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The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings |OT| Plough 'Em All

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Varna

Member
Keikoku said:
There is a Triss path ? What's the decider ? What happens during Act II ?

It's not really a path
in Act 3 when you and choose to do one thing or save Triss. Ending can play out differently
.
 

Van Buren

Member
toasty_T said:
The closest thing the game has to a happy ending is freeing Saskia through Iorveth's path

I let prince penis live, so his rise to power took away quite a bit from saving Saskia. She still managed to hold Vergen, but the rest of Aedirn recognized Stennis as a ruler.
 
toasty_T said:
Going with Triss
dooms everyone who you sided with up until that point. Seems like a dick move especially considering Letho saves Triss if you decide to help out your ally.
How is it a dick move? And who ends up being dead? Nilfgard was going to invade no matter what. And hey if the northern kingdoms want to fuck each other up before Nilfgard has the chance to well then best of luck to them.


Edit:
In my playthough when I went with Triss

Roche is alive and gets away with the girl.
Iorveth is alive
Saskia is alive
Henselt is the badest motherfucker in all the northern kingdoms
Radovid is doing something I guess
Letho is alive
Sile is alive

All the Nilfgardians are dead
 

subversus

I've done nothing with my life except eat and fap
My second playthrough was bittersweet and more conclusive than the first one.

I took a personal approach in the first one - didn't meddle with politics as far as it was possible and was looking after my friends. I decided to put politics and loyalty first in the second playthrough and due to some specifics on Roche's path it ended up being more pesonal and sacrificial than my first walkthrough. I recommend going through Roche's path if you haven't done it yet.
I didn't feel right after killing Letho but it was a right thing to do. I spared him the first time because it was more personal playthorugh for Geralt (and I feared fighting with him lol)
 
Lostconfused said:
How is it a dick move? And who ends up being dead? Nilfgard was going to invade no matter what. And hey if the northern kingdoms want to fuck each other up before Nilfgard has the chance to well then best of luck to them.


Edit:
In my playthough when I went with Triss

Roche is alive and gets away with the girl.
Iorveth is alive
Saskia is alive
Henselt is the badest motherfucker in all the northern kingdoms
Radovid is doing something I guess
Letho is alive
Sile is alive

All the Nilfgardians are dead


Hmm

Iorveth is practically dead if you don't go with him (his path) otherwise he gets a huge bounty on his head (the usual really). Saskia is either dead or remains under Phillipa's control. Roche becomes recognized as fugitive of some sort since the thought of handing the girl to Radovid doesn't occur to him when Geralt isn't around. If Henselt is alive he probably wants him dead, if he isn't Kaedwen probably wants him dead for killing Dethmold. Temeria won't accept him since he wants the rightful heir to take power and the nobles are all vying for power

Things work out a whole lot better (for a few other people) if you don't go after Triss.
 
toasty_T said:
Things work out a whole lot better (for a few other people) if you don't go after Triss.
Things might work out better or they might not. It's not Geralts place or job to fix the mess that everyone got themselves into.

Also Temeria has no choice but to bow to Henselt if you let him live on the Roche path.
 

Tokubetsu

Member
Lostconfused said:
Things might work out better or they might not. It's not Geralts place or job to fix the mess that everyone got themselves into.

Also Temeria has no choice but to bow to Henselt if you let him live on the Roche path.

That's why you don't let the piece of shit live.
 
Tokubetsu said:
That's why you don't let the piece of shit live.
Then Geralt might as well
join Letho and help Nilfgard conquer the entire north. Everyone is a dick in the witcher universe. Henselt isn't special in that regard
 

Tokubetsu

Member
Lostconfused said:
Then Geralt might as well
join Letho and help Nilfgard conquer the entire north. Everyone is a dick in the witcher universe. Henselt isn't special in that regard

Stopping his death is just as much an interference/non neutral path than letting Roche kill him though. Hell, I'd say having him killed is more neutral since you actually have to stop Roche from handling HIS business.
 
That's the thing with Geralt, he can try to remain neutral but then he always gets swept up in other people's plans.

When it comes to the point to make the neutral call it usually ends up being the most destructive.

He's in too deep to say "Fuck it, I'm being neutral" by chapter 3 imo
 

subversus

I've done nothing with my life except eat and fap
toasty_T said:
When it comes to the point to make the neutral call it usually ends up being the most destructive.

nailed it. what's good for everybody usually ends up bitter for him.
 

subversus

I've done nothing with my life except eat and fap
Damn, I want to start my third playthrough and at the same time I don't want to do it.

I just discovered that strong blows are extremely important. My final battle with
the dragon
took me only 4 minutes and two retries on hard while I was killing it 15 minutes on my first playthrough on normal. I tried the Eternal Battle again on hard and was able to cope with the first fight just because I was using strong blows to chip of most of their health and then fast blows to finish them + a lot of blocking.

The system is deep and definitely needs to be mastered. Potions, traps, bombs - they're all pretty important.
 
Lostconfused said:
You know people always try to feed that line to Geralt, pretty sure the answer is always "Yeah, I don't think so."
Not saying he couldn't choose to bail out any time. The repercussions for not doing so grow the longer maintains a side.

The truly neutral choice would have been to go solo after the prologue but that isn't an option. I doubt Geralt would have found a way to
Loc Muinne
had he not allied himself with anyone, which in doing so throws out his claim to neutrality.
 

Varna

Member
toasty_T said:
Not saying he couldn't choose to bail out any time. The repercussions for not doing so grow the longer maintains a side.

The truly neutral choice would have been to go solo after the prologue but that isn't an option. I doubt Geralt would have found a way to
Loc Muinne
had he not allied himself with anyone, which in doing so throws out his claim to neutrality.

Not really. It's just a means to an end and even Geralt comments on that during ACT I. Maybe if you become really involved it throws out neutrality, but I treated it as business as usual and when it finally came down to choosing whatever it all mattered to me I choose no.
 

Hawk269

Member
Without any spoilers, what is up with the fact that CDPR still says that there are 16 different endings to the game? Is this accurate? Even during the E3 press conference they mention it again that there are 16 endings.
 

Exuro

Member
Hawk269 said:
Without any spoilers, what is up with the fact that CDPR still says that there are 16 different endings to the game? Is this accurate? Even during the E3 press conference they mention it again that there are 16 endings.
There's 16 states the world can be in, not 16 cutscene endings. Their wording makes it sound like there are 16 different cutscenes.
 

Exuro

Member
I have no idea, it's a combination of the greatest choices you make throughout the game like choosing Iorveth or Roche paths. There are enough large choices to make more than 16 different states so I'm not sure which ones will carry over.
 
So after sleeping on the ending/reading the spoilers thread, I'm convinced that the press didn't properly review this game (though it kinda isn't their fault considering no other game gives you so much insight with a second playthrough). I'm definitely planning on playing through this game second time after a nice hiatus to let the dust settle. I will say this. The game sets up the next Witcher way better than ME2 sets up for ME3..
 

Varna

Member
Gully State said:
So after sleeping on the ending/reading the spoilers thread, I'm convinced that the press didn't properly review this game (though it kinda isn't their fault considering no other game gives you so much insight with a second playthrough). I'm definitely planning on playing through this game second time after a nice hiatus to let the dust settle. I will say this. The game sets up the next Witcher way better than ME2 sets up for ME3..

Well duh. Nothing fucken happens in that game. TW1 has a better sequel set up just with that final cutscene.
 

subversus

I've done nothing with my life except eat and fap
It's sort of embarassing for Bioware that their games look so pale comparing to The Witcher while they are supposed to be kings of story-driven WRPGs. I know, there won't be any repercussions for them until TW2 sells very well on 360 but it's really hard to ignore now.

I don't want to turn this thread into Bioware - CD Project garbage thread but I can't stop comparing their games since I put 119 hours in ME2 and 101 hours in DA:O. I mean I always tried to ignore flaws and smoke and mirrors they do but I can't do this now and this makes me a sad panda because I was really looking forward to ME3. Will they do branching storylines with totally different locations and NPCs available ? Will they do a truly mature story? It's sort of late for them to turn the franchise around.

It's a shame that only CD Project does it. I hope Deus Ex will be like TW2 in terms of story.
 
This is really the year where Bioware looks incompetent compared to other developers. Human Revolution is shaping up to be better than ME2, well at least in my opinion anyway.
subversus said:
Will they do branching storylines with totally different locations and NPCs available ? Will they do a truly mature story? It's sort of late for them to turn the franchise around.

It's a shame that only CD Project does it.
Let's be honest, even CDProjekt didn't do branching paths in Witcher 1 compared to what they have done in 2.
 

Inkwell

Banned
So, how about those mutagens. I actually just noticed them on my most recent session. From what I read about them, once I use one it's permanent right? Are there any I should hold out for? I figure I'll mainly stick to swordsmanship if that means anything.

I couldn't help but laugh when I ran into town with my sword out, and a woman screamed (followed by a few more people screaming) and yelled something like "Everyone run!"
 

subversus

I've done nothing with my life except eat and fap
Lostconfused said:
This is really the years where Bioware looks incompetent compared to other developers. Human Revolution is shaping up to be better than ME2, well at least in my opinion anyway.

Let's be honest, even CDProjekt didn't do branching paths in Witcher 1 compared to what they have done in 2.

yes, but now they did and that's it.

What makes me bitter is that Bioware constantly promises it and never really delivers.
 
subversus said:
yes, but now they did and that's it.

What makes me bitter is that Bioware constantly promises it and never really delivers.
If ME3 doesn't deliver I am going to start blaming the 2 year, or however short it is, development cycle.
 

mileS

Member
Inkwell said:
So, how about those mutagens. I actually just noticed them on my most recent session. From what I read about them, once I use one it's permanent right? Are there any I should hold out for? I figure I'll mainly stick to swordsmanship if that means anything.

I couldn't help but laugh when I ran into town with my sword out, and a woman screamed (followed by a few more people screaming) and yelled something like "Everyone run!"

Not that I can remember no. As long as you aren't using the lesser ones you should be fine. I do remember some people saying you can load up with +crit ones + some crit talents and it ended up hurting the experience for them. It basically lead to insane high levels of crit killing almost everything in 1-2 hits. If you're okay with that its fine but just watch out.
 

subversus

I've done nothing with my life except eat and fap
Lostconfused said:
If ME3 doesn't deliver I am going to start blaming the 2 year, or however short it is, development cycle.

I wanted to write that 2 year cycle has nothing to do with this but then I remembered that Deus Ex HR is 4 years in the making and so was TW2. Even if we take out preproduction and a new engine development it's basically 3 years of work.


also it's funny to watch this video again - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JciyoGmnGyo

Who is this Princess? Why the Dragon in the camp? Why only one assassin? Questions, questions...
 
subversus said:
I wanted to write that 2 year cycle has nothing to do with this but then I remembered that Deus Ex HR is 4 years in the making and so was TW2. Even if we take out preproduction and a new engine development it's basically 3 years of work.


also it's funny to watch this video again - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JciyoGmnGyo

Who is this Princess? Why the Dragon in the camp? Why only one assassin? Questions, questions...

So they replaced guys doing pushup and throwing up with "OOOOODRIN"

And that placeholder dialogue was just really bad (not the voiceover which is understandable). Glad that stuff was completely cut.
 

Hawk269

Member
subversus said:
It's sort of embarassing for Bioware that their games look so pale comparing to The Witcher while they are supposed to be kings of story-driven WRPGs. I know, there won't be any repercussions for them until TW2 sells very well on 360 but it's really hard to ignore now.

I don't want to turn this thread into Bioware - CD Project garbage thread but I can't stop comparing their games since I put 119 hours in ME2 and 101 hours in DA:O. I mean I always tried to ignore flaws and smoke and mirrors they do but I can't do this now and this makes me a sad panda because I was really looking forward to ME3. Will they do branching storylines with totally different locations and NPCs available ? Will they do a truly mature story? It's sort of late for them to turn the franchise around.

It's a shame that only CD Project does it. I hope Deus Ex will be like TW2 in terms of story.

While I agree with you on most of your points and I am not taking sides here, I do think that Witcher 2's main flaw is that even on one run through, the game was short compared to other games. If anything, the game needed a Chapter 3 the size of Chapter 1 & 2, then Chapter 4 could be what Chapter 3 is today. If anything, that is one thing that I would and thought based on Witcher 1 that a complete 1st run through would be about 40 hours for the main Story and some side quests.

I do think that with the engine now done that we are going to get an epic expansion pack for the game and Witcher 3 is going to be huge. I would imagine alot of the last 4 years making TW2 alot of that time was making the Red Engine. Now that it is out of the way, a butt load of DLC/Expansions while they plan out TW3 with some modifications to the engine etc is what I think is up next.

TW3 time wise would end up being a launch title for the next Xbox alongside it's PC brother, which most are predicting Holiday 2013 for the new Xbox.
 

Solo

Member
The length of the game was perfect. If Chapter 3 was as long as Chapter 2 and there was a Chapter 4 + epilogue afterwardss, the game would really outstay its welcome.
 

Van Buren

Member
subversus said:
Will they do branching storylines with totally different locations and NPCs available ? Will they do a truly mature story? It's sort of late for them to turn the franchise around.
I'd say it's unlikely that ME3 will have the narrative reactivity of AP or Witcher 2. Didn't they respond to the Bioware Cliche Chart by saying that that's the kind of story structure they are comfortable making ? The two recent examples of them changing the main story structure has been, frankly, disastrous, with ME2 forgetting to add a main story of substance, and DA2 being a frontrunner for the most unconvincing '10 year story' told.

All signs are pointing to ME3 returning to the formulaic 'recruit four civilizations/races and face the big bad' shtick that characterizes their stories.
 

subversus

I've done nothing with my life except eat and fap
Gully State said:
So they replaced guys doing pushup and throwing up with "OOOOODRIN"

And that placeholder dialogue was just really bad (not the voiceover which is understandable). Glad that stuff was completely cut.

the combat was totally different.

dialogue was nice in some parts but felt totally placeholderish.
 

Yurt

il capo silenzioso
CDPR's clarification on the 16 endings statement.

What is an ending?" he said. "In some games the ending is the final cut-scene, the summary. In The Witcher 2, political things are more important than they were in the first one. It's still action-packed and there is the story of Geralt, but it's a broader game. We go to a lot of different places. We see kingdoms clashing. It's more epic in scale.
"If it is that epic and the game is non-linear, then we thought, these choices have to affect how these kingdoms clash.
"We like to say we have 16 states of the world that you have at the end of The Witcher 2. It's not like 16 different cut-scenes. The last chapter, there is a big summary of what you have accomplished in the game. You will get that. You will see results of some early choices from hours of gameplay past.

And about Geralt being neutral. First of all, there's no right answer to this, he's your Geralt and you're making the decisions, so if you say he's neutral then he fucking is. My Geralt is not, because I sympathize with the Elves and Dwarves, I absolutely hate and despise all kinda racism and I'll never ever side with racists even if they're mislead. And I think Geralt, well based on the flashback with "rob", clearly shows you that he choose a path himself before losing his memory and is definitely not neutral.

That fact that we all choose different things for different reasons just shows how great this game is.
 

Snuggles

erotic butter maelstrom
Solo said:
The length of the game was perfect. If Chapter 3 was as long as Chapter 2 and there was a Chapter 4 + epilogue afterwardss, the game would really outstay its welcome.

I agree that the length is perfect, TW2 is about quality packed content over massive quantities of mediocrity, but I do wish that ch. 3 was at least a little more fleshed out. There were a few plotlines and characters that didn't have a fitting conclusion, but I'm hoping the next game will recognize that or we'll get a new chapter expansion before then.

Either way, I need more ASAP.
 

subversus

I've done nothing with my life except eat and fap
Hawk269 said:
While I agree with you on most of your points and I am not taking sides here, I do think that Witcher 2's main flaw is that even on one run through, the game was short compared to other games. If anything, the game needed a Chapter 3 the size of Chapter 1 & 2, then Chapter 4 could be what Chapter 3 is today. If anything, that is one thing that I would and thought based on Witcher 1 that a complete 1st run through would be about 40 hours for the main Story and some side quests.

Well, I personally don't like games which are more than 40 hours long, 35 hours is more than enough for me. TW2 had 4 chapters by the way. Chapter I, Chapter II Iorveth's path, Chapter II Roche's path, Chapter 3 (massively different depending on your side). They could do Chapter III and IV but branched them instead.
 

Otheradam

Member
Solo said:
The length of the game was perfect. If Chapter 3 was as long as Chapter 2 and there was a Chapter 4 + epilogue afterwards, the game would really outstay its welcome.

I agree. While the game seems a bit short, they didn't really add any "filler" crap that didn't move the story forward like a lot of other long RPGs. They could have added a lot of random quests ala Fallout/Elderscrolls that have nothing to do with the main quest, but the world of Witcher 2 isn't built with that type of questing in mind. The game packs a lot into a smaller world and I honestly prefer that these days. Chapter 3 could probably been a bit longer, maybe have you do some stuff trying to get into the city involving a small town on the outskirts or something but that might have taken away from the pacing.
 

Snuggles

erotic butter maelstrom
subversus said:
I spent a lot of time in Chapter III doing puzzles.

I hardly got to do anything in ch. 3 since I accidentally talked to the wrong NPC's
(a packs of Nilf's) which leads to Geralt getting arrested, which is the point of no return.

I ain't even mad, though. I'm gonna do playthrough 2 (Roche) soon, and it'll be like a totally different game with all the stuff I missed and chapter 2.
 

subversus

I've done nothing with my life except eat and fap
Snuggler said:
I ain't even mad, though. I'm gonna do playthrough 2 (Roche) soon, and it'll be like a totally different game with all the stuff I missed and chapter 2.

you're in for a treat. There will be a plenty of time to do quests. Puzzles are pretty hard, I had to use a pen and paper for all of them.
 

Solo

Member
How do you take on the Endrega (sp?) queens with a pure alchemy build? They were no problem on my Roche swordsman run, but I do such pathetic damage to them on my Ioverth alchemy run.
 

subversus

I've done nothing with my life except eat and fap
Solo said:
How do you take on the Endrega (sp?) queens with a pure alchemy build? They were no problem on my Roche swordsman run, but I do such pathetic damage to them on my Ioverth alchemy run.

I used a lot of bombs + snares (like 16 of them) and daggers. Not a single hit taken. Upgrade your build with traps and bombs doing 100% damage.
 

Jenga

Banned
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOODRIN


COME ERE BOY


OOOOOOOOOOODDDDDDDRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN

WHERE ARE YA OOOOOOOOODRRRIIIIIIIIIN


bats bats bats isdfjl;asdkfhk;anck;asdc
 

subversus

I've done nothing with my life except eat and fap
Jenga said:
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOODRIN


COME ERE BOY


OOOOOOOOOOODDDDDDDRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN

WHERE ARE YA OOOOOOOOODRRRIIIIIIIIIN


bats bats bats isdfjl;asdkfhk;anck;asdc

do the quest quick. he's near
the camp sitting in front of the cave.
 
Solo said:
How do you take on the Endrega (sp?) queens with a pure alchemy build? They were no problem on my Roche swordsman run, but I do such pathetic damage to them on my Ioverth alchemy run.

You can try luring nekkers to them, they'll attack the queen and you can jump in and out getting a couple hits in and retreating while they're busy. I think it was Cedric that sells lures if you already took out their nests.


You can also cheese them if you really need to. They'll only follow you so far, then turn around. As soon as they turn, hit from behind and take a step back, let it turn around again, etc... until dead.
 
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