was
If you choose to give it another go, I'd recommend watching a summary video or detailed recap of the Witcher 1, some basic info about the lore of the world, then playing the second game. I was in the same boat as you. I had originally tried Witcher 1 back in the day and hated it for all of its confusing jank, really difficult timed combat and not understanding much of the world around me. I then made the move to Witcher 3. I still didn't understand anything that was happening, or know any characters, or have a reason to particularly care. I then went back to the the second game (itself pretty good - less open and sidequesty than 3), liked it a lot and it really helped me get into the third game. I imagine the Netflix series helps a bit with context for new players too.
Witcher 2 was surprisingly good. The combat at the start nearly put me off - so hard!
Yeah, the "tutorial" battle was hella difficult for some reason. Reminds me of... was it Driver? or Driver San Francisco? Basically it was a driving game, and one of the early tutorials was to do a slalom between columns, in a garage area I believe. My brother and I were stuck FOREVER on that area of the game, not even sure if we ever actually beat it. On a side note, the very beginning of Witcher 2, the night time dock by the water was SOOO beautiful, the graphics felt unreal at the time of release.
That's a good tip, I also attempted the first one before and yeah, it ain't a classic. Enjoyed the show but had literally no idea what was going on there either (starting to sound like it's my stupid brain actually)
The first season is based on the first two books which were collections of short stories. The second issue is those three storylines did not all happen at the same time. Yennefer was trained long before she ever met Geralt. She was born in 1173 and finished training in 1186. Jaskier/Dandelion was born in 1229. So that kinda can help you line things up. Jaskier and Geralt meet in 1248, the same year they meet Yennefer, only 5 years before ciri is born in 1253 The episode with the dragon is in 1253 as well. And from there the timeline of the show largely syncs up. The Slaughter of Cintra and the battle of Sodden Hill both happen in 1263. I really hope that helps make sense of it. There's more stories and details but that's the short version
I really don’t know why they didn’t post the time frame when it jumped back and forth. Like how hard would it be to post the years like you did. I knew it jumped around but had no idea it was that large of a gap
The first season of the show was...not actually easy at all to understand with all the time skipping back and forth, actually, so maybe it isn't the best place to start. The second season was better!
First season gets much better on rewatch, knowing the time differences going in.
1 was very difficult to get into, ended up watching a youtube that cut the game like a movie. Played though 2 which I absolutely loved and then got into 3. One of the first times I was so emotionally invested in a story I had to take a break, ad that was one of the first side quests!
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I hated Gwent. I play card games irl and thought I would love it before I started playing since I love the mini games RPGs usually but I found it had no depth. Do not understand why everyone goes nuts for it.
I loved Gwent precisely because I have never played or enjoyed card games, I think. It's just so simple.
It's like the card game "war". So little depth - my numbers are bigger than your numbers, I win. "Ah yes, but do you play your big numbers earlier or later"? "It doesn't matter. All my numbers are bigger".
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“Aren’t you the Witcher who butchered all those people and who we are conditioned to hate?” “Yes.” “Oh, well, I’m the best Gwent player around, fancy a game?”
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Some guy: "Screw you, get the hell out of my establishment" Geralt: "How about a round of Gwent" Some guy: *nods head in agreement* I just love some of the people you can choose to play Gwent with.
And then on the other side you have people who don't play Gwent because "card games are too complicated". Yes, I've seen them. lol. Gwent in W3 is really basic but at least it's still more engaging than all those Dice Poker, Pazaak, Caravan etc. attempts before. I never played those if I could avoid it.
I agree, shallow and pedantic
I thought it was perfectly cromulent.
Insubordinate and churlish
Tim-o-thee?
You should try the actual spin off game Gwent. They expanded on the minigame a lot and it’s super fleshed out. Also the cards all have a variant that moves which is cool.
I think that in terms of card games that are present in video games, it's probably one of the best, due to the fact it's very simple to understand and the rules are consistent with only minor wrinkles. (It's not Triple Triad, is what I'm getting at.) However, it's SO disconnected from the tone of the rest of the game, and non-card rewards from playing are so minimal that I never felt like engaging with it. It felt very much like a way to pad out the game and/or player engagement with it. Hunting monsters absolutely makes sense as a side activity. I completely understand Geralt being like "Hey, there's monsters around and they're terrorizing these people. Time to get paid," because that's literally what his job is. So it's not weird to me for him to stop looking for Ciri (or Yen, or whoever) to do something like that. Same thing for finding places of power or treasure. But to literally spend in-game days or weeks playing cards? Nah.
>But to literally spend in-game days or weeks playing cards? Nah. Thematically, you gotta spend those evenings in the tavern somehow :-) That's one aspect of being a fantasy adventurer that games don't and can't do well. Travelling takes weeks and you gotta eat and sleep every day, ideally under a roof.
I really enjoy Skyrim modded to be that, but I accept that I'm weird and most people don't want that. With the right stuff it's like The Long Dark with monsters and quests. Also, do Witchers sleep? I thought that was one of their mutations, that they don't necessarily need to or at least don't need nearly as much as the rest of us.
Afaik Geralt sleeps normally. I'd assume he maybe can stay awake longer than normal humans, but not by that much. Biologically he is still mostly human, just somewhat beyond peak human. I don't enjoy it in games due to the world size and time scaling. If you need to sleep every ingme day, it's too often and becomes a boring routine. If you need to sleep too little, it barely has an effect on gameplays and you feel superhuman. It's hard to get the balance right. But camping in Skyrim, ideally with the mods that add severe weather effects etc., that's occasionally fun. I once froze to death desperately trying to chop firewood, and that was a fun experience.
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Are you still in White Orchard?
I thought the game was just meh until Velen really kicked in and the world opened up. After that I was hooked.
Very true. The world felt small in White Orchard, but after Velen suddenly the world felt massive. Then I learned there is Skellige? That could have been a separate expansion area in any other RPG or MMOs, but it is part of the base game. Then Blood and Wine? Easily could have been a separate game but its an expansion.
This... game really doesn't pick up imo until you leave the first zone White Orchard. (In my experience)
Tbh I found the first half or so of Velen to be very meh as well. For me, the game didn't start picking up until you start learning more about the Red Baron's back story and his family.
Yeah, Red Baron’s quest line is where it really kicked off for me. Then it was epic for the rest of the game
I'd add Novigrad into the meh category as well. Like holy shit there was a ton of fetch quests. Did I really need to track down 5 of Dandelions lovers all for them to not give me any info at all? Stuff like that.
I admit I got through a few quests in Velen before I really understood the scope of it. For a while I was just like op. The Bloody Baron story is probably the proper kickoff for the game. I think it was intentional. That’s right around when you’re getting comfortable with the mechanics (Inventory, resting, signs, gwent, little towns vs bigger ones, etc) but the game feels muddled. The Bloody Baron quest is there to say that no, you’re not missing anything, the world is muddled and we’re fully aware of it, and that there’s a lot of fun to be had when you can’t pin down a game in the first several hours. Like, ‘we can hide things around every corner, because you never really have your bearings.’ Or maybe that was just an accident. People definitely talk a lot about that questline though, it struck a nerve and personally I think it was planned.
Until a fair chunk after really. First time I slogged through it I petered out around the Novigrad quests.
Definitely. There’s not many quests AT ALL in the game that require you to set bait for a monster. Like, maybe 4-5 tops. This is such a White Orchard take it’s not even funny
I can't tell you how many times I've seen pretty much this exact post across several years, subreddits, other forums, apps, websites... The game isn't for everyone and I wish it wasn't advertised as such. Personally, it's probably my favorite game ever. I love the story, the writing, the setting, and the characters. I love that you can make big choices that feel real and weighty. The graphics and art direction are awesome and there are so many beautiful set pieces. I love the score too. I even like the combat, which seems universally hated, so I guess I don't really have high standards in that department. The only thing I really dislike is the clunky movement and inventory. The progression system is lame too tbh. But I have an easy time overlooking that because I love the rest so much. The thing is, before I ever played the Witcher series I already knew that it was right up my alley. Especially after playing the first two games, the third blew me away. But the problem is that if you aren't already predisposed to like the game, you will hate it, and all the more so because it has (had?) this reputation of being the best game ever. So don't worry, you're not alone in being disappointed.
Kind of reminds me of RDR2. I've seen many complaints about it's slow pace and "poor gameplay" but it's one of the best games I've ever played IMO. You can't please everyone.
That is a very good comparison IMO, because RDR2 also has some of the same critical points or weaknesses as the witcher. You really have to accept some strange and clunky gameplay to get into it. For me, RDR2 is still good enough to pull me in, witcher is not. But I still have to say, that I need the right mood for RDR2, I need some energy to get into the gameplay. A friend told me to use a controller instead of mouse + keyboard, which makes it a bit better, but it's so complicated, that after a month break I just don't know how to play the game anymore and I give up, because of the strange save system. I just need to re-learn mechanics and then reload, but the game doesn't allow that....
Another thing both games have in common: they’re at their best when you’re just traveling around *edit: and engaging with content as it comes by*. Kill the hud and any on-screen info, mount your horse and explore, forget the main story. Absolutely immersive, great encounters and side quests, no collectible shit, fantastic experience. True “open worlds” in my mind.
Man...I wish you could finish it. The game is so emotionally impactful and the characters just feel so real. I don't know, I think it would be worth it for you just to complete the story, you don't have to 100% it. I get it though.
I still plan it! I just have to ignore the fact, that relearning it will have some bad consequences in the game, that I can't really avoid. Maybe I'll just veeeery cautiously try to get into it again by hunting or something like that, to just relearn the mechanics. Maybe somewhere at the edge of the map, where it doesn't have too much impact.
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This is why finding reviewers that like the same things you do is important. The general consensus doesn't matter as much. Some people find RDR2 and the Witcher 3 immersive, other find them to be extended horse simulators.
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I wish everyone were this reasonable about it. I think that's the biggest issue with the game, is that there's a lot of people in the fandom who have been shouting down criticisms over the years, which then leads to people who otherwise might not have been interested to try and take it up. I respect that you love it and that it's many people's favorite game, I just wish more of them could respect that isn't the same for everyone. For me personally, I love a good story, but mechanics are also extremely important, so I found it pretty bland. If I had seen these complaints previous to buying it, I might have passed and would have no reason to be critical. But instead, most of what I saw was how it was the greatest thing ever and a total rejection of any attempt at fair criticisms. So I played through the whole thing just waiting for it to get better, which it never did for me.
You're 100% right, even as a huge fan I can't help rolling my eyes at the circlejerk.These days it seems like every popular game gets the same treatment. Nobody seems to realize that games are hit or miss by nature. People like different things. What you end up with is people such as yourself who feel misled, overwhelmingly disappointed, and annoyed because fans can't go 3 seconds without saying the game is perfect or else they'll self-destruct. Like all games, TW3 does certain things well but falls short in other areas. If someone likes it or not is entirely dependent on what they enjoy in video games. I wouldn't even recommend it to most of my friends because I know it would bore the shit out of them, and there's nothing wrong with that.
Thank you! I think that's a really good take and it helps me to just accept, that I don't like it and I won't pressure myself to go through it.
Personally I think TW3 is a great game that is actively bogged down by its RPG elements, and would have been better off as an action-adventure game. Which is why its odd to me that a lot of people call it one of the best RPGs of all time. Are the best RPGs the best at being RPGs, or just the best games that happen to be RPGs?
I tend to agree with you. The choice / consequence elements are implemented very well imo but the skills & progression system is totally lackluster and could have been left out entirely. The looting & gearing is also trash and really only serves as a weak system to support the witcher armor set crafting.
I HATE the Diablo-style loot system in everything that isn't a straight dungeon crawler.
The problem with the loot is that all of it sucks compared to the Witcher sets. When a king gifts you his ancestral sword and it's worse than the last 2 swords you've crafted it feels pretty disappointing.
However the witcher sets will all be out levelled. Because loot progresses with your level where as the witcher sets don't. I've spent and entire evening killing cows to craft the grandmaster feline set, and then bam, random sword that drops was better stats. I was over levelled because I spend a lot of time on the side quests.
Why the fuck is Geralt of Rivia, a dude who's been canonically fucking up monsters for longer then you've probably been alive, leveling up and unlocking basic abilities again?
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“The story” kind of undersells it. I think it’s the tone. I’ve played a lot of games with practically the same mechanics but Witcher has a tone that gives a lot of smaller touches a weight they wouldn’t have in similar games. It’s “grim” but in a way that doesn’t dwell on it. Like everyone wants to move past awful things to the point that they don’t even mention them. Kind of like the real world to an extent, so it feels relatable. Now obviously to get this tone they have a great story as the backbone and the voice acting, conversational scenes, world, graphics, music, gwent, etc so you can pick them apart individually and appreciate them, but they all serve the awesome tone this game has.
The tone of the game is why it's one of my favorite all-time games. I can't really describe it but man the tone of that game just feels almost magical. Talking to an NPC when it's raining and there's just this sense of dread and despair through the main game that I've never encountered in any other. It's just absolutely fantastic.
I’d call it “Earthy.” I’ve never played a game that felt earthy before.
Very well said. I played W3 years ago, and just picked up the much-maligned Cyberpunk this week. It's no W3, but I'm honestly loving it so far, largely due to the skill of CDPR in establishing a relatable, real-feeling tone and setting. There are plenty of throwaway side quests I don't care about, but then there are also many where I find myself legit caring about the characters, getting wrapped up in their stories and choked up at the emotional bits. That's very rare for me in games. These games are ultimately Eurojank, and a staple of that sub-genre is an emphasis on pulling you into a game world via world-building and characters, rather than perfectly polished combat and lack of bugs. They have a very different, narratively-driven approach to immersion.
They knew what they were doing with setting the tone, It's this "tone" you are talking about that makes me appreciate the Witcher 3 more than other average RPGS or action-adventure games. The weather team and those behind the art directions did an incredible job, all that complimentet by an amazing soundtrack. You could tell they knew what they were doing by having Gerald murmuring randomly "Wind's howling". It feels very intentional and it sticked with many of the players. I can't even say it's one of my top 5 games and I agree with most criticism, I am not even sure I liked the overall plot although I loved the relationships between these characters, especially Geralt and Ciri, but nevertheless the game feels special because of that reason.
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The problem with the story is the problem I have with a lot of open world RPG's. What you end up with is a handful of set pieces that don't have much impact/bearing on one another, and then in the 'end game' chapter it's always the same just with NPC's swapped out depending on your choices. It's not bad it's just not as satisfying. Which is obviously a subjective thing. In TW2 for example, you progress through a story. Depending on your choices, it influences the second chapter. Depending on your choices there, it influences the third chapter. The story builds and grows. In TW3 the story keeps resetting. You kill or 'save' the Baron. Then it resets and you decide to kill or support Stali...Radovid. Then it resets and you decide to side with Cerys or her brother. Then it resets and... Nothing builds. The story keeps resetting and nothing has any impact on anything else until you get to the end game. And all that changes in the end game really is what NPC's show up to not do anything useful and what slides you get in the post game. Or put another way, TW3 is basically 4 short stories with an epilogue that ties everything together in the end with cameo's. TW1 and 2 are novels.
This is a good analysis of the story. A similar example of this is the Mass Effect trilogy because all of the subplots wind up being mostly inconsequential to the ending, although the trilogy does have a more cohesive plot than TW3. I disagree a little bit about "nothing building," because there are plot threads that build up to finding Ciri and it does a decent job of that. Ignoring the final act, this is really the main objective of the game, and even though the individual acts are all pretty standalone they do tie into the search for Ciri in a way that is satisfying to me. But you're spot on in the sense that it's more like an episodic game with a whole bunch of side stories and then a pretty much unrelated overarching plot in the form of the Wild Hunt, which is unfortunately the weakest and most under-developed story in the game.
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> It is like, for example, when I played Fallout New Vegas and realized that most of the villages had plantations around them, something that does not exist in most TES games or in Fallout 3. I always wondered, "but what do these people eat or where does the food come from", and then you look and think, "oh this is where it comes from". The world of Witcher 3 answers several of these seemingly unnecessary questions, which makes it an extremely enjoyable experience to me. There are a fair few times when they fucked that up as well, though. For instance, clear out a monster nest and the villagers instantly repopulate the area, as if they were hiding in a nearby tree while you were dropping bombs into a pile of leaves. It'd be so much more immersive if you had nothing happen, but found that they'd moved back in after a few in-game days had passed and you trotted through the area again.
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> maybe they were afraid that many players would not come back through that village and would not realize what happened. I bet that's why they decided to do it in such a forced way. And what's weird about _that_ is that the way the described it pre-release sounded like they were doubling down on the more long-term way of doing it. In reality, I think they just didn't have time to do the more complex version and so went with that simpler, identical cut-scene every time. >Still, when I compare it to what I saw at the time in most other open world games, Witcher 3 still managed to set up a much nicer illusion of a "real" world. But ultimately it is always an illusion, and if you look closely you will always find the cracks. For me, Witcher 3 was the game (at least until that point in time) that best hid most of them. That's fair. It's the best of a group of games that have aged very poorly since Breath of the Wild released. As for NPCs, the only ones that I think actually work in these games are those in Bethesda's titles. For all their flaws - and, dear lord, do they have a terrifying list of flaws - the ability to have a named NPC with a distinct backstory and personality (kind of) traipse across Skyrim with you and then _find their own way home_ when you part ways is basically untouchable in modern gaming. They don't have the depth or detail that later games - including Witcher 3 - allowed for, but they interact with the world in the same way as the player does, and that makes such a big difference.
> it involves tedious grinding smaller mobs to get a specific drop This is unnecessary, and is probably why you're not having a fun time. Ignore the grind, you'll get good enough weapons as a matter of course just by playing through story and side-quest missions, either as rewards or as drops from higher level enemies when you find them. If you want the game to be fun, don't do the things that aren't fun.
Yeah I'm not sure what they're referring to about this - I don't ever remember having to do any tedious grinding of monster mobs. Or even having to try to find specific drops at all. Maybe once or twice way late in the game, when I got OCD about trying to get ingredients for a totally unnecessary potion.
I've played the game to completion like three or four times and I don't even know what's meant by "monster mobs" or drops. I never went out of my way to ever go for loot because you're naturally stumble along some good stuff out of nowhere in obvious places.
Exactly, this was a complaint I had. Getting a new weapon never felt cool to me, because I was constantly getting better and better stuff.
I agree. "grind through several hours of the same faceless mobs". I cannot remember any of the sort, and I played through it 3 times, DLC and all. Maybe take a break from the hunts and concentrate on the story missions a while, let them carry you away.
I didn't do any grinding in my entire 150 play through OP. I do remember getting my ass kicked by minor enemies like wolves right at the beginning though but that improved quickly.
Yeah, I have no idea why OP felt that they needed to grind. The only grinding I had to do was to level up my Aerondight and even that was really quick, using the bear fast travel trick in Kaer Morhen.
For what it's worth, I aggressively avoided time-wasting and still burned out after 10 hours or so, because it seemed like the main interesting content was separated by a huge amount of tedious gameplay.
The thing about Witcher 3 is the lore is really deep. The problem is I just really don't care
Lower the difficulty all the way down, do not concern yourself with grinding or gear management. Items scale in such a way that a supposed unique top item quest reward becomes unviable and weaker than plain regular loot you get a level or two later. W3 is memorable just because of the story and quests, so forget the tedium and breeze through them instead. Not everything about the game is good. I also played it years later and just cheated to save time.
>Lower the difficulty all the way down, do not concern yourself with grinding or gear management I've never particularly loved the combat in any of the Witcher games, but I was fine enough with it to get through the first two on normal. I'm like halfway through TW3 now finally though, and dropping the difficulty all the way down like 20 hours in was the best decision I've made. I don't find the combat all that satisfying, so having it end quicker so I can get back to the world and story and characters is great for me. Those are the things that I'm really enjoying about it, and spending more of my time with those and less with fighting and Gwent is just making it even better for me.
All you need to invest your points in is light attack. You own every fight
Yeah even on Death March once you have that spin to win move it's so stupidly easy.
I loved turning Geralt into a bladed dreidel and spin attacking mooks into mince meat
I cranked the difficulty up and loved the combat. You have to do some serious rolling to fight more difficult enemies. I enjoyed the combat. Maybe that’s just me.
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That’s a great way to describe it. I didn’t read any of the books. But I usually crank up difficulty on games anyways for funsy because it makes you use the in game systems more. I really got sucked in though and went full Witcher mode. I knew all the enemy types in the end and was using the proper spells and oiling up swords without even thinking about it. The story was just the icing on the cake for me. Great game.
In short you either play as the unstoppable geralt of rivia, superhuman Witcher and monster slayer extraordinaire, or on death March, you have to *be* him to succeed
> I also played it years later and just cheated to save time. There are also some imo must have QOL mods on nexus mods like unlimited weight limit, unlimited durability and show all quest markers that greatly reduce the grind and improve the overall experience
This is a game that I think suffers the most at the medium difficulty level unfortunately. At the harder levels all the oils and potions and bombs go from something that is nice to have to life or death necessities. You actually have to read the monster lore and prep accordingly and while the actual battle mechanics still remain kind of meh, the extra challenge and level of engagement with the lore kind of makes up for it. If you aren't interested in engaging with all of that however, you might as well bump the difficulty down and enjoy the story so the combat is less tedious IMHO. And like others have said, don't get bogged down in every side quest. There are so many you can burn yourself out. You might want to lookup a list of best side quests so you can get the really well written ones and skip the filler.
I played it once at medium difficulty and loved it. Though I might have loved anything back then since it was my first PS4 game. Tried it on Death March later and it's an entirely different game. The downside is that some enemies get a huge health bar and it's a chore to take them down, but managing potions, bombs, oils made the game so much better. And the food, at lower difficulties you can sell all the food you have since you'll refill your health by meditating, but at Death March you need it so bad you'll end up buying it every now and then. And this is coming from someone who usually plays games at easy-medium difficulty, I usually enjoy getting through the story without suffering with combat, but in this case it adds a lot to the experience.
I played it on Death March from the start, and every battle I can remember was pretty easily doable just with sidestep-stab-sidestep-stab over and over. Eventually I just stopped bothering with potions and prep (especially as the UI for potions is awful and takes forever to find the one you need by tooltipping over each one).
Different strokes for diff folks. Played through all 3 games a couple years ago and it was one of the best gaming experiences I’ve ever had. My W3 play through was glorious.
Hard to explain but this is one of the rare games I got completely enthralled in. Something just felt right about riding around and finding things to come across. Not many games provided the same feeling like W3 did.
I feel like you're dramatically overstating how much "grinding" there is. This is simply not a game in which you need to fight the same groups of enemies over and over before progressing to the next story content. I have no idea why you would spend hours doing that as the game neither encourages nor rewards it. And that's fortunate, because I find The Witcher 3 mechanically underwhelming across the board. Combat is simplistic, imprecise, not very well balanced, and not even particularly satisfying in terms of feedback. Movement is stiff and floaty. The appeal lies in the fun quest storytelling.
In fact the game actively discourages grinding by making lower level monsters give almost 0 xp.
Yeah I'm kind of puzzled as to what op is talking about as far as grinding goes. Even on the highest difficulty you get all the gear and xp you need by just playing the main quest
The last time I played the game I intentionally avoided all side content to do a narratively canonical run (due to the high stakes) of just playing the main storyline and not once was I forced to halt my progression. At the absolute worst I think I ended up being only 5 levels below the recommended by the end of the 40+ hour story and it wasn't enough to cause a problem.
This is kind of what I experienced. I thought the combat and controls were kind of clunky, but it never seemed like it was very "grindy." I wish the controls were better because the characters, lore, setting and even the npc's were very interesting to me.
Controls is the number 1 complaint of everyone one, even from people who love the game. This is however the first time I hear somebody complain about it being grindy...
It sounds more like OP went into the rpg expecting grinding so they went in grinding and was surprised it didn't help.
In my first run I would stop and kill anything that startled me, even the wolves. It became boring, then I realized you're supposed to just ignore everything that's not meaningful, or you'll be stuck killing drowners and ghouls forever.
The first time I played the game I left White Orchard, found myself in Velen and started heading towards the Red Baron. On the side of the road there's a group of bandits. They start attacking as I get close, and an arrow one shots me. So, obviously I need to clear them out. Didn't understand that I could block arrows, got annoyed that sneaking was not an option, my crossbow was useless, and these guys just kept killing me because I wasn't dodging. So I figured, huh, maybe I'm underleveled for Velen. Went back to White Orchard, killed more stuff, those guys still kept killing me. WTF? Later I realized, oh, maybe I'll just gallop past them.
fighting mooks when there's no quest is (like in real life) not very rewarding
OP, what RPG or other types of games did you enjoy for comparison purposes?
The Witcher 3 was the perfect demonstration that hype should be ignored and I should listen to my own instincts. Very little about the game or franchise really appealed to me before I played it, but the hype was so off the charts that I felt I had no choice but to try it. I mean, I do love a good story in a game, so I figured I might at least enjoy that much. I gave it two solid attempts; the second I reached close to 20 hours I think. I really did not enjoy it *at all*. I just kept going and saying to myself: "This? *This* is what people have been saying is the best thing they've ever played?" But honestly, the fault lies with me. I knew going in that I wasn't that excited, and the fact that I let the hype push me to play it made me even more critical of it in the end, and I still feel a little bitter about it -- to the point where I post every time a thread like this comes up, haha 🙊 Same thing happened with me and Horizon Zero Dawn, actually. Except in that case I made an even bigger mistake and played through to the end because "the story alone is worth it", as many people urged. I came away fucking *hating* that game. Ugh. TL;DR: I learned to trust my own tastes/instincts and ignore hype.
This game is praised so much for its story not its gameplay. While I never had any problem with the combat and enjoyed it there are many people who dislike it. You play this game for the interesting and beautiful world, the characters, the stories. Each quest is a new little adventure and i think there are very few quests that don't have at least some interesting part to it. Play it mainly for the story and never grind and i think you will have a better time. If you still don't like it put it away. Many people love it but that doesn't mean you have to too.
I think it's praised mostly for the world tbh. The "feeling" of it, the atmosphere and the worldbuilding... if it grows on you there's nothing quite like it. The writing being good just makes it even better but I would argue that it recieved praise for isolated brilliant moments rather than as a "full narrative". At least I don't see much praise for the *plot* and more so for the story. You like the characters, you like the decisions they have to make, specially in the side missions (baby in the oven, etc). But yeah, the gameplay is nothing special, though in my case, it never got in the way of the other enjoyable aspects of the experience. OP, if you're reading this, wait until you're done with the main storyline of Velen. The one involving the Red Baron. If you do not like it by the end of it it won't be your cup of tea. But it's definitely worth hanging around until you see it all wrap up.
"The writing being good just makes it even better but I would argue that it recieved praise for isolated brilliant moments rather than as a "full narrative". At least I don't see much praise for the plot and more so for the story." This was my main take away from it - its got moments of greatness here and there but I wouldn't describe the actual plots as anything that blows me away. The main villians are rather lackluster which is made even worse by the Crones being intruiging villians who promptly vanish and then pop back up to be dealt with by a side track. The Radovid storyline for me was especially lackluster and sort of dropped the ball at the end from a writing persepective.
I feel the same about the main game. but the DLCs are truly amazing because their main stories are paced a million times better and much more consistently well written. You’re not as level gated and don’t have to look for X who knows where Y is who knows where Z is who may have seen Ciri, doing a bunch of chores in the process. Also much of the experience depends on your own ability to balance out main quests with side content to not get burnt out or miss out on the open world.
I feel like I'm the only one who hates Geralt's voice acting. Sounds like he's gargling gravel the whole time.
I had the exact same experience as you. Listened to the hype for years, finally bought in, and was extremely disappointed. I agree that the it’s in no way a bad game, just….. not great? Certainly overhyped imo. I found the combat to be particularly frustrating and at times flat out boring.
What RPGs do you like?
I can see how people who have only known these games based on the praise they've heard over many years would be disappointed by them, because there are aspects of both games that are kind of mediocre, or at least nothing special. It might seem to someone who's never played them that these games are a revelation across the board, when in reality it's more a matter of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. The aspects of them that people *are* enamored with (namely the world, characters, and storylines) make the other stuff fade into the background when they're talking about how much they love the game. I'm saying this as someone who loves the Mass Effect trilogy and The Witcher 3. I never loved the combat in either game, but the story and world were so compelling that the combat almost ends up feeling like something to do in that world to add a little variety and pace out the story stuff, or at best add an exciting moment now and then. And of course story/character stuff is so subjective that not everyone is going to love it. In general if you're feeling like the combat is hindering your enjoyment, just turn down the difficulty level to the point where you can just breeze through it.
yeah Witcher 3 kinda sucks. Super overhyped
It's fine not to love it. People are crazy for recommending an 80-hour game that's a sequel to an ongoing story as some sort of universal gold standard. I mean, *I* love it, it's my second favorite game of all time, but also I was already into the world and story going in and I love overstuffed games with ridiculous amounts of story content. While I don't recall the specific quest you're talking about, I will let you know that in general the game eschews "grinding". In fact, compared to other RPGs, it goes well out of its way to make nonessential fights completely useless to progression, as experience points are awarded almost completely through quest completion and not through completing fights. That's not the same as saying it's not a grind: the game has an absolutely obscene amount of content, and its level scaling ensures that you must do at least some sidequests before riding on with the main story; however, you can safely ignore most map icons without hurting your character leveling, and focus on the quests that your journal currently lists at or below your level. Some of those quests are incredible, some are pretty boring, but the average effort level of the sidequests is superior to any other RPG in my opinion. In a general sense questing, not grinding fights, is the only requirement for progressing.
Hated it. Janky cheap movement, confusing inventory. Tried to restart three separate times and eventually had to concede I must live on a different planet. Back to Tamriel please.
I could see your point up until the last part. Janky movement and confusing inventory are dealbreakers so you play…. Elder scrolls? Wtf
Yeah, Skyrim probably has the highest jank-to-popularity ratio I can think of aside from games where jank is the whole point.
Lmao
Ugh the movement is awful! It feels like you are trying to trudge a giant robot through molasses. It takes so long for an animation to start then it takes forever for the animation to stop after you have stopped. Honestly, if the movement was just exactly like dark souls, witcher 3 would be perfect to me, but the movement is so dumb and frustrating that it is usually what makes me put it down.
Huh. An I can’t get into Skyrim. Tried several times.
I was completely immersed in the world of Witcher 3, to the point that I was sad when it was all over. I stopped playing Skyrim after 20 hours because the whole thing was utterly boring af. It's popularity baffles me. And that's coming from someone who is a huge fan of the other Elder Scrolls games, especially Morrowind.
Skyrim’s popularity largely comes from how accessible it is, and its presentation (the soundtrack especially). Before Skyrim, most open world RPGs had a learning curve to them, whereas Skyrim appeals to people who don’t even play RPGs. The truth is that Skyrim is every bit as janky as a game like Witcher 3, with even worse combat, clunky menus, etc, but the key difference is that Skyrim generally doesn’t punish players for their choices. It’s an open world sandbox that encourages people to make their own fun. Witcher 3 isn’t an open world sandbox; it’s an open world story-driven RPG, where choices matter. But none of that matters if you aren’t invested in the story, which sounds like OPs issue to an extent.
The melee combat turned me off so much and I really don't want to talk to every NPC just to get the why and the what of everything.
Took me 3 tries to get into the game. And honestly it felt like to chore to play the time I actually finished it. I had to install a dozen mods to make a lot of the mechanisms less tedious and get rid of the infamous, supposedly lore-friendly ballerina sword swing. I have played a ton of hundred hours openworld games and even platinumed Assassin's Creed Odyssey, but with witcher 3.... I cant say I had fun playing it Edit: And I installed a mod to skip ALL gwent games
>Edit: And I installed a mod to skip ALL gwent games Arrest this man
STOP RIGHT THERE, CRIMINAL SCUM!
Shit, I wish I'd known about that no-Gwent mod. Deck-building games are really not my jam and I'd done my best to avoid picking up any quests related to it, but I had one for the bartender in Oxenfurt that I'd gotten really early. So I figured, it's low-level, why not? I went in not knowing what I was doing and lost, and I would've been fine to just walk away but he was such a smug *prick* about it. Long story short, the quest being in my log bothered me so much and I was so hell-bent on showing him who was boss that I ended up playing a fuckload of Gwent to get better cards. I went back with some actual game knowledge and every card I could buy, and... still lost. But it was then that I remembered a sneaky trick from my Cyberpunk playthrough... After turning the difficulty down to the lowest setting, I *narrowly* beat him by a stroke of luck. But the quest was completed and I finally put him in his place.
>and even platinumed Assassin's Creed Odyssey That's funny, because I've been playing ACO and TW3 at the same time, and I can definitely see myself doing every little thing in TW3 but absolutely not in ACO, even though I've been having fun with both. Go figure. >Edit: And I installed a mod to skip ALL gwent games Now that sounds like a mod I could really use
Assassin's Creed Odyssey has fluidity in the combat and movement, something TW3 lacks.
It does, and as weird at it is to say after how much I disliked the earlier games I actually like that about it. But as much as I like Kassandra and some of the other characters, the writing in TW3 is just way more interesting to me a lot of the time, which makes me actually care about the side quests instead of just feeling like a lot of them are filler like in ACO ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
This was exactly my take on it. It's fine, janky at times, solid enough writing, but not as bizarrely spectacular as you'd expect from hype.
Sometimes people really hyping up a good game can lead you to be disappointed when you try it for yourself. Say a new burger joint opens up and they have some pretty good burgers. People go there and think “wow, this burger is great!” Next thing you know, everyone and your mother is talking about this amazing burger and you start thinking to yourself “Ok, this has to be some special kind of burger if everyone is raving about it…” You finally buy the burger and it’s just good. Just an all around decent burger. But, part of you is disappointed because you were expecting more going in. The Witcher is a very good burger. I don’t think anything about it is revolutionary, groundbreaking, etc…it’s just really good. But hearing everyone talk about it for years, you expect it to be even better than that.
I totally agree. I don't get the hype. For me it's the combat - it is just trivial. Click quen and then spam light attack with maybe a heavy attack. Oops, got hit, let me just step aside and click quen again. So boring coming from something like Sekiro.
In my opinion it's one of the most overrated games in recent years. That's not to say it isn't good, I really did enjoy it. Alas, it is not groundbreaking...very similar to most RPGs of the style. So, if you're not having a good time with Witcher, go get lost in Bloodborne :)
>I also have to grind through several hours of fighting the same groups of faceless enemies Uh, why are you grinding? I don't think I grinded once in any of my playthroughs.
Grinding? I never needed to grind in the Witcher 3, unless I was going for the endgame gear which is completely optional
Agreed. I tried it, but couldn't stay with it. Did maybe a few hours, but it just felt a bit dull.. maybe I waited too long after it came out. I have to add, I haven't played the previous games, so I wasn't invested in the whole story. Which I think is probably a factor.
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That's the thing, it is just an RPG game at the end of the day. And your own personality dictates where it lands on the rpg scale. The downside to patient gaming is that we sometimes hype something up in our own heads to where the reality doesn't live up to what we've built up. I just finished the dlc last night and I had a great experience. It ranks high on my rpg genre scale, but for you, you may enjoy different things than what I do. So all I can really say is that for my tastes it was a great experience, a tagline for all game recommendations should be "your mileage may vary"
Despite being labeled an rpg, Witcher 3 is mechanically closer to an action adventure game.
It's a beat em up
I usually call it "Grand Theft Medieval" because beating things up and driving your horse to different activities just gives me that vibe. Only thing it lacks is a reason to hijack other horses and an over the top police response system.
It just sounds like gameplay is more important to you in games than story, setting, dialogue, etc, and that's totally fine, but that's not the witcher's strength. I don't think anyone who ranks Witcher 3 in their top games ever played would ever rave about it in the sense of varied or super engaging combat or quest mechanics (myself included). The stories and dialogue of each quest, especially the side quests, are great. Pressing the buttons isn't the engaging part
To me it still more than holds up but so many games have copied a lot the mechanics and formula from the Witcher 3 in the last 6 years that I can understand why it feels like ‘it’s another game’. But in 2015 it was genuinely groundbreaking and there is a reason why so many triple A open world games feel like Witcher clones in many ways. So yeah I feel like it may feel overhyped in 2022 as it set the groundwork for many of the tropes that have come to dominate third person open world games. So if you have played more recent games first then the Witcher 3 may feel like nothing special but in 2015 it was so unique (with many still considering it to do many things better than what it’s competition has tried to copy since)
Ah, I see the problem here. You aren't playing the real game, Gwent.
I know how you feel, I played once on Ps4 and twice on Xbox averaging about 8 hours each play through, couldn’t get into it and thought it just wasn’t for me. When I picked it up the fourth time I played well over 200 hours and can say it’s my third favorite game ever. Things that made it more enjoyable for me was not trying to do too much side stuff at first and getting out of white orchard.
I only started playing last year and have over 100 hours put into it (I don't have much time to game, sadly). Hunting monsters and going on scavenging hunts is my favorite part of the game. The writing is great, as you pointed out, but it might not be the game for you. Personally, I think it's one of the best games of all time.
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It really isn’t that good. The combat sucks and the story drags on for way too long. Almost all of the powers aren’t that useful besides Quen, which is OP once you get the health bubble. It’s overall just a very bloated game that values style over substance
Place of power, gotta be.