The Witcher 1 Thread

[Krivol]

I won 90% fights by clicking RMB in W1.

Ignis or Aard?

Igni. Aard is good for first part of the game.

IIRC I finished final fight (with help of insane mana/stamina regeneration from Triss(?) I guess) by just spamming RMB with igni. I am not sure if those fiends in last battle had some fire resists but died fast anyway.

 

[Invictus]

Started a replay of this over the weekend, had just finished the Last Wish and halfway through Sword of Destiny and reading the books made this oh so enjoyable; getting some inside jokes, background on characters and understanding some of the context of the storyline a bit better

Yes the combat is very basic but the alchemy system more than makes up for it by making the actual concepts of beign a Witcher have depth and meaning here

Preparing potions, adjusting fighting styles and mixing magic with swordplay really makes the preparation feel unique and fun, plus those fun interludes of getting shitfaced with Dandelion or just having philosophical conversations about what a monster is or the roles of the non human races on a human dominated world really made me reflect and absolutely enjoy the game

I am just about done with Chapter 3 and will be reading the books at the same time I play the games for the full on Witcher experience

 

[Average Manatee]

Swordplay in W1 was all about hitting the left mouse button at the right time. That's it. Things like positioning and dodging were hardly of any concern.

Swordplay in W2 was all about hitting the left mouse button and praying your character ddn't randomly decide to do one of the stupid attacks that got you stuck in an animation for 5x as long as the others, leading to taking unavoidable hits.

Swordplay in W3 was all about inspecting the number next to the enemy's name and running a series of complex mathematical functions known to laymen as "greater than", "less than" and "equal to" in order to figure out whether you'd be able to win against a boss blindfolded or require an hour of hacking to kill a single drowned dead.

 

[Gerrard]

Swordplay in W1 was all about hitting the left mouse button at the right time. That's it. Things like positioning and dodging were hardly of any concern.

Swordplay in W2 was all about hitting the left mouse button and praying your character ddn't randomly decide to do one of the stupid attacks that got you stuck in an animation for 5x as long as the others, leading to taking unavoidable hits.

That only happens if you're bad and can't aim. There was nothing random about it.

 

[Average Manatee]

That only happens if you're bad and can't aim. There was nothing random about it.

No, it's quite clearly random. Sometimes Geralt does a single running stab on an enemy (good animation), sometimes he decides to do a double spin that hits multiple times yet locks him in place for several seconds(bad animation), with several others in between. Aim has nothing to do with it, I just tested this against training dummies and both animations happen when pointed straight at the target. The game locks on to targets anyway. The only determiner of animation is range, which selects from an entire set of long range or short range animations randomly.

 

[Perkel]

That only happens if you're bad and can't aim. There was nothing random about it.

Bullcrap. Geralt didn't even keep any distance related sword strikes. In general yes there was distinction like in TW3 for longer-shorter strikes depending on distance to monster.
Problem here is that Geralt had few very different attack animations which all had different times AND hitboxes.
And let us not forget about hit-boxes mentioned above. They were TERRIBLE in TW2 you died randomly as you could get and only real way to prevent damage was to get behind Queen or just strike and run away.

Only mods changed that completely.

 

[Gerrard]

When I first played the game I never used Quen, and focused mostly on the sword tree, and I never "died randomly". So yeah.
Then again that was before they ruined blocking by making it only block a portion of damage and made the targeting worse by making it "stick" more.

 

[DalekFlay]

Yes the combat is very basic but the alchemy system more than makes up for it by making the actual concepts of beign a Witcher have depth and meaning here

Preparing potions, adjusting fighting styles and mixing magic with swordplay really makes the preparation feel unique and fun, plus those fun interludes of getting shitfaced with Dandelion or just having philosophical conversations about what a monster is or the roles of the non human races on a human dominated world really made me reflect and absolutely enjoy the game

You playing on a high difficulty? I never needed to mess with alchemy or oils when I played the game, which I remember rolling my eyes at.

 

[Invictus]

Yes on high and it is really fun, it makes you need to keep on your toes during combat, use potions for preparation for groups and big monsters and generally feels great.. it really follows the spirit of the books by making Geralt a badass who still needs to plan ahead for preparations and potions
Some people complain about the combat but I think that while it is a bit too simplistic the preparation aspect and how Geralt’s moves evolve as he gets better in a particular fighting style is great fun
The only thing I don’t like so much is the rampant back and forth questing all over the place but its ok

 

[Average Manatee]

Hard doesn't really "require" alchemy. In particular I'm pretty sure sign-focused builds can coast through everything post-chapter 2 without breaking a sweat. But potions are invaluable and change encounters that would be very risky into easily survivable. Certainly a lot better than W2's potions, 80% of which have worse downsides than benefits. Only reason to drink potions in W2 is because the alchemy branch has an ability that says something to the effect of "deal +50% and take -50% damage while affected by a potion", which is obviously super overpowered but sort of ruins the point of what potions are supposed to be.

 

[hivemind]

play the combat mod or don't open your mouth about game difficulty

 

[Squid]

Certainly a lot better than W2's potions

I think I drank one potion outside of anything related to quests in Witcher 2. It was easy to ignore it completely with the way drinking potions and meditation worked.

 

[Zer0wing]

play the combat mod or don't open your mouth about game difficulty

The same combat mod that adds more issues than fixes?

 

[Average Manatee]

FCR for W1 is gud. Didn't experience any issues.

 

[retinoid]

Just finished the first few chapters and I haven't been this interested or immersed in a story in a long time, the whole detective quest line in Chapter 2 was fascinating and the amount of C&C available was quite impressive. Combat wise I think it's absolutely fine. Unconventional, but it works for what it is and it certainly is unique from everything else on the market. Alchemy system is great and appropriately feels impactful on Geralt, especially on Hard difficulty. I honestly have no clue why CDPR bastardized it so much in Witcher 3. Towns and Cities are comfy as fuck with great atmosphere and NPCs seem to have daily schedules (?) If this is the case, Bethesda were seriously BTFO by a no name Polish studio who created a Radient AI-esque system that actually functions, and released at roughly the same time as Oblivion.

tl;dr: Shits good

 

[Sigourn]

The Witcher 1 is the most underrated RPG of the 2000s. It's just so good.

 

[Master]

Towns and Cities are comfy as fuck with great atmosphere and NPCs seem to have daily schedules (?) If this is the case, Bethesda were seriously BTFO by a no name Polish studio who created a Radient AI-esque system that actually functions, and released at roughly the same time as Oblivion.

tl;dr: Shits good

That was done by Gothic 1 way back.

 

[retinoid]

Towns and Cities are comfy as fuck with great atmosphere and NPCs seem to have daily schedules (?) If this is the case, Bethesda were seriously BTFO by a no name Polish studio who created a Radient AI-esque system that actually functions, and released at roughly the same time as Oblivion.

tl;dr: Shits good

That was done by Gothic 1 way back.

You're right, I completely forgot about that. Still impressive though, and just makes Bethesda's attempts seem all the more sad...especially because they STILL can't seem to get it right. God bless 'em.

 

[Frozen]

I honestly have no clue why CDPR bastardized it so much in Witcher 3.

Blame normies.

 

[deama]

I always thought Witcher 1's combat was pretty interesting: if you play with it for a while, you'll notice that the way it works is on a rhythm. Since witcher's swordsmanship is an extension of themselves, you could draw a theory that they live on a rhythm.

 

[adddeed]

Dumbasses played the game in 3rd person and were weirded out by the combat.
The game is meant to be played isometric and then the combat works well and is more tactical. Plus the game looks better.
Over the shoulder can be used once in a while to check the view, but playing the game like that (when it wasnt made for it) is stupid.

 

[Perkel]

That would be true only if clicking on different enemies would create combos.
But in TW1 when you click someone else it breaks combo and you need to start again.

So it doesn't fucking matter if you play isometric or OTS because either way you will be doing exact same thing with no downside.

And TW1 really looks good in OTS.

 

[Zer0wing]

TW1 really looks good regardless of perspective.

 

[Storyfag]

Well, OTS gives you a bit better view of the sky/horizon, and these are a treat.

 

[Sigourn]

Dumbasses played the game in 3rd person and were weirded out by the combat.
The game is meant to be played isometric and then the combat works well and is more tactical. Plus the game looks better.
Over the shoulder can be used once in a while to check the view, but playing the game like that (when it wasnt made for it) is stupid.

This guy knows. The Witcher, in isometric, is one of the most gorgeous 3D I've ever played. Throw in gamma/color adjustments to tweak it to your preference (mostly because the vanilla game looks a bit flat and lacks depth) and the game is an absolute beauty.