The Witcher II

[Arclight]

Hrm I think you'll quickly unlearn button-mashing for combat. Groups can easily interrupt you while twirling about.

The "tutorial" is horrible, no doubt. They listed a tutorial system for version 2.0 as a new feature, so I guess what's in there now really isn't more than a prologue with some reminders.

[Hottentot]

Been playing little more now. I have some sort of love-hate relationship with the game. It's good, occasionally even great, and just as often some of its design choices make me rip the hairs out of my head. Spoilers may follow, read with caution:



The good things:

The new Triss still makes my head hurt, but the other characters are pretty cool. Compared to the first game: I could only once bring myself to stand that elf leader (Yaevin, I think) and his endless rantings of pseudo-philosophy just to play trough that path as well. And you must point a Luger at me to have me do it again. Whereas in this game both path choices and their characters made sense. I ended up "choosing" the elf pretty much by accident.

The new combat system has its flaws but it works once you get used to it. Between it and the prequel's style I can't choose, both have their good and bad sides. If there ever will be Witcher 3, I hope they will find some sort of balance between the two.

The new character development also causes mixed but mostly positive feelings. Again, can't choose between the two alternatives. I like how I don't need to spend talent points to learn new sword moves and can concentrate on other aspects of combat instead. On the other hand Witcher 1 gave more room for customizing. The new system is very straigtforward, which is both good and bad thing depending on how you look at it. But it works.

Meditating everywhere is great, especially if you must wait for certain time of the day for something to happen.

No need to hunt for endless supply of alcohol for potions anymore. Then again getting Geralt drunk as pig was fun in Witcher 1.

The occasional quick choices you have to make in dialogues give them a nice rhytm. I also like the persuasion and indimitation options, but hoped I could have spent talent points directly to them like to any other skill. Or, even wilder, have no "skills" in such sense at all and have the success depend on some other factors. I mean, come on: I have two bloody swords on my back and a fishmonger peasant tells me to piss off because my indimitation skill is not high enough? When do the games get over this?

The contracts are better. In Witcher 1 it was just "kill X amount of monster Y". In the sequel they have some actual point. On the other hand I miss trophy hunting.

The amount of gear is impressive, even if half of it is useless. I like customizing the looks of Geralt instead of just staring at the armor values.

The humor is still way above average game.



The bad things:

Puzzle bosses. Genius. The Kayran was cool for the first three times, then it simply became a burden. I didn't win that fight with wits or skill. I won it by learning the monster's movement by heart and due to trial and error for not being able to know exactly what the developers were thinking.

Respawning monsters get old really quickly. Fight them on your way in, fight them on your way out, fight them when they spawn behind your back, fight them before you try to loot something, fight them when you are again trying to loot the same thing...

Am I watching a movie here? How many cutscenes does a game need and how long do they need to be? And the staring in them. Sometimes the dialogue goes like:
Random dude: [Long, silent stare] "I'm going to tell you something very important."
Geralt: [Long, silent stare] "Go on."
Random dude: [Long, silent stare] "I saw a crow today!"
Geralt: [Long, silent stare] "Really?"

I get it that the plot is complex and that I'll maybe understand some things on the second or third time I'm playing trough the game, but it could have been done better. I had no problem following the first game's plot whatsoever, even though I had not even touched any of the books the games are based on. Here I'm completely lost all the time: why am I doing this? Why am I going here? What does this relate to? Is this a major quest or a sideplot? Huh?

Sneaking. Freaking sneaking. At least they did the obligatory "lost all your gear, got captured and now have to sneak out" part in the beginning of the game.

Drinking potions only when meditating. I could accept not getting yourself buffed in the heat of the battle, but having to watch Geralt kneel, drink, wipe his head and throw the bottle away every time I need to drink a cat potion in a dark tunnel? Bleh.

Monsters were little meh, but this was a problem in the first Witcher too. Just calling a harpy with a different name doesn't make it anything else than a harpy.

You know, dwarves. Because they are dwarves, they are supposed to carve into any big rock cities that don't make any sense. It's like in the Bible or something. A minor complaint, but the second chapter was a pain because I couldn't for the life of me learn to navigate in Vergen. The useless minimap and the slightly-less-useless big map didn't help.

Now call me weird, but: sex and swearing. I don't mind seeing boobs and I swear in real life as much as any Finn. But here? Made little sense, nothing they couldn't accomplish in similar fashion as in the first game. If I want to see boobs, I'm going outside. Whereas in the game it seemed to be more for shock value like: "LOOK! NAKED!!" Yeah, naked. I was born naked, take my daily showers naked, sleep naked...so freaking what?

The same with swearing: "Ooo, he said the F-word. Ooo, he said it again! Wow, now it was the S-word! Cool, bro!" There are situations where it's called for, but those situations don't feel like anything after the profanities are being heard in any other dialogue.

[kiwi_2005]

Originally Posted by Hottentot

Been playing little more now. I have some sort of love-hate relationship with the game. It's good, occasionally even great, and just as often some of its design choices make me rip the hairs out of my head. Spoilers may follow, read with caution:



The good things:

The new Triss still makes my head hurt, but the other characters are pretty cool. Compared to the first game: I could only once bring myself to stand that elf leader (Yaevin, I think) and his endless rantings of pseudo-philosophy just to play trough that path as well. And you must point a Luger at me to have me do it again. Whereas in this game both path choices and their characters made sense. I ended up "choosing" the elf pretty much by accident.

The new combat system has its flaws but it works once you get used to it. Between it and the prequel's style I can't choose, both have their good and bad sides. If there ever will be Witcher 3, I hope they will find some sort of balance between the two.

The new character development also causes mixed but mostly positive feelings. Again, can't choose between the two alternatives. I like how I don't need to spend talent points to learn new sword moves and can concentrate on other aspects of combat instead. On the other hand Witcher 1 gave more room for customizing. The new system is very straigtforward, which is both good and bad thing depending on how you look at it. But it works.

Meditating everywhere is great, especially if you must wait for certain time of the day for something to happen.

No need to hunt for endless supply of alcohol for potions anymore. Then again getting Geralt drunk as pig was fun in Witcher 1.

The occasional quick choices you have to make in dialogues give them a nice rhytm. I also like the persuasion and indimitation options, but hoped I could have spent talent points directly to them like to any other skill. Or, even wilder, have no "skills" in such sense at all and have the success depend on some other factors. I mean, come on: I have two bloody swords on my back and a fishmonger peasant tells me to piss off because my indimitation skill is not high enough? When do the games get over this?

The contracts are better. In Witcher 1 it was just "kill X amount of monster Y". In the sequel they have some actual point. On the other hand I miss trophy hunting.

The amount of gear is impressive, even if half of it is useless. I like customizing the looks of Geralt instead of just staring at the armor values.

The humor is still way above average game.



The bad things:

Puzzle bosses. Genius. The Kayran was cool for the first three times, then it simply became a burden. I didn't win that fight with wits or skill. I won it by learning the monster's movement by heart and due to trial and error for not being able to know exactly what the developers were thinking.

Respawning monsters get old really quickly. Fight them on your way in, fight them on your way out, fight them when they spawn behind your back, fight them before you try to loot something, fight them when you are again trying to loot the same thing...

Am I watching a movie here? How many cutscenes does a game need and how long do they need to be? And the staring in them. Sometimes the dialogue goes like:
Random dude: [Long, silent stare] "I'm going to tell you something very important."
Geralt: [Long, silent stare] "Go on."
Random dude: [Long, silent stare] "I saw a crow today!"
Geralt: [Long, silent stare] "Really?"

I get it that the plot is complex and that I'll maybe understand some things on the second or third time I'm playing trough the game, but it could have been done better. I had no problem following the first game's plot whatsoever, even though I had not even touched any of the books the games are based on. Here I'm completely lost all the time: why am I doing this? Why am I going here? What does this relate to? Is this a major quest or a sideplot? Huh?

Sneaking. Freaking sneaking. At least they did the obligatory "lost all your gear, got captured and now have to sneak out" part in the beginning of the game.

Drinking potions only when meditating. I could accept not getting yourself buffed in the heat of the battle, but having to watch Geralt kneel, drink, wipe his head and throw the bottle away every time I need to drink a cat potion in a dark tunnel? Bleh.

Monsters were little meh, but this was a problem in the first Witcher too. Just calling a harpy with a different name doesn't make it anything else than a harpy.

You know, dwarves. Because they are dwarves, they are supposed to carve into any big rock cities that don't make any sense. It's like in the Bible or something. A minor complaint, but the second chapter was a pain because I couldn't for the life of me learn to navigate in Vergen. The useless minimap and the slightly-less-useless big map didn't help.

Now call me weird, but: sex and swearing. I don't mind seeing boobs and I swear in real life as much as any Finn. But here? Made little sense, nothing they couldn't accomplish in similar fashion as in the first game. If I want to see boobs, I'm going outside. Whereas in the game it seemed to be more for shock value like: "LOOK! NAKED!!" Yeah, naked. I was born naked, take my daily showers naked, sleep naked...so freaking what?

The same with swearing: "Ooo, he said the F-word. Ooo, he said it again! Wow, now it was the S-word! Cool, bro!" There are situations where it's called for, but those situations don't feel like anything after the profanities are being heard in any other dialogue.

hehe great review man.

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by Hottentot

If I want to see boobs, I'm going outside.

Really?! Where exactly do you live? I'm moving there!

[Hottentot]

Might add that the game just managed to crack me up (in a good way) by reminding just how clumsy game dialogues can be. Quotes from memory:

Geralt: [Explains vaguely something really plot related]
The Elf Dude: "I'm confused"
Geralt: [Explains what he means, because the dumb player, who was likely staring at the screenshot of naked Triss anyway, can't have grasped it on his own.]
The Elf Dude: "I'll kill that bitch!"

I nominate this for the literary genius award.

[Hottentot]

Originally Posted by Dowly

Really?! Where exactly do you live? I'm moving there!

Tampere is known as a leftist town isn't it? And the left have usually been somewhat more...morally relaxed.

Come with earplugs, though, so you don't actually have to listen to them.

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by Hottentot

Come with earplugs, though, so you don't actually have to listen to them.

[Arclight]

2.0 Patch, dl and changelog:

http://en.thewitcher.com/patch2/

Oh and it's on sale too.

[0rpheus]

Originally Posted by Arclight

2.0 Patch, dl and changelog:

http://en.thewitcher.com/patch2/

Oh and it's on sale too.

Yup, waiting for Steam to get its act together.

Really loving this, perfect warm up for Skyrim.

[Castout]

My 2 favorite game developers are Bohemia Interactive and CD Projekt(Witcher 1 and 2)


They always offer TERRIFIC support. BI is still patching ArmA 2 , coming out with betas every week or so.

CD Projekt offer improved Witcher for free to their Witcher 2 buyers.

[Drewcifer]

What difficulty do you guys play this game at?!

I swear normal is like hard for anyother game I spend so much time kiting and scampering for a tiny advantage to beat one guy... it makes you feel like Geralt is a big wimp.

I'm refering to the boss fight at I belive the end of act 1. Where you fight the assassin. That is just entirely too much work to beat a guy... and I played Dark Souls so I know what hard is.

There is just something about the normal difficulty of this game that just seems way to high I never not once feel like the Witcher is at all a badass... He is a wimp.

[Arclight]

Difficulty kinda scales backwards on this one. The beginning is tough as nails but it gets progressively easier as you become more powerfull.

Played it through at normal, trying on higher now but I keep getting distracted by other games.

[Arclight]

Enhanced edition is out: The Witcher 2 Is Now The Witcherest Of All

[seaniam81]

I'm having huge problems getting the EE. It keeps telling me that the download isn't available and I have to restart. It's driving me nuts. Almost done bin file number 14. How many left?

[Arclight]

Greased Lightning: Witcher 2 Semi-Official Combat Mod Out

And it looks very fancy indeed.

 
CORE CHANGES
• Up to 80% increase in responsiveness per Geralt’s animations.
• Up to 50% increase in responsiveness per NPCs animations.
• Added strafing while being locked on an enemy and walking.
• Geralt can block while moving ( NEW ANIMATIONS ). Static Guard Stance is no longer required to parry enemy attacks.
• Geralt automatically parries enemy sword attacks and deflects incoming arrows. It doesn’t mean Geralt is invincible. It’s not a 100% chance to parry and the value is not constant. It changes depending on how many hits you block in a short time and from where does the hit land.
• Geralt and his attackers are no longer bouncing off parry. It allows to continue attack sequence.
• Monster attacks still cannot be parried with a sword.
• While using Guard Stance Geralt channels an active Quen shield.
• Above listed changes to defence mechanics decreased importance of rolling in combat.
ENEMIES
• Durability of enemies is based on their defensive skills and armor, not just high vitality.
• Mages and assassins don’t use duration based shields, instead they have a chance to block each attack seperately, including witcher Signs. This removes the duration godmode from enemies that forced player to run away.
• Letho and elite assassins will counterattack when player is relentlessly attacking them.
• Arachas and Endriaga Queens learn they should defend against sword attacks after receiving few hits.
• Removed knockdown effect from enemy swordsmen attacks.
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
• Decreased the number of skills to ensure quality over quantity. Experience rewards and leveling were adjusted to current character development.
• Geralt now starts with core witcher skills already learned. No need to go through Training tree before unlocking other branches.
• Removed many passives from skill tree to replace them with more active abilities. Remaining passives are changed to make them more attractive.
• All skills now have one level ( previously 2 ).
• Aard and Igni Signs have been changed from projectile to cone area of effect.
• Riposte doesn’t require Guard Stance to activate, only attacking in a timed window.
• Changed riposte animations ( NEW ANIMATIONS, DUH ) to prevent Geralt from sliding on enemies.
• Experience points are given only for progressing through quests, not for killing enemies. This encourages role-playing without worrying about missing experience.
• Geralt no longer buys witcher specific recipies from random merchants. He recalls lost memories as a part of character development.
BALANCE
• Each enemy is balanced according to his constitution, combat skill, combat style, weapon and armor type. Following this pattern allowed to created consistent rules that every character follows. A barechested bandit won’t survive more hits than a knight in platemail just because the bandit was encountered later in game.
• Decreased the disproportion in stats between starting equipment and late game equipment.
• Changed Geralt’s starting equipment. He now carries core alchemical recipies and schematic for silver sword.
• Moved the weight of character power from equipment to character development. Learned skills should have as big impact on Geralt’s badass factor as items.
• Geralt’s armors are split into 4 categories: leather jackets, heavy leather jackets, combat jackets and heavy combat jackets. Heavier armors impose small damage penalty on Geralt. Players need to choose between max damage and protection.
• Items imported from The Witcher savegames are of the same quality as in the first game. An exceptional armor and weapon remains valuable. This makes the game easier, but it is an intentional reward.
• Set elixirs and oils duration to 1 hour.
• Added potion overdose and heavy overdose debuffs on toxicity thresholds 55 and 65.
• Removed Fatigue penalty that decreased sword damage and damage reduction on block when Vigor was spent on Signs or Parry. It discouraged some players from using Signs becaused it decreased Geralt’s sword DPS.
• NPCs deal full damage to other NPCs.
• Removed 50% Hit Points condition for throwing enemy off height with Aard.
• Decreased Riposte damage multiplier to 1.0, but added 30% enemy parry chance debuff.
• Riposte no longer costs Vigor.
• Silver throwing daggers are considered as silver weapons for damage calculations against monsters.
• Made range weapons ignore armors when calculating damage — armor penetration.
• Inceneration, Bleeding and Poisoning effects are allowed to be active at the same time.
• Made quest experience rewards more consistent. There are no longer any situations where player is rewarded with 50 experience points for one quests and 2000 for another.
• Made moral choices in quests equally rewarding in terms of experience and items. Players should be encouraged more to role-play instead of weighing quest rewards.
• Geralt gains knowledge about monsters faster.
• Changed rewards for gaining knowledge about monsters to monster specific oils for swords.
• Set minimal damage dealt by Geralt to zero ( was 5 ).
• Removed bonus damage for backstabs. Geralt is not parrying attacks coming from behind, so it is a penalty already. Backstab damage bonus would be an overkill. As for the the enemies, this change removes the urge for immersion breaking behavior, like constantly rolling behind an enemy for bonus damage.
• Changed arena item rewards for each wave to fit mod item progression.
• Decreased amount of enemies in few arena waves.
• Finally soaked boots in tutorial weigh more than dry boots!!
ECONOMY
• Moved DLC armors from starting equipment to quest rewards and shops.
• Decreased the number of armors and weapons present in game. Amount of equipment is adjusted to provide smoother item progression without making huge amount of items useless stat-wise.
• Weapons and armors that are present in the game were picked according to these rules: visual differentiation, witcher low level magic setting. Some items available in game assets but not used in original game were reintroduced.
• Moved more quality items from quest rewards to shops and distributed them among Chapters. Player should be encouraged to regulary spend money in shops.
• Decreased buying cost of swords and armors. Player should be able to buy items more often, not hoard money.
• Decreased amount of loot dropped from enemies.
• Removed some of the junk items from container definitions.
• Made vendors specialize in certain type of merchandize.
• Witcher specific recipies cannot be bought but also cannot be sold to merchants.
VISUALS
• Added Focused Combat Stance. Geralt enters focused state during challenging encounters. It’s a visual eyecandy, so it happens automatically based on calculated combat threat level.
• While in Focused Stance Geralt performs piruettes ( NEW ANIMATION ) instead of rolling and uses Guard Stance idle animation.
• Enemies explode when killed by mage spells. Does not apply to witcher Signs – they are not that powerful.
• Made finisher animations which use Signs unlocked by upgrading Aard and Igni in character development.
• Removed cutscene swords. Geralt will use his currently equipped sword in all cutscenes.
• Equipped enemies with swords according to their social status, wealth and current situation in the game. For example, soldiers patrolling areas near ghost fog in Act 2 are equipped with silver swords like the story suggests.
• Decreased camera shake effect used on each step of huge creatures like trolls and golems.
• Removed green cloud effect from enemy poisoning FX.
FIXES
• Tweaked anim events in all combat animations to improve timings and responsivness.
• Fixed sword oils not providing bonus damage against monsters.
• Fixed Circle of Power: Endurance giving Circle of Power: Vitality bonus.
• Fixed a bug where Geralt was always doing 2 more steps after roll before stopping.
OTHER
• Removed mashable quick time events. Single button QTEs that can end with player’s death can be disabled from game options.
• Decreased cooldown for returning to exploration after combat from 7 to 2 seconds. Geralt will be able to interact with environment quicker after combat.
• Removed necesity to enter meditation panel to learn new skills on difficulty levels above Normal.
• Changed item rarity names to reflect witcher’s low level magic setting. Items are no longer MAGICAL and EPIC.
• Decreased attacked enemy importance for targetting to make switching enemies easier.

http://redkit.cdprojektred.com/index...od&m=show&p=77