gunsmoke on 18/5/2011 at 18:10
LOL @ Sulphur's easter egg. :thumb:
van HellSing on 18/5/2011 at 21:00
I just heard some watchmen paraphrase Rorschach :laff:
Judith on 19/5/2011 at 00:08
For the record, combat gets less tedious with level-up and equipment. Duh, I know, but it means, more or less, that the system is similar to Gothic or Risen difficulty handling, i.e. you start as a feeble and it's better not to stray from safe areas for too long, but as you gain experience and better gear you will feel more confident in the wilderness. Sounds good to me.
Phatose on 19/5/2011 at 00:25
Do the controls get any better? The targeting is flat out clunky.
Avalon on 19/5/2011 at 00:37
The learning curve on this game is a little annoying to start out with - your first few fights are all easy 1v1s or 1v2s, or a whole group of your people versus a whole group of their people. Nothing that takes any more work than 3 or 4 clicks to be done.
Then all of a sudden they throw you into a room against a heavy armored knight guy, a couple of two handed sword wielding guys, some dudes with shields and some trash units, and it's JESUS CHRIST. In just that courtyard, you go from mindlessly left and right clicking, to suddenly having to learn what each of your signs do, how to roll and dodge, the merits of parry, and generally how to maneuver the rather clunky combat system. There are going to be moments when you want to yell obscenities at your screen because you hit parry or a magic spell or weapon swing and Geralt did none of those things, and instead elected to stand there staring off into space while he gets wailed on.
So far that's my only complaint - that and things sort of tied into it. It sometimes feels like you're fighting your character to get him to move in the direction you want or use the abilities you want him to, and having to hump objects to interact with them leads to all sorts of annoyances (humping a whole wall to get a door to work, having to find the perfect distance within millimeters to disarm a trap without triggering it, trying to target specific things in large groups of things, playing "find the guard's loot bag" in a sea of knee-high grass where the medallion's interaction glow doesn't help).
Still enjoying it for the most part, but I think the fact that certain elements of the game can leave you frustrated enough to need a break from what should be a leisurely activity (playing a video game), is something they should have put a lot more polish into.
Phatose on 19/5/2011 at 02:53
I'm not even through the tutorial and I'm already frustrated with the game. You cannot cancel any attack once you've hit the button. This is OK for big, purposeful attacks, or when the animations are lightning quick. They are neither.
Plus, the output of any particular button press is half chance. If the game decides the targeted enemy was too far away, Geralt will do a jumping, spinning attack. Directly at the enemy. It's slow and leaves you vulnerable to counterattacks from the other enemies, since the game always seems to feel the need to put you 1 on 3 bare minimum.
So far I've pretty much had to Kite and spam signs, because the controls are too unresponsive to make 1 on 3 combat remotely possible otherwise. It's infuriating.
I don't know why you have to meditate to drink a potion, but I know several times the game has told me "You can't meditate here" despite there being no enemies on the screen. Since you don't heal in combat unless you're drugged up, it's made the 1v6 combat on the next screen a real pisser.
I'm holding out in hopes it's going to get better - maybe the combat talents give you the ability to cancel out of an attack, or there's a speed potion ability that doesn't require meditating first. Maybe it's intentional so that you actually feel more effective as you level up. I can't say I'd agree with such a design decision, but it still better then being unresponsive all the way through. But so far, I'm really wondering what the hell they were thinking.
Malf on 19/5/2011 at 09:42
The only thing that really annoys me about combat is the fact that the block key doesn't seem to register half the time; well, that and I bought the "Block from any direction" talent and its upgrade, and that doesn't seem to work all the time either.
Outside of combat I'm finding the interface screens (inventory, crafting, trading etc.), to be an utter shambles. It really does feel like they've been designed with consoles in mind. I'm also finding that while trading, not being able to compare shop equipment to the stuff you're using is incredibly irritating.
In alchemy, I'm missing the ability to filter ingredients based on their components. I never though I'd say this, but the original WItcher's interface is leaps and bounds better than the one in Witcher 2.
I also have the niggling feeling that each interface window has been made by a graphic designer first and an interface designer last. The scaling of highlighted items is intensely annoying. Lists are needlessly crammed into a tiny amount of screen real estate, leaving massive swathes unused except for aesthetic nonsense. There's no "maximum/minimum amount" buttons when trading; instead you have to either click those tiny arrows multiple times or drag that annoying gold disk.
Those are the quibbles that spring to mind while I'm away from the game, but I'm sure there are more.
But I am thoroughly enjoying it, and it IS incredibly pretty.
Judith on 19/5/2011 at 12:46
Quote Posted by Phatose
Do the controls get any better? The targeting is flat out clunky.
Nope, I mean it stays clunky. As i said earlier, it's based on where you look, rather than the enemy proximity, but if you keep that in mind you'll get used to it.
Anyway, the more I play, the more I get this feeling that the only people in CDPRED who know what they're doing are in graphics and animation department. The rest didn't come up with consistent ideas for their work (UI, combat and quest/writing folks, I'm looking at you) and there was no proper QA feedback to make it right. Still, that did not prevent me from enjoying the game, most of the time.
Bho on 19/5/2011 at 14:01
Quote Posted by Malf
The only thing that really annoys me about combat is the fact that the block key doesn't seem to register half the time; well, that and I bought the "Block from any direction" talent and its upgrade, and that doesn't seem to work all the time either.
Are you checking your vigor bar when you try to block? Blocking consumes vigor and only works when you have some vigor left. If you have no vigor left, Geralt will just stand there and get hit.
Malf on 19/5/2011 at 14:32
Ah cheers Bho, that probably explains it, as I'm quite a heavy sign user.
