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The Witcher 1 Thread

Joined
Dec 17, 2013
Messages
5,110
I've had a somewhat different experience. I was also drawn in at first by the nice looking world, the mature themes with lots of "serious" C&C, good writing and nice looking (at first) combat, but then the longer I played, the more everything started to annoy me. If anything, I did feel like a glorified errand-boy with a distinct lack of player agency. And the combat just kept getting worse and worse. At first, it's actually not so bad, with only 1 or 2 combos. But then, towards the end, you have to go through the first 3 low damage combos to get to the last 1 which does the actual damage, so basically, for every weak enemy, you have to keep clicking and clicking and clicking for no reason whatsoever. Why can't he just do his decent combo first? Does he need to build up his potato-momentum first? Such bad design. And the animations are so bad toward the end too, holding a sword by the blade, doing anime style jump slashes, eh....

But whatever, I actually enjoyed New Vegas quite a bit, so I guess we just have different tastes.
 

Sigourn

uooh afficionado
Joined
Feb 6, 2016
Messages
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I've had a somewhat different experience. I was also drawn in at first by the nice looking world, the mature themes with lots of "serious" C&C, good writing and nice looking (at first) combat, but then the longer I played, the more everything started to annoy me. If anything, I did feel like a glorified errand-boy with a distinct lack of player agency. And the combat just kept getting worse and worse. At first, it's actually not so bad, with only 1 or 2 combos. But then, towards the end, you have to go through the first 3 low damage combos to get to the last 1 which does the actual damage, so basically, for every weak enemy, you have to keep clicking and clicking and clicking for no reason whatsoever. Why can't he just do his decent combo first? Does he need to build up his potato-momentum first? Such bad design. And the animations are so bad toward the end too, holding a sword by the blade, doing anime style jump slashes, eh....

But whatever, I actually enjoyed New Vegas quite a bit, so I guess we just have different tastes.

Don't get me wrong, I love New Vegas, and as an RPG I believe it is much better than The Witcher, since The Witcher seems to focus its choice and consequence aspects on main plot-sequences (whereas in New Vegas you can shoot up Goodsprings and it's a sidequest).

But I feel The Witcher nailed how to make a game not feel stale. In New Vegas I need to use a mod that reduces respawn time to 2/3 days, otherwise the game feels empty. And even then, it's kind of boring, since enemies (other than hitsquads) don't ambush you at all, and there comes a point where you know by memory where every enemy cluster is located. :/
 

adddeed

Arcane
Possibly Retarded
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May 27, 2012
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Hopefully you are playing it in isometric view like it was made for. First, it looks gorgeous from the up there. Second, battles feel much more tactical. I found the over the shoulder view tacked on and not useful at all, especially during combat.
 
Joined
Mar 29, 2007
Messages
4,548
Totally fucked after trying to fight the beast in Act 1.

Every single fucking time I try to get back into the game, I always hit a brick wall and I'm playing on Normal difficulty.

The rest of Act 1 is a relative cake walk yet there are some enemies that are totally unbalanced in how hard they are.
 

Carrion

Arcane
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Lost in Necropolis
Aard.

Hopefully you are playing it in isometric view like it was made for. First, it looks gorgeous from the up there. Second, battles feel much more tactical. I found the over the shoulder view tacked on and not useful at all, especially during combat.
Actually no, because dodging and moving around in combat works much better in the OTS view using both the keyboard and the mouse. The game is playable either way, but the top-down view doesn't offer any real advantages as it's a single-character game after all.
 
Joined
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Messages
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Hopefully you are playing it in isometric view like it was made for. First, it looks gorgeous from the up there. Second, battles feel much more tactical. I found the over the shoulder view tacked on and not useful at all, especially during combat.

Isometric + mouse or isometric + keyboard/mouse?

I'm not like the OTS camera either.
 

adddeed

Arcane
Possibly Retarded
Joined
May 27, 2012
Messages
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Aard.

Hopefully you are playing it in isometric view like it was made for. First, it looks gorgeous from the up there. Second, battles feel much more tactical. I found the over the shoulder view tacked on and not useful at all, especially during combat.
Actually no, because dodging and moving around in combat works much better in the OTS view using both the keyboard and the mouse. The game is playable either way, but the top-down view doesn't offer any real advantages as it's a single-character game after all.
Not really. You can dodge and move using the mouse in ISO view. Combat feels so much better from up above.
 
Joined
Dec 17, 2013
Messages
5,110
Totally fucked after trying to fight the beast in Act 1.

Every single fucking time I try to get back into the game, I always hit a brick wall and I'm playing on Normal difficulty.

The rest of Act 1 is a relative cake walk yet there are some enemies that are totally unbalanced in how hard they are.

Wait till you meet Koschey. :) The combat in The Witcher can be either really easy or really hard, depending on specific encounter, and your tolerance of cheese. The game gives you a LOT of cheesy ways to win. I hate that kind of cheese, so I tried to play fair and not abuse things, and in that case some fights can be brutal.
 
Joined
Mar 29, 2007
Messages
4,548
Totally fucked after trying to fight the beast in Act 1.

Every single fucking time I try to get back into the game, I always hit a brick wall and I'm playing on Normal difficulty.

The rest of Act 1 is a relative cake walk yet there are some enemies that are totally unbalanced in how hard they are.

Wait till you meet Koschey. :) The combat in The Witcher can be either really easy or really hard, depending on specific encounter, and your tolerance of cheese. The game gives you a LOT of cheesy ways to win. I hate that kind of cheese, so I tried to play fair and not abuse things, and in that case some fights can be brutal.

That's because it's unbalanced, which is unsatisfactory considering the latest version is the Enhanced Edition: Director's Cut.

I have fought back the urge to play Witcher 2 and now 3 for years because I have not yet beat #1.
 

Sigourn

uooh afficionado
Joined
Feb 6, 2016
Messages
5,624
Hopefully you are playing it in isometric view like it was made for. First, it looks gorgeous from the up there. Second, battles feel much more tactical. I found the over the shoulder view tacked on and not useful at all, especially during combat.

I'm using the OTS camera, however, neither seems like they were created for this game.

I mean, the camera is god damn awful and the controls don't help it either. The fact that I need to hover over an enemy to attack it, as opposed to attacking "the air" and hitting whatever happens to be in that place is fairly annoying. Sometimes Geralt attacks another monster instead of the one I want to attack because the fucker happened to get in the way of my cursor. I should use the Pause feature more often, but it's too much of a hassle to pause the game to select which enemy I want to kill.

Totally fucked after trying to fight the beast in Act 1.

Every single fucking time I try to get back into the game, I always hit a brick wall and I'm playing on Normal difficulty.

The rest of Act 1 is a relative cake walk yet there are some enemies that are totally unbalanced in how hard they are.

I had to cheese the fight against the Beast. The game has some mind-boggling design decisions when fighting bosses, like not giving you a moment to use your potions against the Beast.

I like Hard difficulty, it's cool I need to use potions to survive.
 
Joined
Mar 29, 2007
Messages
4,548
Hopefully you are playing it in isometric view like it was made for. First, it looks gorgeous from the up there. Second, battles feel much more tactical. I found the over the shoulder view tacked on and not useful at all, especially during combat.

I'm using the OTS camera, however, neither seems like they were created for this game.

I mean, the camera is god damn awful and the controls don't help it either. The fact that I need to hover over an enemy to attack it, as opposed to attacking "the air" and hitting whatever happens to be in that place is fairly annoying. Sometimes Geralt attacks another monster instead of the one I want to attack because the fucker happened to get in the way of my cursor. I should use the Pause feature more often, but it's too much of a hassle to pause the game to select which enemy I want to kill.

Totally fucked after trying to fight the beast in Act 1.

Every single fucking time I try to get back into the game, I always hit a brick wall and I'm playing on Normal difficulty.

The rest of Act 1 is a relative cake walk yet there are some enemies that are totally unbalanced in how hard they are.

I had to cheese the fight against the Beast. The game has some mind-boggling design decisions when fighting bosses, like not giving you a moment to use your potions against the Beast.

I like Hard difficulty, it's cool I need to use potions to survive.

The kill animation takes too long to execute, as do pots and the wall of fire torches Geralt to death from like 5 feet away.

I'm no rookie gamer either and have played other stereotypically hard games like Blade: Severance of Darkness and Gothic 2: NOTR.
 
Self-Ejected

vivec

Self-Ejected
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Oct 20, 2014
Messages
1,149
The beast fight is easy on every difficulty except hard. On hard the only way to win that one without running circles is to cheat. Which is basically save reload -go through the cut scene and stun with Aard.
 

adddeed

Arcane
Possibly Retarded
Joined
May 27, 2012
Messages
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I mean, the camera is god damn awful and the controls don't help it either. The fact that I need to hover over an enemy to attack it, as opposed to attacking "the air" and hitting whatever happens to be in that place is fairly annoying. Sometimes Geralt attacks another monster instead of the one I want to attack because the fucker happened to get in the way of my cursor. I should use the Pause feature more often, but it's too much of a hassle to pause the game to select which enemy I want to kill.
.
Bro, that is why you use isometric view. You just proved game wasn't made for OTS. From up there clicking on an enemy to attack makes sense, because that's how 99% of isometric games are. Try it bro, you'll see a big improvement.
 

Sigourn

uooh afficionado
Joined
Feb 6, 2016
Messages
5,624
Bro, that is why you use isometric view. You just proved game wasn't made for OTS. From up there clicking on an enemy to attack makes sense, because that's how 99% of isometric games are. Try it bro, you'll see a big improvement.

Okay, I'll give it a try.

One thing, though: am I supposed to try and dodge enemy attacks? It doesn't seem to be essential (plus I think Geralt automatically parries some attacks), and it's a huge inconvenience because of the slight input lag.
 

Old One

Arcane
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Jul 13, 2015
Messages
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Location
The Great Underground Empire
Switching camera views is as simple as a single button press. There's no reason to stick permanently to any one mode, since they each have advantages and disadvantages depending on the situation.
 
Joined
Mar 29, 2007
Messages
4,548
The beast fight is easy on every difficulty except hard. On hard the only way to win that one without running circles is to cheat. Which is basically save reload -go through the cut scene and stun with Aard.

I dunno if we're playing different versions but it sure seems like it.

I deleted my earlier Act 1 save games.

I've tried to beat Act 1 on separate playthroughs at least 5 separate times since I bought The Witcher Enhanced Edition in 2009.

My current playthrough is on Normal difficulty, and I got a whet stone buff, swallow, and tawny owl up before the fight.

The Beast respawns a whole pack of lesser dogs and Abigail keeps on getting killed too early in the fight so she can't heal.

I'm using Aard and Igni to no effect.

Which brings me to another point:

This game's combat sucks.

Attacking is wildly lethargic and inconsistent.

Moving onto my next point:

This game should really be renamed The Twitcher because the NPC's hair geometry is fucking going ballistic.

The Reverend's beard is flapping up and down on his face whenever I engage him in conversation and Abigail's hair looks like it's about to fly the fuck off her head.

I experience random floating objects throughout the game world too which completely ruins it for me.
 
Last edited:

Sigourn

uooh afficionado
Joined
Feb 6, 2016
Messages
5,624
The beast fight is easy on every difficulty except hard. On hard the only way to win that one without running circles is to cheat. Which is basically save reload -go through the cut scene and stun with Aard.

I dunno if we're playing different versions but it sure seems like it.

I deleted my earlier Act 1 save games.

I've tried to beat Act 1 on separate playthroughs at least 5 separate times since I bought The Witcher Enhanced Edition in 2009.

My current playthrough is on Normal difficulty, and I got a whet stone buff, swallow, and tawny owl up before the fight.

The Beast respawns a whole pack of lesser dogs and Abigail keeps on getting killed too early in the fight so she can't heal.

I'm using Aard and Igni to no effect.

Which brings me to another point:

This game's combat sucks.

Attacking is wildly lethargic and inconsistent.

Moving onto my next point:

This game should really be renamed The Twitcher because the NPC's hair geometry is fucking going ballistic.

The Reverend's beard is flapping up and down on his face whenever I engage him in conversation and Abigail's hair looks like it's about to fly the fuck off her head.

I experience random floating objects throughout the game world too which completely ruins it for me.

Can confirm the NPC's hair bug. Happened to me in the most anti-climactic moment possible so far, completely ruined a "first ever" character appearance.

Regarding the Beast: yeah, it's a bitch. You just got to remember to use your combos right. No combos and the game is downright impossible.

Try to use the Group attacking style to get rid of the other dogs so you can then focus on the Beast. You should hit that fucker with Fast style, IIRC. And yeah, the combat kind of sucks, specially when Geralt decides to pull off his grandiose killmoves that take 10 seconds as possible to the usual "slash the fucker" that takes 1 second or 2.
 

adddeed

Arcane
Possibly Retarded
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May 27, 2012
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Those who complain about the combat probably play the game in 3rd person. Its much better isometric as ive mentioned. CDP shouldve never shipped the game with the over the shoulder camera.
 
Joined
Mar 29, 2007
Messages
4,548
Now into Act III...

The story is better than most other RPG's I have played, but the game world itself is ultra lackluster.

It's big enough, but the environments are like big empty houses.

The phrase "pays attention to detail" doesn't apply to this game.

So far the game reminds me very much of Imperial City and its outskirts in Oblivion.

Only there are no moveable objects, invisible barriers are everywhere, and the NPC AI is beyond ridiculous.

Hiding under a roof to escape the rain is a nice touch, but everything is barren and sterile.

I hope that CDProjekt RED picked up in W2 and W3 because the first one is missing a whole lot of content.
 

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