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How I learned to love The Witcher 3

I really like the combat actually. My only problem with it is the inconsistent animations on certain enemies. Outside of that the atmosphere is incredibly engrossing. The artstyle, music, world, characters, quest design, writing and story are all superb. The game is really beautiful as well.(the skyboxes, the storms, trees blowing in the wind, etc.)

If you don't feel it's worth it to continue outside the tutorial zone that's fine OP, but I think you'd be missing out. Also, I know it's opinions and all, but disliking the quests is just insane to me. It has some of the best written quests I've ever played and there are many meaningful choices to be made. It's neck and neck with Bayonetta for my all time favorite game.

Plus who can hate a game that has Gwent? :p
 
I must have played it wrong because I loved the combat in The Witcher 3. It's frustratingly difficult early on... but once you get some points into the signs, then the combat is almost like solving a puzzle. Which signs do I need for this fight? Which potions should I have on deck?

Yrden trap is great. Especially for keeping archers off my back :)

.... now I want to play The Witcher 3 again.

I will say this. Your attacks are pretty unpredictable in that you don't know if Geralt is going to do a quick slash, or a jumping twirl into a quick slash. And there is a big difference. I got annoyed by that early on because 1 mistake could mean death. They really could tighten that up a bit and make you feel like you're more in control of the attacks\animations.
 
Yeah, game has plenty of deal breakers for me.

I like how they shout from the rooftops how big the game is tho- lets me know it wont be worth my time.
 
I love the combat in Witcher 3 and I love the combat in Dark Souls. It is insane to me that people now just want "that Dark Souls combat" in every game ever. Games don't work like this. You can't just take a combat system, plonk it into another game and *bäm* it's instantly better.

To be honest, I never thought the Dark Souls combat system is especially amazing. It's the enemy design and situations they put you in, that makes the combat feel amazing.The combat system itself is fairly average, not saying that it's not good, but it's not the most amazing thing ever. It's how they designed the world around that combat system. That's just not possible in an open world game.
 
Complaints that TW3's combat doesn't measure up to a Souls game is a bit like complaining about Planescape: Torment because it uses text rather than gobs of animation. The scope of the game has to be taken into account. That an epic-scale RPG like TW3 can seriously be compared to a dedicated action game is pretty great, and it's a huge improvement over something like the Elder Scrolls series.
 
jim2point0 said:
I must have played it wrong because I loved the combat in The Witcher 3. It's frustratingly difficult early on... but once you get some points into the signs, then the combat is almost like solving a puzzle. Which signs do I need for this fight? Which potions should I have on deck?

Yrden trap is great. Especially for keeping archers off my back :)

.... now I want to play The Witcher 3 again.

I will say this. Your attacks are pretty unpredictable in that you don't know if Geralt is going to do a quick slash, or a jumping twirl into a quick slash. And there is a big difference. I got annoyed by that early on because 1 mistake could mean death. They really could tighten that up a bit and make you feel like you're more in control of the attacks\animations.
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Yeah, and people can't seem to grasp it before they call it 'shitty combat'. The keys of the combat animation in Witcher 3 are range and timing. Different range results in different animation of Geralt's attack. Also, you don't spam your attack in this game, you watch your opponent and dodge A LOT.
 
I am in the same boat as you OP. I'll give the game another try at some point but there were a lot of things that turned me off early in the game.

It definitely did not help going from Bloodborne straight to TW3.
 
yes, going from BB to W3 is hard if we're talking gameplay. i had the same issue with MGSV. i couldn't go back to other shooting games cos suddently every one of them played like garbage.

probably not a good idea to jump into average gameplay systems after you experienced games of the forever.

nevertheless, W3 is a very good fantasy experience.
 
Having the opposite experience as OP. Just picked the game up this weekend and am loving it so far. I don't really understand the criticism about the combat, as it's pretty good for a RPG (shits all over TeS and modern Fallout games, IMO) . The number of systems (potions, signs, mutagens, etc) is kinda staggering up front but it's slowly starting to make sense. I've only just finished white orchard, and am legit shocked at how they can make the quests so interesting. Even a quest to retrieve an old lady's frying pan winds up filled with intriguing detail.

I don't think I've felt so drawn in to an RPG's world since the first Mass Effect.
 
I am 20 hours or so in, haven't left Velen yet. But I guess that's enough to form an opinion, I can savely say that this game is frickin awesome. Sure the battlesystem doesn't come close to Bloodborne, but it does so many other things really good. I am really impressed in the way you just walk into quests, this is handled subtle without the need to guide the player exactly where to find them. Brilliant game design and hopefully other developers will pick some things up for future "open world" games.
 
Zocano said:
I really enjoyed the combat because it tried to incorporate all aspects of a witcher and made each part feel very important in different ways (bombs, potions, signs). It was both serviceable and enjoyable. I've never really gotten the "shitty combat" complaints.
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It's got to do with the sword combat section of it, not the combat in a more holistic sense.

Exentryk summed it up pretty well, above, in particular:

- Inconsistent dash dodge (i-frames don't work in specific cases like immediately after dealing damage, taking damage, casting a Sign, and after another dodge.)
- Some fast attack animations are as long as heavy attack animations
- Enemy hit boxes are too big
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And the fact that you can't cancel the (super long) animations into a dodge/roll.
 
For my first playthrough of Witcher 3 I had a love hate relationship with it. I hated the combat and other mechanics, but felt it was the most beautiful gaming world I had ever seen.

For my second playthrough which was on Deathmarch, I felt that it was best of all time.

3rd playthrough on NG+ I still loved it, but got tired of certain bugs
 
I'm with you, OP. Easily the most disappointing game I've played this year, and I thought I would love it. The combat is just so bad, it's not any fun to play at all. There are some quests that are decent or at least a bit interesting, but the majority follow the same tedious pattern. Not really a fan of the crafting or leveling in general, everything feels samey. I'm level 20 something and I dont feel any more powerful than when I was level 1.
 
Karl Hawk said:
You don't need to do all side-quests in the game (Though there are some that can affect your ending)

I believe there are a lot of players who went sour after doing the Novigrad main questline and didn't fall in love with the game again until visiting Skellige.

If you don't mind, what region are you at so far?
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I know you don't need to do the side-quests, but I feel compelled to do them all the same, incase I miss out on a really good one or one that will affect the ending for the better. But there are just so many, and with the end nowhere in sight it's becoming a problem.

Right now I'm constantly switching between Velen/Novigrad and Skellige, trying to get through a huge list of side-quests that have come my way. In terms of the main quest, I'm at the part where
you meet Yennefer somewhere after being confronted by the druid for stealing his mask.
I'm at level 22 now, which is probably way overleveled at this point in the game.
 
Played all the souls/BB games and love them but W3 still took me heart instantly. Only played W1 for around 20 hours on crappy laptop (fook the Swamp) but W3 is really nice. Don't get the complaints about combat. Enemies dodge and block and overall i liked the combat (on blood & broken bones difficulty). Sidequests are well made too. A lot of them have charm.

Not related to OP but i hate the sentence "i tried to like/love it".
 
Imagine if I would say Dark Souls combat should be more like Devil May Cry.
That's was a good combat system, it should be in every game ever.
 
i'm playing on Easy and loving it... the combat is quick and unintrusive and im back to exploring / adventuring / questing in no time

i also don't get the love for DS / BB, as i prefer a fun narrative and adventuring over super punishing combat these days
 
Fantastapotamus said:
Imagine if I would say Dark Souls combat should be more like Devil May Cry.
That's was a good combat system, it should be in every game ever.
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Then you don't understand the discussion at hand. Dark Souls already has a good combat system, yet different from DMC. Witcher's combat doesn't need to be exactly like Souls, it just needs to be actually good. Or at least better than what it is.
 
OP, yes you are supposed to be broke all the time. It's actually part of the universe that the game is based on.

Also, there's an alternative control/movement mode tucked into one of the settings menus. Try changing that setting.
 
Shin Kojima said:
Then you don't understand the discussion at hand. Dark Souls already has a good combat system, yet different from DMC. Witcher's combat doesn't need to be exactly like Souls, it just needs to be actually good. Or at least better than what it is.
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So what you are saying is "I don't like the combat system in W3, it is objetively bad"
Lot of people would disagree with that.
 
RMI said:
I don't think I've felt so drawn in to an RPG's world since the first Mass Effect.
Click to expand...

That's actually the best way for me to describe how I feel about Witcher 3. ME 1 had atrocious combat. Truly the worst at the time. Witcher 3 is basically this generations Mass Effect, with the exception of a less impressive world imo, since it has the novels that basically created the universe for it. But yeah it's more a 10/10 experience than it is a 10/10 game, and that is very subjective which I hate, but it is what it is. For me the combat came down to quen and smacking the shit out of dudes with my sword. Could I have done more with bombs and concoctions? Yeah, but why would I when quen/sword is easier and the only two potions you need they basically force you to make or give to you. I feel like a great combat system wouldn't allow such a thing to occur on top of actually making me want to do more which Witcher 3 sadly never does.
 
I need to pick it up again, considering I really enjoyed the time I spent with it... But, I agree the combat leaves much to be desired after coming off Bloodborne. W3 feels janky by comparison.

W3 is going to be my winter game, as soon as I finish The Old Hunters.
 
I don't hate the game like you do Orbital (in terms of enjoyment), but I definitely don't like it as much as others. Awful combat and loot pretty much ruined exploration for me.

The Bloody Baron quest-line and a few other side-quests were the highlight of the game. But the story fell off near the end quite hard.

Oh and it features some of the worst boss fights I've experienced in sometime. The last few main story missions are pure shit.
 
I also played a lot of Bloodborne before starting The Witcher 3. If we talk only about the gameplay, W3 falls short when you are compering it to BB. I actually started playing it on easy after a few hours because the gameplay felt so boring and repetitive that i wanted to go through it as easy as possible just for the story. And that is where it really shines, the story and characters is really fun, and the quest and open world is some of the best in an RPG.
 
Bad idea to play this immediately after BB. Just put it down and play something else before picking this up again, because all it'll do it keep thinking about the combat.

I also had the same issue back when the game launched. I had just finished BB and was like "what is this trash combat!?!?", but I came back to it months later and fell in love.
 
Well, I agree that the combat in this game is bad, but Dark Souls also has bad combat, but not to this degree. People may hate the simplicity of Skyrim's controls, but at least it's responsive.
 
In a string of Novigrad quests, I felt the fatigue of battles, especially against crowds that are the most unfun, and checked out in depth the map to discover I had explored everything but a bit of the Velen north part. After that I rushed to skelige, got interested by the verticality but not for long, finding caverns get tiring too with that leveldesign and a battle system that kinda deflate the tension of finding a monster.
And too often, I explored and found a beast I couldn't even fight or few times cheesing cause of bad ai, or finding a place that was locked for a quest, so not too rewarding.
In the end I stayed to explore the most of the world and that 60fps!
I'm already having more fun platforming in X with superjumps, exploration get even more involving.
 
I hated Witcher 2 when I first started playing it, too. When I came back to it like a year after, I played through the game on easy and around the end it "clicked" for me and after beating it went right back through on Dark mode. I loved that game then.

Witcher 3 is by far my favorite game of the year. It's unfortunate that it's not for everyone, but dem's the breaks.
 
I like the game but it definitely has problems. Number one being the quality of the combat and how frequent it is. It doesn't even need to be like Bloodborne, I just want it to be fun. But it's not, it's really tiresome and too convoluted for how simple it is.
 
I feel this is my GOTY and everything else feels bleak in comparison

But combat need better hitboxes and the ability to fall in towards the enemy when you attack... So to speak
 
I've had a really strange experience with The Witcher 3.

I loved the first two games. I was always worried about The Witcher 3 losing its way in open-world game design.

I buy it on Steam, play it for a few hours, and find myself utterly bored by it. My biggest fear was the open-world design and having SO much to do, and my fear felt justified at first.

I actually tried to get a refund on Steam for it, but I played it for three and a half hours and they wouldn't fucking refund me. That forced me to actually continue playing it. I'm about 20 hours in now and enjoying it quite a lot. I'm currently doing an EXCELLENT side quest called Ladies of the Wood, and it all feels great right now. I actually really like the combat. I'm playing on one of the higher difficulty levels, so it's forced me to use a combination of signs and alchemy in addition to my swords to take down foes. It feels very rewarding when you roll and dodge your way and take down groups of enemies with a variety of attacks.

The game still has some issues, like some awkward controls (especially that goddamn horse) and the fact that WAY too many things are lootable, but it's quite excelling in visuals, sound, writing, just like its predecessors.
 
I really dislike the Witcher 3 also. The combat is unsatisfying, the movement is clunky, the inventory system is a convoluted mess, most quest design amounts to turn on Batman vision to follow the magic red trail, the performance on consoles is less than ideal, the story merely amounts to "do this huge favor to me so that I will tell you the location of X person".

I am continually baffled by the love for this game.
 
Gattsu25 said:
OP, yes you are supposed to be broke all the time. It's actually part of the universe that the game is based on.

Also, there's an alternative control/movement mode tucked into one of the settings menus. Try changing that setting.
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Really? I seem to recall Geralt typically charging a kings ransom for killing monsters in the book. Towns could pool their money together and still not afford a Witcher. Geralt seems fine with searching for frying pans and goats in W3 though.
 
Y2Kev said:
Oh, also-- for all the talk about how the side quests are amazing, I think what people mean are that the quest givers have clear motivations and dialogue is well written. If I had to go to another fucking patch of shrubs and use witcher senses to follow a magic trail of stank one more time I was going to sell the game.
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It's better then just going and killin. It makes you feel like a hunter, cuz that's what you do. That's what witchers do, hunt and kill monsters. It's explained that witching is a shit life hunting drowners for people that hate you.
 
Y2Kev said:
Oh, also-- for all the talk about how the side quests are amazing, I think what people mean are that the quest givers have clear motivations and dialogue is well written. If I had to go to another fucking patch of shrubs and use witcher senses to follow a magic trail of stank one more time I was going to sell the game.
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This was how I felt. The actual quests were mundane, but at least the quest givers had a motive and weren't just an afterthought. Also, the main story felt more side questy.
 
Fantastapotamus said:
Wait what? I don't remember that at all.
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I think he's referencing the story where Geralt lifts the curse on Foltest's daughter

Vire said:
I really dislike the Witcher 3 also. The combat is unsatisfying, the movement is clunky, the inventory system is a convoluted mess, most quest design amounts to turn on Batman vision to follow the magic red trail, the performance on consoles is less than ideal, the story merely amounts to "do this huge favor to me so that I will tell you the location of X person".

I am continually baffled by the love for this game.
Click to expand...

And you still baffle me. Its not for you, that is fine. And once again, you simplify the whole point of the main story and the quest design.
 
OrbitalBeard said:
And it feels weird.

There are plenty of mainstream AAA games I don't like. I'm not into Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed, Battlefront, etc....but I don't hate any of those games. They just aren't for me. But I'm really surprised at how much The Witcher 3 is frustrating me.

So I bought the game recently and after a hundred hours of Bloodborne, I finally decided to start it today. I've probably put around six hours into the game....and I think I hate it. The visuals are beautiful and the world itself seems pretty cool, but man....the combat is horrible. The quests are horrible (at least so far). The weapon degradation is driving me insane. It's so insanely expensive to repair anything, at least early on . I have almost no money, even after completing a dozen or so side quests.

I have to be missing something here. Does this game get better? Has Bloodborne's combat completely spoiled me or does it open up and improve as the game progresses?

I really thought I would enjoy this game. I'm honestly a bit shocked at how much I dislike it. Going by all the rave reviews and impressions, I'm just baffled at how much I disagree, at least after the first half dozen hours. What the hell am I missing? I feel like the world and atmosphere are great but the actual gameplay is really, really bland.

I have to admit that Gwent is pretty sweet though.
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Couple of hours in, I put it on easy. It made the game more tolerable, played it for some 8 more hours until I packed it in permanently.
 
Ratrat said:
Really? I seem to recall Geralt typically charging a kings ransom for killing monsters in the book. Towns could pool their money together and still not afford a Witcher. Geralt seems fine with searching for frying pans and goats in W3 though.
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I seem to remember Geralt savoring the moments where he could even think about affording a new outfit or a full meal more than him defunding a kingdom.
 
I don't hate it at all, I just accept that it's an amazing game that isn't for my tastes right now.

I haven't been into that kind of fantasy for a good number of years now.

Loved Witcher 1, though.
 
antitrop said:
I don't hate it at all, I just accept that it's an amazing game that isn't for my tastes right now.

I haven't been into that kind of fantasy for a good number of years now.

Loved Witcher 1, though.
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I think Witcher 1 and 3 both belong in the same kind of dark low-fantasy where minorities are persecuted for being different.

Of course, Witcher 1 dealt greatly with the theme of elves/dwarves being persecuted by militarily religious fanatics and non-human terrorists causing terror on the populace
 
Vire said:
I really dislike the Witcher 3 also. The combat is unsatisfying, the movement is clunky, the inventory system is a convoluted mess, most quest design amounts to turn on Batman vision to follow the magic red trail, the performance on consoles is less than ideal, the story merely amounts to "do this huge favor to me so that I will tell you the location of X person".

I am continually baffled by the love for this game.
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You can simplify most stories like that.
Last of Us is basically "bring this mcguffin from A to B".
 
I mean OP, every famous and well acclaimed game have heaters.

I did not like MGS series, or Resistance series. but I don't know a game that I truly hated.
 
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