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Witcher 3

Posted: Thu May 21, 2015 10:43 pm
by Grndslmhttr3
I got a free copy with my graphics card, and I've been playing the fuck out of it. Never played the first two, but this one is awesome so far. It's hard to stop playing, which sucks since I have work in the mornings. Oh well, got a holiday weekend so I'm gonna no-life it. I hope you enjoyed my in-depth review.

Re: Witcher 3

Posted: Thu May 21, 2015 11:17 pm
by Maha
I'd be playing it if my computer was up to par...or I had a PS4. Might do the latter of those two.

Re: Witcher 3

Posted: Thu May 21, 2015 11:18 pm
by scobywhru
definitely do PC not PS4

Re: Witcher 3

Posted: Thu May 21, 2015 11:22 pm
by Maha
I have a build planned already but not sure when I'll be able to afford it. Maybe I just buy a little bit at a time.

I've been going through the second game in the meantime and it's sti damn good to play, even better with the redone combat mod.

Re: Witcher 3

Posted: Fri May 29, 2015 12:50 am
by Grndslmhttr3
Just finished playing through it; took a shit ton of hours. Probably gonna go back to an earlier save I made since I feel I didn't put enough time into side quests/want to get a better ending.

Some criticisms/things to point out about the game mechanics:

Movement can be a bit frustrating at first, especially if you're used to the movement in, for example, Skyrim or CS where you start moving at full speed as soon as you hit W or any movement key. In this you have to 'accelerate,' which makes it feel like there is a delay, but there really isn't. For the post part I prefer this because it's more realistic, but can be annoying if you're trying to move short distances (i.e. indoors, getting close to an object/ladder, etc.), so it can feel pretty clunky at times. I've read a lot of similar complaints about swimming, but I haven't had any issues with it.

Horse riding can be very annoying, since even the slightest obstacle can and often does make the horse stop dead in its tracks.

It's a very recent release so it has its bugs, but I haven't encountered anything more than minor inconveniences; certainly nothing gamebreaking. There was one with a blacksmith in Skellige that did require closing the game - the conversation just stopped and I couldn't make any dialog choices, so I was stuck there. Happened every time, so I just avoided him.

Re: Witcher 3

Posted: Fri May 29, 2015 2:38 am
by Jason
Have the exact same gripe about movement. It's very annoying when you're close to an object you want to loot/examine/whatever and you're not quite lined up properly and wind up twitching around for 30 seconds till you get it. I play w/ a controller but it sounds p much exactly the same. Swimming was a little awkward for me at first but in the end not all that bad. I haven't had to swim that much anyway.

I rarely ride my horse just because I enjoy walking around and nothing ever seems that far away when I combine fast travel and walking.

Difficulty seems a little easier than the Witcher 2, but kind of in a good way, because while this can still be challenging (I'm only playing on normal difficulty first playthrough and I totally take advantage of the meditate to regain health every time I can thing) it's in a much more consistent way. The Witcher 2 had this thing where it would be kind of tough and then you'd start to feel like you're beefing your character and getting the hang of things and then it would throw a boss or something at you that was really shitty cheap crazy hard and it would take you 23 tries to beat it. This doesn't seem to have that, which isn't a surprise considering they're trying to appeal to a much wider audience, but like I said it's still challenging enough in a very fun way, it doesn't feel like they super dumbed it down to appeal to the masses. And sometimes something will kill me really fast and I'll think it's gonna be super impossible but then I'll come up with the perfect combination of the right sign and skillful dodging and beat the pants off of it and it's VERY satisfying.
I have found that blocking is mostly useless and that's kind of annoying but I love that there's 2 different moves for a sidestep dodge and a big dodge roll. I don't know if there's something in the skill tree you can spend on improving your block because i haven't seen anything like that, but most of the time when I try to block, even when I time it perfectly for the parry, I wind up getting staggered and fucked over and I wind up just sticking to dodging.

I haven't sunk that many hours into it because I'm trying to pack to move on Saturday and shit but I've probably put a solid 6-8 hrs in total and I feel like I haven't gotten very far at all which is good. I'm trying to do every possible single thing I can and so far I'm having fun doing all of it, doesn't feel like forced completion for completion's sake. I love just exploring the map to clear the ?s and doing sidequests and contracts.

I think it suffered from overhype a little bit because I mean honestly it was really really incredibly extremely anticipated for so damn long, but that being said it's as near perfect of a game as I've played in a very long time. The Witcher 2 was one of my favorite if not favorite Action RPGs of all time and this is an extremely solid follow up. Also gorgeous. I can run it just a little sluggish on mostly high settings. Definitely want to get a 4GB graphics card tho so I can play it at 60fps with at least near perfect visuals.

Re: Witcher 3

Posted: Fri May 29, 2015 8:01 am
by Grndslmhttr3
Parrying/blocking can be pretty useful in fist fights, but in actual combat I just stick to dodging and rolling. There are like 36 different endings you can get and there are some really shitty ones apparently, mine wasn't too bad but one thing was particularly annoying. I'm looking forward to giving it a much more thorough playthrough.

The shitty ending I got was that Geralt ended up poor and alone because he tried to get with both Triss and Yennefer, kinda had a feeling it was gonna turn out that way. There was a pretty funny cutscene though where they trick him into thinking he's getting a threesome, but just chain him to the bed and leave.

Re: Witcher 3

Posted: Fri May 29, 2015 1:50 pm
by Jason
Yeah, I always use it in hand to hand combat but otherwise, FARTNOISE.

Re: Witcher 3

Posted: Sun May 31, 2015 12:41 pm
by Maha
I just finished Witcher 2 and will be going into 3 pretty soon. I used the Combat Rebalance Mod with this game save. Will this save be able to cross over into Witcher 3 and continue my story?

Re: Witcher 3

Posted: Sun May 31, 2015 7:51 pm
by Grndslmhttr3
Honestly I'm not really sure. I meant to play Witcher 2 but I didn't realize GTA V for PC was coming out and I didn't have the patience to play Witcher 2 while I had 3 ready to go.

Re: Witcher 3

Posted: Sun May 31, 2015 8:27 pm
by Pentagram.J2
Grnd if you want ill let you hop on my gog account and you can download witcher 2 if you wanna play through it at all. just let me know

Re: Witcher 3

Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2015 10:17 am
by Jason
I also have to say that having to repair items is something I never find fun. It's a fairly minor issue in the grand scheme of the game, but I find it less of an added challenge and more of an added nuisance. I'm in the middle of battling some stuff and oh oops my sword is about to break better drop everything and transport myself to the nearest town that actually has a craftsman so I can fix it and go back and get back to what I was doing. ANNOYING. Also keeping an eye on how full my inventory is when I have 10 zillion alchemy/crafting components and I never know which ones might be useful in the future so I don't want to get rid of any.

Re: Witcher 3

Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2015 11:52 am
by Maha
Did they add weight to Alchemy components in Witcher 3? If so that's really stupid since they were always 0 in 2 and I think 1 as well. Hopefully by the time I start playing Witcher 3 there will be mods to remove weight and weapon repairs.

Re: Witcher 3

Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2015 12:24 pm
by Grndslmhttr3
I think everything has weight, but the crafting and alchemy ingredients' weights are very light. Just get zerrikanian saddlebags and you should be good. Also Jason just hoard repair kits. I agree with the whole repair thing being annoying but hey what can you do.
Pentagram.J2 wrote:Grnd if you want ill let you hop on my gog account and you can download witcher 2 if you wanna play through it at all. just let me know
Awesome, thanks dude. Not sure when I'll actually take you up on that since I'm pretty immersed in 3 at the moment. Can you share GoG accounts/games that easily? My copy of Witcher 3 is on there so I could return the favor. I wonder if playing them in reverse order is a good idea, not like I have much of a choice at this point.

Oh yeah the axii puppet skill is extremely overpowered

Re: Witcher 3

Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2015 12:31 pm
by Pentagram.J2
I've never had much issue with it since they're DRM free. I'll shoot you the info later tonight.