The Witcher 1 & 2 free weekend & promo

[Lulgrim]

Soo in case anyone missed it on Steam, TW1+2 are free to try for this weekend and 80% off to buy.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/20920/

Can't recommend enough, best CRPGS since the Fallout / Baldur's Gate / Torment era.

[David-CZ]

Would you say it's better than Skyrim? Provided you played it.

[Nurland]

Skyrim is more of a sandbox thing. Big open world etc. Witchers don't have that much freedom in them. But they make that up with a waaayyyy more solid plot and dialogue (Tes series plots are usually not that great) I do love TES series but Witchers are better games imo.

Skyrim is mostly just roaming around trying to level up and advance in some faction's ranks in order to get cooler shit.

The Witcher series has an actually good plot that you play to unreveal. Easily worth the -80%

Probably not as addictive as Skyrim from the get go but I succumbed to TW fairly quick. The games are not super easy IIRC. Unless you play on easy diff.

[Lulgrim]

Morrowind was pretty good (even if clunky on the technical side) but Oblivion and Skyrim are mostly about decorating your house. I think they are massively overrated and Skyrim wasn't good enough to justify the time to finish it, I've got better things to do frankly.

So I don't place them in the same category at all. TES are some sort of semi interesting but ultimately boring fantasy sandboxes.

But if you still want a yes/no answer the yes... :p

I must note though that TW should be played in the original Polish with subtitles.

[Commissar Vocaloid]

Witcher's better in original dub? I hadn't really thought of that at all, to be honest.
I'll have to see to maybe playing it again once I get my computer repaired.

[Lulgrim]

TW1 English dub is horrible, TW2 English is quality but so is the Polish, and it still suits the setting better.

[David-CZ]

Thanks for your answers, the game sounds really good. I'll give it a try once I have a machine to run it on.

[Broodwich]

Way the fuck better than skyrim and oblivion. They are also both very different in gameplay, as the first used the same engine KOTOR used and in the second the guys made their own engine that is pretty much real time combat, in addition to the huge graphical advancements. It's one of the very few series where the sequel wasn't just a rehash of the first with slightly improved graphics.

The books are great too

Ps, go with the non humans in #2. The story is ten times cooler

[Lulgrim]

TW1 (2007) was made on the Aurora engine that was made for Neverwinter Nights (2002) so it's clunky even though it really stretches some limits when you consider the circumstances. TW2 (2011) uses their own engine and is actually quite impressive visually.

Another impressive thing is CDPR's post-launch support... TW1 got some complaints about long loading times, inventory UI, and voice acting. So CDPR rewrote large parts of the game, decreasing load times by something like 80%, redesigned the UI, and re-recorded the voices from scratch (not joking)... And released it as a free patch, the Enhanced Edition.

They did a similar thing for TW2, there's a short trailer of the changes here;



IMO just the intro movie they added for a free patch (even if it was also used for the console release, which brings in money) is pretty impressive

[Lulgrim]

Ps, go with the non humans in #2. The story is ten times cooler

Ah yes actually in TW2 the middle chapter forks according to what faction you choose in the first one, so the middle part of the game is different - different location, people and quests... You can in fact see all parts of the plot only by playing both. I understand a chunk of the player base never realized this as it's not really announced in-game and most games only have small differences.

[David-CZ]

Shit, you guys are making me really excited. And I can't possibly play it on my temporary netbook

[Nuclear Arbitor]

no, you can't.

[Barrogh]

While I understand that people play Witcher mostly for the plot, it still was quite upsetting that game about medieval fantasy space marines genetically ingeneered mutant swordsmen created to fight horrific legacy of primordial chaos has such a pitiful combat system. Grinding (which is, thankfully, not neccessary) doesn't help its gameplay either.

Funny, the Witcher series (mostly TW2 as I haven't played a lot of TW1) is what finally made me looking for better VG personal combat experiences elsewhere.

...if somebody told me few years ago that I was going to explore fighting games, I would've laughed.

I really do hope that they'll do something, anything to combat system in 3. Spamming a mouse button (3 times in case of TW1) and roll can stay fun only this long.

[Lulgrim]

There was an optional TW2 combat mod made by one of the original developers but I haven't had time to go back to replay EE with that enabled. IMO mostly the high difficulties were not much fun as enemies would 1-shot you so you had to roll roll roll and do silly hit/run attacks. On normal/hard it's fine. If you could deal with SM then TW2 should be ok.

[BaptismByLoli]

enemies would 1-shot you so you had to roll roll roll and do silly hit/run attacks

Dark Souls strat vs everything

Sent from my GT-S5830i using Tapatalk 2

[Barrogh]

There was an optional TW2 combat mod made by one of the original developers but I haven't had time to go back to replay EE with that enabled. IMO mostly the high difficulties were not much fun as enemies would 1-shot you so you had to roll roll roll and do silly hit/run attacks. On normal/hard it's fine. If you could deal with SM then TW2 should be ok.

That's the point, in this particular case difficulty doesn't make the game more fun or anything. Normally when we are talking about fun in challenge higher difficulty setting offers, we mean that we actually have to use every trick in character's sleeve to win. The problem is that here it provides nothing as there aren't many useful (or even useable) tricks beyond what you normally do. You've put it well though.

I think I've seen rather decent mod (that edited a lot of stuff other than combat btw, and those are mostly good changes as well), and while it's an improvement, I don't think that it's what TW3's combat should look like. They should really look into player's tasks and options more.

Introducing basic principles like different attack/defense levels, better distinction between tracking/non-tracking blows (basically, a spacing game change, so that roll/sidestep isn't universal answer to everything anymore, but is still an important tool), adding more fencing moves to accomodate those and also means to sustain/reverse pressure in melee (mostly having to do with speed of blows and recovery from blocked strike of both parties, see term "frame data") and such. In fact, traditional "swift, heavy and block" triada of moves used in many action games with CQC is just shades of what I'm describing here, it's just its minimalistic variant.

Then we probably need more utility and less bruteforce from items and spells, more practical setups with traps and their proxies, some meaningful choices with alchemy and potions (and better UI for crafting, pretty please?) should be a good start.

Add some layers like extermely basic adaptation from AI, like enabling/disabling some of their scripts so that they don't step into your Yrden twice, but without making the spell useless, or so that you could condition them to defend in a certain manner then open them up by changing your attack pattern (sounds more complicated than it actually is) and the like.

Things like these could keep people entertained for at least maybe 2 playthroughs (so that it's not only a matter of storyline-related choices that keeps things interesting), which is, after all, the point of combat system in action-RPGs like that.

It sounds like a wall of complicated stuff right there, but it's nothing that can't be explained in 5 minutes of combat tutorial really. If anything, we have difficulty settings exactly for that case when people cba getting into combat mech and just want to go through a story, and that's just fine.
From designing standpoint, heck, it's all invented and put to use already, all you have to do is to pick barebones and implement them in your game about mutant master swordsman

On a related note, since you've mentioned that, Space Marine, of all things, had more diverse gameplay that TW series IMO.

[Sneery_Thug]

There was an optional TW2 combat mod made by one of the original developers ...

I've played with this mod. It changes the whole development tree and the merchant "mechanics" (wich is fluffy but very-very annoying.) The only thing I really like - witchers dodge looks much better (he jumps around his axis.)
But! Witcher 3 should come in couple of months. If it will be possible to import your game saves from witcher 2 (as it was with tw1), I doubt, that the with-mod-saves will be suitable to the new game. (In any case I will have to buy a new laptop -.-)

That's the point, in this particular case difficulty doesn't make the game more fun or anything.

You re wrong. When you play on Dark - you gain access to some very interesting chapter specific armor sets like King-Slayer's-armor-set (and many other.)

Btw, since Lulgrim has mantioned Baldur's Gate, did you guys ever tried Baldurs Gate Trilogy with any additional mods? - those make the game really amazing (for ex - at the beginning of BG2 you can travel to icewind dale.)

And in the autumn a new BG-like game should come out, called pillars of eternity or projekt etermity.

[Barrogh]

You re wrong. When you play on Dark - you gain access to some very interesting chapter specific armor sets like King-Slayer's-armor-set (and many other.)

I disagree. Availability of new items hardly affects the way you play, and IMO it's gameplay basics that are lacking. 3 sets do nothing to fix that, althout they look pretty. Then again, a lot of items do.

Besides, that means just more grinding and annoying stuff like "get the component X from chapter 1, but we won't tell which one until you're in chapter 3 and by then you can't access component X anymore".

But! Witcher 3 should come in couple of months.

Wasn't it postponed 'till well into 2015?

[Lulgrim]

I played a part of the game with Dark Mode when it was released. IMO it had some problems.

- the name is stupid, wtf does it even mean
- the damage multipliers are stupid, Act 1 enemies one-shot you so playing is a grind
- the new items cost a TON so getting them is a massive grind
- when you get them they are fucking OP and not fun to use
- they also look stupid

So I wasn't a huge fan of that.

[Sneery_Thug]

I disagree. Availability of new items hardly affects the way you play, and IMO it's gameplay basics that are lacking. 3 sets do nothing to fix that, althout they look pretty. Then again, a lot of items do.

I absolutely forgot, that the combat rebalance mod I've played with also changes the whole trading and stuff mechanics: you can nowhere buy diagrams (for ex you can't get the kayran armor till the episode 2) and there are no unique items to find - pretty much only such sets to buy from merchants or to craft. So those armor sets were very helpful. In the retail, without the combat mod, there re plenty of nice items. So you are right in the end. Though the plot is overwhelming.)

The heck, they moved it to February 2015!

Anyway, I'll play the vanilla game once more to complete the loldar path.))

[Lulgrim]

Another 80% discount, no free weekend this time though. http://store.steampowered.com/app/20920/

[BaptismByLoli]

Somehow I find TW1 more enjoyable than TW2 :p

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