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The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings |OT| Plough 'Em All
- Thread starter Snuggles
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You don't need to flame me.
That's how I felt about the story, that's what I understood. Didn't read the books, didn't play the first game, so I often was overwhelmed with names of Kings and countries without even understanding what's going on. All I got was "oh noes racism". And besides that I just don't like political aspects in games and or movies (or even in real world for that matter). I think they could've done a much more engaginge story by focusing on Geralt and Triss.@Solo
Great argument. I'm playing games by it's rule. That's part of the fun to me. I'm not making up my own rules, because I don't get any enjoyment of this. Could you please just accept that feeling/opinion?
See, this is where the difference comes in. Youre not playing by the games rules. Youre playing by your own. Theres absolutely nothing in the game that forces you to use Quen and you can go through the entire game without it. Its not a rule. Its an option. An option that you chose to use and then complain about later despite the simple fact that you dont have to use it.
I think the bottom line is that you used Quen even though you dont like Quen and now it slightly soured your taste. Whos fault is that?
Im right there with ya on the points that its overpowered and I honestly feel like it shouldnt even exist in the game but I got around that by just not using it as often as I was and I found myself enjoying the game more in the end.
Is it REALLY that hard to understand? I can't be the only one feeling that way. I want to use EVERY option a game offers me if it's part of the games rules set. Quen obviously is. If one of these options brakes the game, I consider the rules broken and therefore the game (in this case, the battle system). I can't be arsed to make up my own rules, I don't like it. I want a finished and balanced product.
I can't understand where you are coming from but please accept also that I don't get any enjoyment from making up my own rules to "unbreak" the game. I can't just behave like Quen doesn't exist, That's how my mind works. I accept that not everyone is like that, but don't consider me an idiot because I obviously enjoy games in a different way than you. Maybe we can just leave it at that.
No, it's not, it's called playing a game by it's rule. That's what I do. That's how I get enjoyment of gaming and games in general. For me, games work only with rules. I think that's pretty normal and you probably find 50% people who think like me and 50% who think like you. Both opinions are valid and it's just a matter of taste and (social) behavior I guess.
Coud you now please stop insulting me? Thank you.
Coud you now please stop insulting me? Thank you.
You can also "cheese" it by luring the Nekkers to the entrance of the cave. Their AI path stops just around the corner from (Edit: or just in front of, if I'm misremembering the layout) the entrance, so you can run up and attack them as they turn around and wander off. I'm not ashamed to admit that this is precisely what I did.
I walked right into that one, haha.
Telling me that I have a psychic disorder is not only an insult, it's also very hyperbolic regarding the context.
lol! Just don't use quen. And don't roll for that matter.
Or...just don't buy new equipment. Or don't level up. Game is not too easy, you are just not making it hard enough.
SCNR. ;D
It's circular. It's like a carousel - you pay the quarter, you get on the horse, it goes up and down, and around. Circular, circle. With the music, the flow. All good things.
Edit: On a serious note, I'd like the sex cards to return in The Witcher 3. Collecting them in the original was quite fun, even though this required you to run around and talk to every female NPC in the area.
I dont understand it but whatever. Thats the way you play so who am I to judge.
You do bring up some good points about the gameplay for the next game though. TW2 was a huge step in the right direction but still has a few kinks that need to be worked on.
And I dont think youre an idiot, you idiot
Vasilisk 2038
Member
Jesus Thrakier, I'm no to going to call you an idiot, but saying that you don't like the story and then actually say that you didn't tried to get into it.. -_-. You seem like a dudebro playing something like Deus Ex ><
I would agree now that I "get" the combat.
Basically it goes like this: I could put the game on any difficulty and, save for bosses, I wouldn't have much of a problem. The problem is that the learning curve is not gradual - it's steep, then plateaus for most combat scenarios, and effectively goes down for the rest of the game.
My friend recommended the tutorial and arena for learning the combat better. I ultimately didn't need them, and they should not be bandaids for gradual learning within the actual game. Those options weren't around before the patches either (added in patch 2.0 in september 2011,) so whatever problems they help smooth over existed in full force before the updates.
I felt initially frustrated because I'm used to learning in-game and taking my time doing so. If that's babying or hand-holding then so be it, but it's bad design for a game to not at least suggest to you how to play it. The Witcher 2 didn't before the patches and that's a very legitimate complaint.
No offense but the combat does not have a steep learning curve, the tutorial even before patches told you everything you needed to know about the skills, if you couldn't figure out how to use them then I don't know what to tell you. "This spell gives you a shield" - hmm maybe I should use this to not take damage? I finished the game at launch and my only complaint with the combat was that the encounters were badly balanced - the guards during the prologue gave me more trouble than most enemies in the entire game. Not because I couldn't figure out how to handle the combat, but because I had too little health/armor compared to their health.
I agree. Those courtyard guys were horrible. It felt so out of place at that point in the game when you didnt have the abilities and upgrades to make it feel "right". That battle works best when you mix dodging, blocking, and magic (telepathy especially) but that early on, you only have 2 measly vigor bars to work with and it doesnt feel good at all.
Im talking pre-patch too, btw. That section is much more do-able now.
Ok can someone help me here: I am in Act 1 in the woods and found some old elven statue surrounded by roses. There was a way down to a not-so-secret chamber, but I can't get down. I opened the way with Aard but I simply cannot jump down there. I am stuck outside basically. Is this a bug or am I supposed to get there another way?
I believe that's part of the main quest.
James Woods
Banned
I've been playing the first and I can run it smoothly on medium settings. I am not a graphics whore and I was wondering if I can play this on low? I know it'll look like shit...
I disagree.
I played this game before any patches were out. There was no tutorial. There were tool-tips that popped up on the screen too quickly and that's about it - the game kind of threw itself at you (and not in the good way.)
That is absolutely deserving of criticism.
I'm impressed to see CDProjekt went out of their way to try and fix these problems. They're one of the few developers who listens to their customers, improves their game, and grows their intellectual property while still maintaining a strong, unique vision. That's rare and it should be applauded.
I don't like the way they go about teaching you how to play in-game. Again, the tutorial and arena mode are all well and good, but those are bandaids for the larger problem - otherwise CDProjekt woudn't have gotten many complaints. They did and that's simply the reality of the situation.
I'm reminded of The Escapist's initial review:
Anyone remember dying over and over on the
dragon attack?
And like I said, it's since gotten better, albeit 4 months after the fact. I prefer those learning experiences to be more in-game, where if I was just going to rush in without all the extra stuff (however foolish that might be,) I should be able to grasp the system easily enough and be able to get by but perhaps not excel. Not without practice at least.
Not once on any playthrough.
Shame on you. One of the best games ever made. Go back to it NOW.
For the tutorial:
Imo it would be enough to just put a guy in Floatsam who tells you "QUEN AND ROLL, GERALD, QUEN AND ROLL"...and here we go. ;D
That Gerald, what a great character.
A hallmark of a quality story is it can stand alone with no required background material. While there's a million things The Witcher 2 does right, this is one of the things it does terribly. Thankfully the core of the story is really good and it's easy to follow along, but a lot of the background details placed into the game are utterly confusing and presented in a manner which gives no context as to what they mean. There's a few conversations that I simply did not understand because I don't know anything about the Witcher series.
While I agree with you, and it took me some time to learn that game required some actual thought and skill when you fought. A lot of the combat wasn't really weaned in at the right rate or in the right way. This really didn't kill me.
Also I played the tutorial first, but it honestly helped me very, very little.
One thing that still really bothers me is that there's no tooltips for the spells, which meant I just forgot what they did for like the first 2 hours of the game on occasion since I was more focused on not dying than experimenting.
To be fair though, this is the second installment in a series. You cannot expect to fully grasp everything in a sequel, there is bound to be facts that were presented in the first part that you won't understand unless you've played it.
No, but a good sequel can present and frame details contextually so they can be followed by someone unfamiliar the universe. Thats a hallmark of excellent writing.
Freshmaker
I am Korean.
Triss is heavy into politics. (She spends most of the novels trying to convince a neutral Geralt to play in the political realm.) You can't focus on her character without it swinging towards the political.
The dude doesn't dig politics and social issues. Probably too young to understand this kind of stuff or just too ignorant, that's ok.
I also watched Schindler's List last week but as I don't dig historical movies, Holocaust and all that kind of stuff I think that this movie is a boring piece of shit. Should have focused on Schindler's relationship with women, make it more personal. I mean the dude stayed bachelor until his death, isn't it sad? That would be definitely more interesting than some jews dying in labour camps.
I also watched Schindler's List last week but as I don't dig historical movies, Holocaust and all that kind of stuff I think that this movie is a boring piece of shit. Should have focused on Schindler's relationship with women, make it more personal. I mean the dude stayed bachelor until his death, isn't it sad? That would be definitely more interesting than some jews dying in labour camps.
Geralt, sorry. -.-
@subversus
Don't be so arrogant, please.
I'm actually 29 and I even studied history for two years. Yes, I am ignorant by choice and I have my reasons for that. They don't belong here though. I do think however that the story in TW2 could've been done better. That huge scale war thing doesn't grasp me emotionally. It's acutally not Geralts story, it's the story about a phantasy war and about phantasy politics. Those two things are presented as gerenic as they can potentially be. Country A, Country B and C fight for a certain piece of land to gain hegemonic (don't know if that's the right engilsh expression, sorry). Politics try to manipulate the situation. It's something that happend in our history for thousands of times and it will happen again and again. For that matter, it also happened in books and movies thousands of times. To me, those stories are not exciting anymore. Those are stories I heard over and over again. It's neither emotional nor personal to me, I feel disconnected hearing so much about a phantasy world. They have the chance to do so much amazing stuff ( it's phantasy, you know) but they decide to just copy and paste some real life war scenario into it. So, you run trough this world, you feel very connected to Geralt because he has a strong and very fleshed out personaltiy but not at all to the ongoing actions in the world because Geralt, why manipulating the outcome of this war, is just, like you as a player, a visitor of a much bigger thing going on. It feels more like a story about the world Geralt lives in. But I would've liked it more if it would be a story about Geralt. About his hopes, feelings, whatever. Those stories are not new as well, but at least I can connect to them if I can empathize with the main character. But I don't give a shit if Kingdom A or B wins (and so should Geralt actually!).
Also I don't think it's believable that Geralt, as a character, would get so deep into this war. It doesn't fit his charachter imo. But whatever.
Actually Schindlers Liste is a pretty amazing movie. The film makers did exactly what I missed in TW2. They focused on human beings, on their feelings, they made it a personal experience. Remember the girl with the red jacket? THAT'S what I'm talking about. If Schindliers Liste would've been like TW2, they would've focused on talking about Hitler and how he moved a Solider regiment from A to B to C to get to Country X. But they didn't. They showed a little girl in a red dress in a black and white world.
And please stop being polemic or talk about me like I'm stupid, that's not fair.
Good for you. I still get to air my grievances, though. It's also an issue that hasn't been fixed.
How DARE YOU SIR
lol
universalmind
Member
Geralt, sorry. -.-
@subversus
Don't be so arrogant, please.
I do think however that the story in TW2 could've been done better. That huge scale war thing doesn't grasp me emotionally. It's acutally not Geralts story, it's the story about a phantasy war and about phantasy politics. Those two things are presented as gerenic as they can potentially be. Country A, Country B and C fight for a certain piece of land to gain hegemonic (don't know if that's the right engilsh expression, sorry). Politics try to manipulate the situation. It's something that happend in our history for thousands of times and it will happen again and again. For that matter, it also happened in books and movies thousands of times. To me, those stories are not exciting anymore. Those are stories I heard over and over again. It's neither emotional nor personal to me, I feel disconnected hearing so much about a phantasy world. They have the chance to do so much amazing stuff ( it's phantasy, you know) but they decide to just copy and paste some real life war scenario into it. So, you run trough this world, you feel very connected to Geralt because he has a strong and very fleshed out personaltiy but not at all to the ongoing actions in the world because Geralt, why manipulating the outcome of this war, is just, like you as a player, a visitor of a much bigger thing going on. It feels more like a story about the world Geralt lives in. But I would've liked it more if it would be a story about Geralt. About his hopes, feelings, whatever. Those stories are not new as well, but at least I can connect to them if I can empathize with the main character. But I don't give a shit if Kingdom A or B wins (and so should Geralt actually!).
Also I don't think it's believable that Geralt, as a character, would get so deep into this war. It doesn't fit his charachter imo. But whatever.
Actually Schindlers Liste is a pretty amazing movie. The film makers did exactly what I missed in TW2. They focused on human beings, on their feelings, they made it a personal experience. Remember the girl with the red jacket? THAT'S what I'm talking about. If Schindliers Liste would've been like TW2, they would've focused on talking about Hitler and how he moved a Solider regiment from A to B to C to get to Country X. But they didn't. They showed a little girl in a red dress in a black and white world.
And please stop being polemic or talk about me like I'm stupid, that's not fair.
Huh? I haven't played the game in months. Did they drastically change the story in a content patch? When I last played it Geralt only cared about regaining his memories, finding Yennefer (and the Wild Hunt), finding Triss, clearing his name/uncovering the plot to assassinate kings and getting away from politics and war.
Attackthebase
Member
Chapter I spoiler...( near the end, I believe)
I am loving this game so far. I'm glad I waited for a better video card, shit looks amazing!
Just got to the decision where I gotta stick with Roche or Iveroth. Hard decision. I like em both, but I'll probably stay with my bro Roche for the first playthrough. I helped out Iveroth already by not being a douche and betraying my promise by keeping his blade. I wonder how that would've turned out?
I am loving this game so far. I'm glad I waited for a better video card, shit looks amazing!
Flying_Phoenix
Banned
So I just beat this game going the other route. Incredible game. Truly the best RPG I've ever played.
So what route is better
So what route is better
Iorveth or Roche?
To me Roche has more meat in gameplay but Ioreveth feels much more "canon".
Attackthebase
Member
The great Solo approves of my choice to stay with my main man. Hoozah!
I'll still protect whatever non-human I see. I remember assisting the scoratel (no clue how to spell the name) in the first Witcher, and that didn't turn out too well...
I remember Triss being pissed off at me. :-(
Complistic
Member
Gotta go with my bro Roche.
MickeyKnox
Member
They are both excellent branches but looking at it from the overarching plot line in that world, Ivoreth's tree offers the best hope for success in saving the world from "The Enemy" at last as far as I see it unfolding.
It's not too dissimilar to the structure of A Song of Ice and Fire, denizens of the world fighting amongst one another for power, all the while a super/extra-natural threat to every one and everything is waiting out on the fringe.
The balance of power in the world is/was the extremely powerful southern empire checked by the allied might of the northern kingdoms. The south set in motion the events of the Witcher 2 to trigger a war in the north that would diminish their military might and destroy their chain of command. Paving the way for the invasion that starts at the end of the game. Beyond that, there's the whole Wild Hunt/dark elf contingent which has to come into play either during or after the war and would presumably require both north and south to fend off, which is impossible if the south annihilates the north.
And thus we come the player's actions through Geralt whose agency is bound to the actions of either Roche or Ivoreth. Roche is a soldier who sees the world in black and white and acts accordingly, which is grand ol' cathartic fun for the player but the simplicity of his reasoning does not leave much political and strategic wiggle room at the end of the game. Ivoreth on the other hand is a more complicated figure, he goes from being the leader of a band of terrorists/freedom fighters with a black and white world view to a fiercely loyal retainer of a very progressive female King who also happens to be a fucking dragon. His path can leave you and the world in a better position to forge alliances against a common enemy.
Felix Lighter
Member
I just got my new graphics card and I am ready to finally play this game!
Flying_Phoenix
Banned
This.
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