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| Thread: The Witcher 3 - Wild Hunt |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · NEXT» |
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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted May 20, 2015 09:13 PM |
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Edited by Zenofex at 21:15, 20 May 2015.
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The Witcher 3 - Wild Hunt
No thread yet? Shame!
My first impression is that they didn't lie about the system requirements. On 8-core AMD FX 8300 with 12 GB RAM and GeForce GTX 650 the damn thing barely runs on Low. Really barely though, the frame rate is... not very bad for walking around but handling Geralt in any combat above the very basic encounters is out of the question, in dialogues the facial expressions and the voices are out of sync and whatnot. New video arrives tomorrow... 
There seem to be a lot of other technical issues at this point. One that I've personally experienced is the very silent voices, music, sound in general - with everything on 100/100 I had to push the speakers to the limit to be able to hear anything more than whispers. People report crashes on opening inventory, disappearing items, problems with saves and so on. Massive lags during some cutscenes (and not only) were reported even before the release and were supposed to be fixed with the day 1 patch but are not - for the first 10 minutes I got one. Casual, in other words, the game will probably be in a decent state after a few months (that was the case with The Witcher 2 at least).
Not much else to tell yet, I haven't really played past the tutorial. The combat mechanics now involve more motions than in the previous game but generally look like an upgraded (or maybe downgraded, we'll see) version of what we had in TW2. The graphics... will probably be very beautiful on a powerful machine. That's it for now, more when I actually get to play the game, not test how obsolete by the CDP standards my GPU is.
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted May 20, 2015 09:34 PM |
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The comments on GOG are enthusiastic. I was thinking about buying it but 60 euros sounds to me exaggerated for a game.
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EnergyZ
Legendary Hero
President of MM Wiki
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posted May 20, 2015 09:42 PM |
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Well, I never played any of these Witcher games. It looks amazing and maybe even the finest game product in years. But, don't you think it is too much? Even if you exclude requirements (probably needs a new PC with tons of additional memory cards, graphics etc.) it still feels just too much to explore. Not certain how buggy the game could be (considering how it looks).
Usually I play smaller games, which need about a month to complete; say 2 hours per day. For a game like this it needs thousands of hours to know every aspect, from lore through items and characters to locations.
Similar to Skyrim, I feel their devs want attention so that people play their games rather than anyone else's. Good tactic, for them.
But still, I don't play such huge games, it feels too much to handle.
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Adrius
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Stand and fight!
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posted May 20, 2015 09:52 PM |
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Been really hype but my life doesn't allow me to immerse myself in any deep story-driven game atm.
Gonna wait a while, let some expansions and patches drop for it and buy it later.
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Pawek_13
Supreme Hero
Maths, maths everywhere!
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posted May 20, 2015 10:00 PM |
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Edited by Pawek_13 at 22:04, 20 May 2015.
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Salamandre said:
The comments on GOG are enthusiastic. I was thinking about buying it but 60 euros sounds to me exaggerated for a game.
It is written that it costs 40 euros. I think that additional 20 euros comes from something called "Expansion pass".
I have never been into action RPGs, so I have no plans to play the game whatsoever. Besides that, I haven't also played Witcher and Witcher 2, so if I ever decide to play Witcher 3, I will start with previous two installments.
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kiryu133
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Highly illogical
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posted May 20, 2015 10:11 PM |
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i certainly am interested as it seems exactly like the game i'd enjoy wholeheartedly but at the same time i kind of demand a character creator in these kind of games so...
The griffin also looks like ass which didn't help 
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It is with a heavy heart that I must announce that the cis are at it again.
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Tsar-Ivor
Promising
Legendary Hero
Scourge of God
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posted May 20, 2015 10:31 PM |
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My exams are over this week, so commited to just messing around with Roche on Witcher 2 and putting W3 to the back of my mind, but can't wait, built a new PC just for this!
Quote:
The griffin also looks like ass which didn't help
Creatures in this game look like ass for a reason, this ain't a beauty contest, those ****ers are grotesque cause they're monsters. Life in the Witcher universe is solitary, brutish and short, and amen to that, a game that truly brings the medieval feels to life.
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"No laughs were had. There is only shame and sadness." Jenny
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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted May 21, 2015 06:06 PM |
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Salamandre said:
The comments on GOG are enthusiastic. I was thinking about buying it but 60 euros sounds to me exaggerated for a game.
Perhaps the technical issues aren't very wide-spread then, other than that these 5/5 marks 2 days after the release are worthless if you're looking for an objective evaluation.
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted May 21, 2015 06:34 PM |
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I will wait for price to go down first. What teases me is the "no loading screens" claim, this is what I dislike so much in modern games, every 5 minutes or so, adventure is paused for changing areas purposes.
But also I disliked the second Witcher, too many movies and scripted scenes to my taste. I for one don't care at all for any lore or game stories, I just want to control the game as soon as it starts. My top mod in Skyrim is "skip introduction" 
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Era II mods and utilities
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Tsar-Ivor
Promising
Legendary Hero
Scourge of God
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posted May 21, 2015 08:37 PM |
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Now that I'm replaying the witcher 2 I do have beef with the fist combat being wholly comprised of quick time events, especially since fist fighting is implemented well into the game (just unequip your swords), so why?! snowin hate quick time events.
Also hate the movement restriction, you can't move up and down ladders, just one way, you can't jump off the side of a 1ft drop without a prompt.
Overall though, a deeply enjoyable experience.
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"No laughs were had. There is only shame and sadness." Jenny
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Darkshadow
Legendary Hero
Cerise Princess
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posted May 21, 2015 10:05 PM |
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It's better than 2 even if im still not a fan of the combat
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Hermes
Famous Hero
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posted May 22, 2015 08:05 AM |
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Well I have read and loved all of the books(re-read few times too) so obviously could not miss this game.
Will buy it again in a physical edition too. Shame collectors for PC is nothing special.
Game itself is phenominal. To me this and DA:I are two best RPG I ever played. Hard to surpass them in my opinion, they are also different in their approach.
And the game runs great on my i5 with 8gb ram and r9 280x OC.
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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted May 25, 2015 03:37 PM |
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Darkshadow said:
It's better than 2 even if im still not a fan of the combat
I'm yet to figure out what's the point in the new "dodge", rolling seems to be much more useful. Perhaps the idea is to avoid an attack and stay close to the opponent for a counter-attack but it doesn't seem to work very well.
The alchemy system is also slightly better than in The Witcher 2 but worse than in the first game. Why are there literally tons of ingredients spread all over the map when you need to create each potion just once? 
As an overall experience so far - I love it.  Although not unquestionably (especially the VERY frequent crashes). Details when I spend at least 20 more hours with the thing.
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Tsar-Ivor
Promising
Legendary Hero
Scourge of God
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posted May 26, 2015 03:48 AM |
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Can't wait to play witcher 3, right now I'm doing a new run of the witcher 2 on Dark (chose Roche this time), never used block before used to rely wholly on dodging, but now I have begun to be quite proficient at blocking and it is invalauble in certaint situations if done right. Combat so far has been pretty nice, if W3 improves on it then all the better.
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"No laughs were had. There is only shame and sadness." Jenny
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Kayna
Supreme Hero
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posted May 26, 2015 09:29 AM |
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I didn't play more than 3-4 hours on the first Witcher. The combat system is horrible, you just switch to the correct stance and that's it. Extremely long games require a good combat system ( like dragon age ) so it doesn't get repetitively snowty at every combat.
How's the combat system in Witcher 3 ? Is it better? Improved how?
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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted May 26, 2015 10:17 AM |
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The first Witcher had a placeholder combat system, more or less put there for the sake of the animations. I didn't mind it, frankly. The way the Witcher 2 "fixed" the issue left much to be desired. The Witcher 3 seems to have the best combat system of all, quite similar to the one in the second game but with a few tweaks - parry is harder and somewhat more realistic to use, there is added dodge motion which I don't find incredibly helpful so far, offense is generally less automated (Geralt doesn't jump all over the map because the game has detected something to hit which you may not even see) but somewhat more cumbersome while defense is easier. All Signs seem to have some application and start reasonably powerful, which is good. Tougher monsters allegedly require extensive use of potions and oils but I haven't played that much to verify it - so far most things can just be hit and rolled away from until they drop.
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Hermes
Famous Hero
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posted May 26, 2015 11:55 AM |
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Zenofex,
Two evade moves serve different purposes. The roll move places you too far away and also, more importantly, uses stamina - which is a problem if you actually want to cast some signs(and I prefer to cast a lot of signs)
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Haregar
Famous Hero
of destruction
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posted May 27, 2015 09:16 PM |
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I will definitely buy the newest Witcher when the price goes down a bit and when I read some more informations about its optimalization. The Witcher 2 worked fine after it was released, but Enhanced Edition ran pretty strange (some "laggy locations" remained laggy, some not; some locations that were not laggy started to laggy etc.).
Kayna said:
I didn't play more than 3-4 hours on the first Witcher. The combat system is horrible, you just switch to the correct stance and that's it. Extremely long games require a good combat system ( like dragon age ) so it doesn't get repetitively snowty at every combat.
It depends on your taste. For me, as I am rather an old-school gamer, combat system can be simple if the game's story interesting and it's not based only on fighting (i.e. old Fallouts, in which you could finish the game without getting yourself directly into fight).
The first Witcher was perfect for me, as it combined a well-told story and fighting system which was okay to me (not too simple, not too hard; it could entertain both old-schoolers and new-schoolers).
I heard that the combat system in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is not perfect and is more comfortable to play with gamepad. I haven't played the game myself yet, so I can't really judge, but I wrote what I heard.
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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted June 10, 2015 10:28 AM |
bonus applied by Doomforge on 25 Jul 2015. |
Edited by Zenofex at 10:36, 10 Jun 2015.
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Some activity here.
Having reached lvl 15 and gone through a good portion of the game (which is probably around 1/3 of the whole thing, story-wise), here is a preliminary review of the third Witcher.
The graphics first as they are pretty much the most talked about pre-release aspect of the game. The Witcher 3 is easily the most beautiful game I've played. The lightning is outstanding - sunrise, sunset, moonlight, daylight, rains, storms, take your pick - everything is done so well that it almost feels like you're there (well, yes, almost). The nature and the landscape in general are clearly made by people who have spent time outdoors - nothing feels placed for the sake or having some pastoral fantasy environment, every detail just fits in the whole picture - puddles in the middle of the road to nowhere, sandy river banks, torn out trees are all there along with the orchards, the pine forests, the plains full of grain and whatnot. It's the most complete "walk in the countryside" experience outside of the real world I've seen to date. There is war and that can be seen. Whole areas - recent battlefields or just places through which the armies have passed - are devastated, full of corpse looters, stray dogs, corpse eaters (necrophages) and of course - corpses. Velen, the no man's land between Nilfgaard and Redania, is heavily militarized, with forts and guard posts all over the place, checkpoints in front of the major settlements and constant tension in the air. Novigrad - the biggest city in the area (and it's indeed quite big) - is no less alive and realistic than the surrounding area - with ghettos, slums, market square, upper class districts, underground and pretty much everything that can be expected of such a place. In short - a lot of work and dedication is invested into how the game looks and feels and the results are nothing short of great. If something ruins the immersion a bit, it's the grass and partially the tree leaves - these look somewhat artificial even on High video settings - but that's nothing to build a major complaint around.
The open world that was advertised... is not exactly open. The game consists of VERY big regions which are open for free exploration (Velen alone is about the size of Skyrim, if not bigger) but traveling between these regions involves the usual Loading... stuff. Inside each region you're free to do whatever you want but certain areas are guarded by monsters way above your level so you need either a lot of patience to deal with them (it's possible though) or just stick to places where you can handle the opponents more easily until you level up enough. So far I have not discovered any artificially locked areas, except a few locations related to the plot.
The gameplay... This is perhaps the best Witcher mechanics-wise but not without flaws. The combat is more diverse than in the previous two games but I'll hardly call it "tactical" or any other marketing candy. There are fast attacks, slow attacks for more damage, parries, dodges, rolls and of course - Signs (that's maaagic for those who have never dealt with the series). The basic attacks work pretty much as in The Witcher 2, parries now require some timing to be used efficiently and are no panacea for situations where you can't figure out any other type of defense (that's a positive development in my opinion), dodges seem more useful than I thought initially and also have a skill associated with them and rolls are your universal damage avoidance tool introduced in the second game, only that now Geralt starts with a fully upgraded version of it. In general, the offense is somewhat slower than before but with more control while the defense is improved all around when one gets used to it. All offensive Signs except Axii now have area of effect from the start but they don't seem to be balanced very well - the basic Aard seems nerfed compared to the previous games while Igni is massively boosted and when it manages to set ablaze the targets (which happens quite often), it counts as an ad hoc stun on top of the fairly decent damage. Yrden is finally applicable not only niche scenarios and its high tier upgrades look nice. Quen appears to be a semi-cheat like before, keeps you alive in ridiculous situations and can be used for exploits so I'm going to skip it in the first playthrough. With a good combination of Sign usage and damage avoidance, Geralt can handle monsters 10+ levels above him which shows design gaps more than anything else. Still, there are situation where you need to prepare well for the opponents and can't use the regular "cut it / burn it 'till it drops" approach - the quest Jenny o' the Woods is a prime example.
The inventory is better than the atrocious mess in The Witcher 2 but still worse than in the first game. The reason isn't really the inventory itself though, it's more about the tons of items and junk that the game offers you. The alchemy/crafting section in particular fills really fast - mainly because you never really know how usefull/less will some spray or grass or incredibly ordinary piece of wood will be - but fortunately there is an option to dismantle a component into another one (like silver ore to silver dust) and use the latter to craft/brew something else. The amount of crafting diagrams and alchemy formulas quickly get to the point where you need to scroll through a whole library to get to what you need. For whatever reason you can't view what diagrams you have without going to craftsman who can ultimately forge the final product for you (or at least I haven't found where you can do that) - so if you find yourself in the swamp, wondering if actually have a diagram for a sword that will make shorter work of those overly-fit blokes guarding a cart with goodies over there, you're out of luck. Same with the alchemy by the way, but at least Geralt can brew potions whenever he wants so no problem here. And yeah, repairs... Extra layer of micro-management - some may like it, I don't.
The alchemy no longer follows a chemistry-like approach where you need to gather ingredients that contain certain substances, now each potion or oil needs exactly this herb or that solution. On one hand this makes it easier to figure out if you have the ingredients to boil something but these ingredients are no longer interchangeable - I'm still not sure if I like this or not. The potions themselves now need to be brewed only once per type and after that they magically replenish each time when Geralt meditates. I've read somewhere that this consumes some of the alcohol which you have so allegedly you need to keep a few bottles of vodka in the backpack for that purpose but I haven't really checked if this is true. No idea if the rest of the ingredients for the original potion also need to be present in order to replenish it. Whatever the case is, Geralt always ends up carrying a sack of grass and monster intestines which may or may not serve some purpose.
The character development system is based around upgradeable skills which can be placed in unlockable slots when certain level is reached. The skills part is pretty standard - you get to upgrade the first tier at will from the start, the second after you get X points in the first and so on. Each skill can be placed in one of the 12 (in total) slots which unlock one by one as Geralt gains levels, i.e. initially you have only 1 such slot. If the skill is not in a slot, it does nothing but it can be replaced with another skill at any moment. There are of course many more skills than there are slots and you have to pick what to "equip" (and upgrade) carefully but immersion-wise it seems fairly stupid to have a character that can "memorize" how to use a sword better and then "forget" that so he can "remember" how to use potions better.  There are also 4 mutation slots where you can put mutagens for extra health, damage or Sign intensity - same as with the skills, any mutagen can be taken out and replaced with another one so I suppose Geralt participates in some bio-experiments.
The story I will comment when I finish the game. My fears that the "open world" will mean less lore and dumber plot so far seem to be completely unfounded - this is the Witcher world as it should look like - nothing sugarcoated, strong characters, intriguing development. There is plenty to do outside of the main storyline but it never feels like you just aimlessly roam from side quest to side quest and even the minor tasks are well integrated into the world.
So far - 8.5/10 which would be 9/10 if it wasn't for the damn system requirements and for the expectedly sorry initial technical state with crashes each 10-15 minutes.
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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted July 25, 2015 10:44 AM |
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So, no comments still? I suppose you don't have decent enough hardware to run it, can't fathom any other excuse. 
I finished the game some time ago and decided to start replaying it again today, casually, just to see the alternative results of the many dilemmas you're given throughout the game. That said, I can now give it what it deserves from gameplay and immersion perspective.
First, this is no sandbox game, no wandering-the-world game, no Skyrim. Despite the huge and mostly open world, The Witcher 3 revolves around a solid main storyline, multiple well-developed auxiliary plots, strong characters and dialogues as well as many cutscenes. If that's what you're looking for in a RPG, just upgrade whatever needs upgrading on your PC and get the game - you have to be the most capricious person on the planet to be disappointed, no story-driven game of late gets even close to Wild Hunt when it comes to the quality of above mentioned elements. It's not perfect but it certainly meets most of my fairly high standards. On the other hand, if you're looking for a game where the story is just a bonus (sometimes even a nuisance) to the gameplay and prefer roaming, little character interactions and freestyle adventure, better skip it.
As far as the story is concerned, if you're not at least somewhat familiar with The Witcher's universe, it will look to you like a TV series which you caught in the middle of the fifth season - you may be intrigued but you won't understand what the hell is happening, where did that guy come from, why did Geralt do this or that and so on. Wild Hunt has the strongest links to Sapkowski's books of all The Witcher games, its main plot is basically an extension of the novels so even if you've played everything so far but have not read the books, you'll probably still be left wondering about quite a few things. That can be considered a flaw if looked globally as the people behind the game obviously tried to complete the original story in another way rather than to make the universe accessible to everyone. I for one like it this way but I'd certainly understand the position of the people outside of the "inner circle" of the novel readers who may feel a bit unfairly teased.
The main plot unveils intriguingly enough and keeps you interested pretty much until the end, however the ending itself leaves something to be desired - to me it looked hastily put together and somewhat half-baked. That's hardly a big problem but considering the gradual increase of the scope of the whole conflict, the finale looks like the product of someone who was already too tired of the journey to make something better. Everything else is of excellent quality though, even if you're not all that familiar with the background. I can provide spoilers on demand.
The major side quests and many of the minor ones are nothing short of a lesson how these things should be done. Nothing feels meaningless or put in there just to artificially add 20-30 more minutes to the length of the game. In certain situations the secondary stories intersect with the main plot quite fluently and add to the feeling that no event is fully isolated in this world and everything, however small it may seem, could have serious consequences. Stupid acts of random goodness for the sake of it are usually punished, choices between two evils are frequent, trying to determine what's right and what's wrong may turn into a very unpredictable exercise. The only "neutral" side quests where you won't have to face dilemmas (and not even in all cases) are the witcher contracts. The latter usually involve tracking the monster, finding its lair or hideout or luring it out in the open and disposing of it - quite straightforward usually but with enough flair (the contract "The Oxenfurt Drunk" comes to mind  ). In short, even the "unimportant" tasks are made interesting and put in the context of the world. Hats down!
The characters are more than ever but not even one of them feels like he or she is lacking individuality. Unlike the complex, multi-layered villains in the previous two games, this time we have clear "bad guys" with next to no grey motives behind their actions (still, there is something). That's good or bad, depending on how you perceive it. Letho of Gulet remains the best "antagonist" of the series by far. As for Geralt's crew... Yennefer makes quite a decent return to the story, as does Ciri. Tris seems to get the backstage most of the time but that could be due to some of the choices I made in my first playthrough. Zoltan is cured of pessimism that affected him in Assassins of Kings but doesn't show much, unfortunately. Dandelion has less screen time than usual, which is mostly good for me. The Kaer Morhen witchers - Vesemir, Lambert and Eskel - all have their places in the spotlight for a while and all fit quite well in their niches of the story (Lamber and Eskel also participate - along with Geralt - in one of the most hilarious scenes I've seen in a while).
The gameplay itself is mostly explained in the previous post. Despite being story-driven game, Wild Hunt offers a lot to do outside of following the main quest. The main problem is the levelling speed if you don't follow the main quest though - ranges between relatively slow and slow as hell, depending on which side quests you take or how far you have progressed in general. You are not exactly forced to follow the story but if you don't, prepare for a lot of grinding if you want to level up. There's also not much to do you when you complete the main plot - the opponents have static levels depending on the area where they are placed and by the time when you finish the primary tasks, 90% of the possible foes are way below Geralt's level and die in 1-2 hits.
Overall score is around 9/10 after the worst technical problems got patched.
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