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The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings |OT| Plough 'Em All
- Thread starter Snuggles
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I'll try to use my best spoiler-fu so it doesn't just become a black wall.
some negative aspects of the game mechanics :
- Game has relatively few bugs, but those I've encountered have been semi game-breaking in the sense that I've had to reset the game. ( the bomb-bug is one of these )
- Interface is pretty bad, no it's very bad actually. The vigor-meter is badly placed, the wolfeyes as an indication of your medallion cooldown is a bad touch, the menu system in general.
- This has been mentioned several times already by many others but : drinking potions becomes a chore because of the meditation system. The alchmeny menu is bad as well. I'm not 100% sure but I believe there's no diagram sorting at all in that menu everything is random oils/potions, letters. Trying to swap one rare ingredient to one you have billions of has to be done EVERY time you create the potion/bomb which makes the process even arduous.
- Pressing I brings up the inventory, pressing C while in the inventory should bring you to your character screen, of course it doesn't. You have to exit each screen, go back into the game wait a second or so and them go to the other screen. And having to press Enter/space to get to the wierd pseudo sub-menus and act as accept buttons is a whole other dilemma in itself. The characterscreens in general aren't uniform and are imo flawed and ill designed.
- The savesystem is awful, I only get one saveslot but the game has about 2gb worth of autosaves? And those aren't satisfactory at all. One particular scenario is the fight before Ch 2 boss the D
- The game is very unbalanced. Normal has some wierd places where the game is unnaturally difficult. Easy is soo easy that it takes out all the fun of the game. You're awfully underpowered in the beginning of the game and unlike other games the difficulty in the game doesn't really become higher as the game progresses.
Some negative aspects of the story/narrative mechanics :
- Sometimes they really don't get across the gravity of your impending choice of dialogue option, in a bad sense that is. Often when this happened I was given two totally ambiguous options that both seemed to indicate that more dialogue was coming - but it didn't. It really pissed me off and took me out of the game because I went " No wait no... I didn't want THIS to happen " and sadly this was very prevalent at important choices and ruined a lot for me.
Fake example and results :
Soldier : " Geralt, the trolls are fortified and Gandalf is in their soup. We could try to fly in on them on owls or ask Arnold for the key to the secret tunnel.
Dialogue options :
1)" Hmm I'm not sure the owls could take my weight " ( choosing this results in a cutscene with geralt flying away, no choice no nothing )
2)" Arnold would probably want money for the key that greedy bastard. ( choosing this results in you KILLING Arnold for no reason.)
3)"Gandalf? I thought he was in Ferelien having a good time with the whores" ( Choosing this results in Geralt just walking away and gandalf dying in the soup.)
Terrible example....
What I'm trying to get across is that the dialogue options are sometimes extremely abstract and might result in a choice or act that you would never do if you actually knew what the option entailed. But here's a real example :
Chapter 2 : You and Triss in the room with roses. Now I don't remember the dialogue to a 100% and I'm pretty much paraphrasing, but this is what I took from it :
Triss out of the fucking blue : "
"
Option 1) "
"
Option 2) "
"
Now I had no fucking clue what they were even talking about but choosing 1) will make Geralt go "
" Which was what I chose so god knows what the other options did, probably Geralt whipping out an m16 and shooting everybody in Flotsam...
I don't think I have the energy to go into detail why chapter 3 made me want to hang myself, but it felt like the writers were off that day and had the manatees roll idea balls a la that South Park episode. Now let's be honest, fantasy rpgstories aren't always the most concrete storylines but I was "with it" up until the end of the end of Chapter 2 where Geralt helped
.
But then in chapter 3 :
Ok so after 30 minutes of not knowing wtf to do and battling random
I got
. It's ok because I'll help her anyway, after dying 10 times when trying to use IGNI on you know what by pressing Q lol I'm stupid..... But oh no Eilhart
The beautiful story that takes places at the "theatre" or w/e
[Fast forward 50 minutes of more of this convoluted TRIPE!] Here comes the worst bossfight in the game, because it's just lame.
And now we finally get to
The end
Now, perhaps by now you think I hate the game. Quite the opposite actually, I love it soo much which is why I'm soo pissed at some of the decisions they made. Obviously some of the things are easily patchable and others are not. In the end this is one of my flawed jewels, just like NGB this game will be in my heart even though they both have their glaring flaws.
some negative aspects of the game mechanics :
- Game has relatively few bugs, but those I've encountered have been semi game-breaking in the sense that I've had to reset the game. ( the bomb-bug is one of these )
- Interface is pretty bad, no it's very bad actually. The vigor-meter is badly placed, the wolfeyes as an indication of your medallion cooldown is a bad touch, the menu system in general.
- This has been mentioned several times already by many others but : drinking potions becomes a chore because of the meditation system. The alchmeny menu is bad as well. I'm not 100% sure but I believe there's no diagram sorting at all in that menu everything is random oils/potions, letters. Trying to swap one rare ingredient to one you have billions of has to be done EVERY time you create the potion/bomb which makes the process even arduous.
- Pressing I brings up the inventory, pressing C while in the inventory should bring you to your character screen, of course it doesn't. You have to exit each screen, go back into the game wait a second or so and them go to the other screen. And having to press Enter/space to get to the wierd pseudo sub-menus and act as accept buttons is a whole other dilemma in itself. The characterscreens in general aren't uniform and are imo flawed and ill designed.
- The savesystem is awful, I only get one saveslot but the game has about 2gb worth of autosaves? And those aren't satisfactory at all. One particular scenario is the fight before Ch 2 boss the D
Draug where if you die you gotta play fucking seltkirt for 5 minutes and then fight half a draugin before the Draug boss kills you and you gotta restart >_< from 10 minutes ago, and obviously you can't manually save anytime during this.
- The game is very unbalanced. Normal has some wierd places where the game is unnaturally difficult. Easy is soo easy that it takes out all the fun of the game. You're awfully underpowered in the beginning of the game and unlike other games the difficulty in the game doesn't really become higher as the game progresses.
Some negative aspects of the story/narrative mechanics :
- Sometimes they really don't get across the gravity of your impending choice of dialogue option, in a bad sense that is. Often when this happened I was given two totally ambiguous options that both seemed to indicate that more dialogue was coming - but it didn't. It really pissed me off and took me out of the game because I went " No wait no... I didn't want THIS to happen " and sadly this was very prevalent at important choices and ruined a lot for me.
Fake example and results :
Soldier : " Geralt, the trolls are fortified and Gandalf is in their soup. We could try to fly in on them on owls or ask Arnold for the key to the secret tunnel.
Dialogue options :
1)" Hmm I'm not sure the owls could take my weight " ( choosing this results in a cutscene with geralt flying away, no choice no nothing )
2)" Arnold would probably want money for the key that greedy bastard. ( choosing this results in you KILLING Arnold for no reason.)
3)"Gandalf? I thought he was in Ferelien having a good time with the whores" ( Choosing this results in Geralt just walking away and gandalf dying in the soup.)
Terrible example....
What I'm trying to get across is that the dialogue options are sometimes extremely abstract and might result in a choice or act that you would never do if you actually knew what the option entailed. But here's a real example :
Chapter 2 : You and Triss in the room with roses. Now I don't remember the dialogue to a 100% and I'm pretty much paraphrasing, but this is what I took from it :
Triss out of the fucking blue : "
Geralt if you want me to not come with you just say so !
Option 1) "
I want you by my side
Option 2) "
You stay here, I'll go fix it.
Now I had no fucking clue what they were even talking about but choosing 1) will make Geralt go "
Triss I want you by my side screw the kingslayer, he's not my problem who even cares, lets go chase my dreams, the wild hunt and Yennefer herp! Roche I'm going with Triss, she's going to do some magic now!
I don't think I have the energy to go into detail why chapter 3 made me want to hang myself, but it felt like the writers were off that day and had the manatees roll idea balls a la that South Park episode. Now let's be honest, fantasy rpgstories aren't always the most concrete storylines but I was "with it" up until the end of the end of Chapter 2 where Geralt helped
Vergen against Hanselt.
But then in chapter 3 :
Where are we? Ooooh I remember, we're here to have Henselt swear his oath infront of good witnessess ah let's do this! Why is Philippa Eilhart in jail again? Oh nice I get an ambiguous dialogue option about the sewers or a quicker way ( get arrested ). I don't know which one to pick because apparently Ioverth took the decision for me when I asked him about how the sewer smelled.
Ok so after 30 minutes of not knowing wtf to do and battling random
stone gargoyels in this town filled with friendly merchants and hostile nilfgaardians
"arrested" by accident and saw some dude scoop out Eilharts eyes because she was a bad badysitter
Quadruple crossed us for the tenth time and flew away, it's ok because this dagger is supposed to go into the heart of Saskia, remember all runes have to go into her ( lol just kidding just put it on her forehead when she stuuupidly flies into a christmas tree after Geralt climbs a tower
The beautiful story that takes places at the "theatre" or w/e
Sile, Triss, Eilhart, sorcesses, some lodge, Letho comes in as a prisoner, Saskia is controlled, some ambassador, Niiiiiiiiilfgaaard, whats Henselt doing. Who is the emperor? King Stennis? Oh that's right another choice made for me, I said don't lynch the fucker until he gets his trial and he became a King. Who is the other dude who looks just like Stennis but with a 5 o clock beard. Redovid o Redamend or something. What's going on in this Circle? Whoa Saskia is fuckin shit up, why? That rose really was powerful. Wait but they all signed the contract, how come letho is STILL bald? That doesn't make any sense really. Sile explodes because of someone changed one of her diamonds to a cubic zirconia
Nekker warrior > Dragon Saskia, there I said it.
And now we finally get to
Letho who for some reason saved Triss against everyone who tried to rape her. Wait what? I thought I told Triss we wouldn't follow him or something? Oh btw remember when Triss was a piece of lego we found on a corpse in a field next to some whores? Those were the times.....
Anyways me and Letho drank some vodka and CDprojekt gave me Letho who is by now a encyclopedic robot who will answer any questions that I MIGHT have in this crystal clear story. Suffice to say I didn't want to ask him anything because the answers would blow my mind. So I just asked him nicely to walk away, which he did.
Anyways me and Letho drank some vodka and CDprojekt gave me Letho who is by now a encyclopedic robot who will answer any questions that I MIGHT have in this crystal clear story. Suffice to say I didn't want to ask him anything because the answers would blow my mind. So I just asked him nicely to walk away, which he did.
The end
Now, perhaps by now you think I hate the game. Quite the opposite actually, I love it soo much which is why I'm soo pissed at some of the decisions they made. Obviously some of the things are easily patchable and others are not. In the end this is one of my flawed jewels, just like NGB this game will be in my heart even though they both have their glaring flaws.
Ninja Gaiden Black is a perfect diamond of a game, actually. INARGUABLE.
lol
Come on, it's the simplest thing imaginable.
You have a quicksave slot with F5 and can make any number of regular saves by going into the menu and clicking the part where it says "Save."
Did you just get pissed off at Chapter 3 and decide to take an overtly negative view of everything? Heh.
This I completely agree with. It's an annoying oversight.
Corky said:
lol
Come on, it's the simplest thing imaginable.
Corky said:
You have a quicksave slot with F5 and can make any number of regular saves by going into the menu and clicking the part where it says "Save."
Did you just get pissed off at Chapter 3 and decide to take an overtly negative view of everything? Heh.
Corky said:
This I completely agree with. It's an annoying oversight.
GillianSeed79
Member
Is the retail version of this borked? I was going to get LA Noire first and wait to buy this, but Best Buy will give me a 10 dollar gift card if I buy it retail. I've got another $50 BB card coming in the mail in 2-3 weeks for switching to Direct TV. If I buy this now, It'll be like getting LA Noire for free, but I thought I read here there's a major defect in the retail version with drives not being able to play the game.
The only thing annoying about downing potions is watching the toxicity animation (wipe forehead, stretch neck, etc.) that wastes the 4-5 seconds on it.Zeliard said:
But the annoying thing is the alchemy system defaults specific ingredients everytime you finish crafting a potion, which is annoying. Because I have say, 40 nekker claws but I have 80 of an herb, but I want to reduce my carrying capacity, I have to manually put nekker claws (or such) back into the specific element slot everytime after I craft a potion/bomb/oil, instead of just leaving it there. Nevermind other alchemical products that I want to switch multiple ingredients for, it gets tedious.
Yeah, but by the time I was done my save folder was about 3 gigs, because autosaves don't overwrite one another or there isn't a hard limit, they just keep piling up.Zeliard said:
Also, the UI is weird, they could've merged the character sheet and the inventory, and just had all the monster info in the journal entry rather than another one as 'knowledge'.
Zeliard said:
Huh that's very very odd, because I made sure that going into menu and manually pressing save resulted in my quick save being overwritten. Also you are right that I might be overreacting with the " it's a chore " comment but it sure as hell isn't as smooth as it should be.
And no chapter 3 hasn't really affected my views of the rest of the game which is why my stance still is that tw2 is one of the better games I've played in ages.
I personally think the UI is amazing. Only real problem I've seen with the game so far is the inverted difficulty curve.
Everything else: the story, characters, and game mechanics might not be the greatest in RPG history, but they are compelling enough to keep me absorbed in the game. The 16-bit levels of difficulty - not just the combat but the game trusting completely in the player's intelligence, is taking me for a trip too. I still only just got done talking to the boss dude in Flotsam, but this game has opened up terrifically (then again so did Grandia III).
Now, what does TW2 have to compete with in 2011?
Pokemon Black/White
Deus Ex Human Revolution
Skyrim
Diablo III (right)
Tactics Ogre
Disgaea 4?
Everything else: the story, characters, and game mechanics might not be the greatest in RPG history, but they are compelling enough to keep me absorbed in the game. The 16-bit levels of difficulty - not just the combat but the game trusting completely in the player's intelligence, is taking me for a trip too. I still only just got done talking to the boss dude in Flotsam, but this game has opened up terrifically (then again so did Grandia III).
Now, what does TW2 have to compete with in 2011?
Pokemon Black/White
Deus Ex Human Revolution
Skyrim
Diablo III (right)
Tactics Ogre
Disgaea 4?
GillianSeed79 said:
For quite a bit of people (including me!), there are issues with their DVD drives transferring a particularly large (8 gig) file to their HDD.
CDP has rectified this by giving them a code to download the game from GOG when they provide their retail code to customer support. Of course, I was impatient and just went ahead and bought it from GOG
PCorky said:
There are certainly a couple goofy things with the menu system. I mean the thing you highlighted about how you can't quickly switch from one menu to another is 100% true and an unnecessary annoyance.
Sober said:
Yeah I wish you could skip those animations after you've seen them so many times. I often take potions two at a time so Geralt has done a lot of brow-wiping in my game.
Sober said:
Yeah, the only real way I've found to combat that is to temporarily drop whatever item it keeps defaulting to, as well other items in that category, so that it defaults to the one you want.
It's not ideal at all and it's a strange oversight on CDPR's part, but it's a temporary method until they fix it or a modder does.
Sober said:
I think some people may have missed those tabs (Knowledge, Abilities, etc) entirely if they're not careful about checking every menu out.
thetrin said:
Same here. It's been a great year so far, but unless I hate ch. 3, TW2 will probably edge out Bulletstorm and LBP2 as my pending GOTY. Uncharted 3 and Skyrim will be contenders but this is a damn good game. I'm only half way through (guessing) but I'm already thinking about all the things I'm gonna do on the next playthrough. The end of ch. 1 seems nuts when it comes to branching paths.
Corky really hit the nail on the head. My chapter 3 was slightly different, but all of your complaints I also have issues with. I also love the game but the last few hours plus those complaints makes it from being an amazing, GOTY for sure title to just a great game.
One problem i keep having is when i press esc to do a real save or a load it sometimes takes 20-30 seconds for the screen to appear. Combat targeting system is also wonky at times. A few of these things can be fixed/patched and I hope they plan on doing expansions to further the current story. I don't feel that TW3 should start where TW2 finished.
One problem i keep having is when i press esc to do a real save or a load it sometimes takes 20-30 seconds for the screen to appear. Combat targeting system is also wonky at times. A few of these things can be fixed/patched and I hope they plan on doing expansions to further the current story. I don't feel that TW3 should start where TW2 finished.
To be fair, at the end with Letho,
The only thing about the boss fights however, they seemed to be a bit weak, especially considering the Kayran fight came before all of them.
Geralt was trying to recover his memory so it makes sense that he would try to have Letho fill him in on what happened with him and Yennefer. Also, Letho was pretty scared of you chasing him for the whole game, so he figured he might as well confront you and get it over with.
The only thing about the boss fights however, they seemed to be a bit weak, especially considering the Kayran fight came before all of them.
Even the dragon fight, much less the Draugir of Vandergraff, were pretty unexciting fights to be said.
GillianSeed79
Member
sflufan said:For quite a bit of people (including me!), there are issues with their DVD drives transferring a particularly large (8 gig) file to their HDD.
CDP has rectified this by giving them a code to download the game from GOG when they provide their retail code to customer support. Of course, I was impatient and just went ahead and bought it from GOG
Okay, cool. I have a GoG account. Dumb question, assuming the retail version works for me, can I link it to my Steam account? Really, another reason I'm leaning towards retail is the physical guidebook. I found the digital guide book from Witcher 1 cumbersome to pull up and reference while playing.
Snuggler said:
Haha well to be fair, it seems quite a few people have had issues with Chapter 3 and the Epilogue. Though most of what I can gather without actually highlighting spoilers is that Chapter 3 is so much shorter than the previous chapters that some things feel unresolved and unsatisfactory.
Snuggler said:
Here's what you do: Go into it with the feeling that it will be not just awful, but truly abysmal. That way, if it turns out to be just plain bad, you can say "Hey - that wasn't as bad as I thought it would be!"
But pretty much every review has cited the ending as being a negative aspect that lowered their scores, in some cases from a 90+ to the upper 80s.
Snuggler said:
Haha nah man I'm usually really negative when it comes to flaws in games I love. Afterall who really gives a shit if Fable 3 has a bad story if you despise the rest of it, get what I mean?
Play chapter 3 with an open mind and make up your own choices and report back your own views
Corky said:Play chapter 3 with an open mind and make up your own choices and report back your own views
All I'm expecting is a bit of resolution to the Kingslayer story which the prologue starts. That and progress to uncovering pieces of Geralt's memory. If the game does these effectively, I'll probably be content. Any other larger conflict I'd rather see resolved in the coming games because just the end of chapter 1, where I'm currently at, introduces so many new players into the political game that it seems a single game won't do justice to them.
GillianSeed79
Member
sflufan said:
Hmm...I'll think I'll sleep on it befoere deciding. I'm trying to not be so impulsive buying games new these days. I've still got Mortal Kombat to keep me occupied right now and Portal 2 co-op. This will be mine at some point, but I think I'll just wait a little and pick up the Steam version a few weeks.
Van Buren said:
Yes this was basically my point of approach as well.
But with regards to the bolded part : Without spoiling anything, put yourself in a mental state of preparation to get forcefeed "many new players into the political game" during the endgame, to a vomit enducing extent.
Tokubetsu
Member
Van Buren said:
I know Corky might disagree but I felt Chapter 3 did all of the threads going in W2 justice. If they didn't wrap things up, they progressed to a point where a new expansion or game made sense. From a purely story standpoint, Chapter 3 was 100% satisfying to me. It's just a bit stiff on the gameplay end but coming off Chapter 2 (roche's path) which was extremely meaty, it didn't bother me much.
Darklord said:
You can. I did one other, in Act II.
bluedeviltron
Member
In the middle of Little Sisters (
), walking the beach, something hit me like a ton of bricks.
CD Projekt RED + The Dark Tower. I didn't think anyone could handle the source material until I played The Witcher 2. This would be number one on my dream games list.
Chapter II
CD Projekt RED + The Dark Tower. I didn't think anyone could handle the source material until I played The Witcher 2. This would be number one on my dream games list.
jim-jam bongs
Member
I assume that the start of chapter 2 is the same regardless of your choices except for
Because if so I can confirm that, yes, it was indeed gangbusters.
who you flee with and where you go?
Because if so I can confirm that, yes, it was indeed gangbusters.
jim-jam bongs
Member
Ceebs said:
Just the way I like 'em. More than a mouthful is a waste.
Tacitus_ said:
Heh, it's funny cuz just like in TW1 I'm always thinking with my dick. Gettin with the ladies is always top priority, regardless of the situation.
"Geralt, the town is under attack, what do we do?!?!"
"I say we step into that closet and get to know each other a little better"
Although, I haven't got much action so far, I totally missed out on the brothel in ch. 1.
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