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Games => General Gaming => Topic started by: nickclone on Tuesday, February 07, 2017, 08:11:32 PM

Title: The Witcher 2 Sucks!
Post by: nickclone on Tuesday, February 07, 2017, 08:11:32 PM

Ok, sucks might be a strong word, but with the amazingly high scores this game has received...I'm surprised at how bad it is. The combat is mediocre (which I'm ok with), the story is simply superb, but the execution of the game is baffling and I wonder why none of it was mentioned in any of the reviews I read and watched.

I don't need a game to hold my hand point me to the exact spot I need to go like in Skyrim or Fable 3, but W2 doesn't even have markers half the time. Add to the fact that the map is absolutely worthless and some quests can't be finished unless you finish another quest first (which you won't know which one), it makes me wonder what people saw in this game. Its almost like they made the game this way so you have to buy a strategy guide or something. These "gameplay mechanics" are considered flaws in every other game, why does W2 get a pass?

As you can tell, I'm super frustrated right now.

Title: Re: The Witcher 2 Sucks!
Post by: Quemaqua on Tuesday, February 07, 2017, 08:13:51 PM

I had more or less zero frustration with the game and it's one of my all-time favorites. No idea what to tell you. I don't remember a lot of the details that well, but I don't recall being all that lost or anything most of the time. I thought the combat was good and I enjoyed all the systems.

Title: Re: The Witcher 2 Sucks!
Post by: Cobra951 on Tuesday, February 07, 2017, 08:50:15 PM

I could never stick with it.  I tried twice, with a year or two in between.  Once I got past the early action, I felt lost and totally unmotivated to figure out what I needed to do, or how to unravel the inventory and use all those items for crafting, or whatever.  The game didn't pull me in enough to power through the tedium spike.  Witcher 3 was a completely different story.  It too had a fairly stiff learning curve, but I never lacked motivation to press on until I became adept with its systems.  This became one of my favorite games ever.  That's despite W3 having what I consider the worst inventory system of all time (and by "all time" I mean ALL TIME, since I've been playing videogames during their entire history).

Title: Re: The Witcher 2 Sucks!
Post by: MysterD on Tuesday, February 07, 2017, 08:50:21 PM

Quote from: nickclone on Tuesday, February 07, 2017, 08:11:32 PM

Ok, sucks might be a strong word, but with the amazingly high scores this game has received...I'm surprised at how bad it is. The combat is mediocre (which I'm ok with), the story is simply superb, but the execution of the game is baffling and I wonder why none of it was mentioned in any of the reviews I read and watched.

I don't need a game to hold my hand point me to the exact spot I need to go like in Skyrim or Fable 3, but W2 doesn't even have markers half the time. Add to the fact that the map is absolutely worthless and some quests can't be finished unless you finish another quest first (which you won't know which one), it makes me wonder what people saw in this game. Its almost like they made the game this way so you have to buy a strategy guide or something. These "gameplay mechanics" are considered flaws in every other game, why does W2 get a pass?

As you can tell, I'm super frustrated right now.

You mean the W2 story is superb until Act 3, when it goes to Rushed-ville and feels like a total set-up for Witcher 3.

Combat in W2 is a lot more action-esque and much more controller-friendly when compared to W1, but it still ain't on the level of what From Software puts out.
Seriously, if you don't like W2 b/c you feel that W2's combat is mediocre, just go play Dark Souls or something.

Title: Re: The Witcher 2 Sucks!
Post by: MysterD on Tuesday, February 07, 2017, 08:54:57 PM

Quote from: Cobra951 on Tuesday, February 07, 2017, 08:50:15 PM

I could never stick with it.  I tried twice, with a year or two in between.  Once I got past the early action, I felt lost and totally unmotivated to figure out what I needed to do, or how to unravel the inventory and use all those items for crafting, or whatever.  The game didn't pull me in enough to power through the tedium spike.  Witcher 3 was a completely different story.  It too had a fairly stiff learning curve, but I never lacked motivation to press on until I became adept with its systems.  This became one of my favorite games ever.  That's despite W3 having what I consider the worst inventory system of all time (and by "all time" I mean ALL TIME, since I've been playing videogames during their entire history).

I dunno, but Skyrim's inventory system's pretty crummy.
It takes to SkyUI Mod to bloody fix it.

Title: Re: The Witcher 2 Sucks!
Post by: Cobra951 on Tuesday, February 07, 2017, 09:20:53 PM

Skyrim is just long lists.  I had little trouble with it.  TW3's was terribly frustrating, with slow and convoluted grids of stuff that changed around constantly.  Just moving from panel to panel (like gear to herbs) involved slowly wading through inventory items to get back to the top, so you could then go across.  Then it was buggy to boot.  It's so bad that if they wanted to piss the user off deliberately, they would be hard pressed to do a more effective job while still having a functional inventory.

I realize that with direct mouse selection on a PC it wouldn't have been so bad.  On a console with a controller, good God.

Title: Re: The Witcher 2 Sucks!
Post by: nickclone on Wednesday, February 08, 2017, 03:18:55 AM

Quote from: MysterD on Tuesday, February 07, 2017, 08:50:21 PM

You mean the W2 story is superb until Act 3, when it goes to Rushed-ville and feels like a total set-up for Witcher 3.

Combat in W2 is a lot more action-esque and much more controller-friendly when compared to W1, but it still ain't on the level of what From Software puts out.
Seriously, if you don't like W2 b/c you feel that W2's combat is mediocre, just go play Dark Souls or something.

I'm still on act 2, I've had this game for about a year now. Every now and then I try to play it again only to be quickly reminded of why I stopped playing in the first place.

Like I said, the combat doesn't bother me, its the needlessly frustrating map/quest/tracking system that really annoys me. After running around for an hour trying to find the quest marker only to speak to said person and have nothing happen is disheartening. It almost feels like a glitch in the game.

I never use cheat codes and I try to figure out things on my own, but this game has me constantly running online to a strategy guide. It breaks the immersion of the game and makes it feel more like a chore than an escape.

Title: Re: The Witcher 2 Sucks!
Post by: K-man on Wednesday, February 08, 2017, 07:35:45 AM

I did run into a few instances where I couldn't figure out what to do/where to go in my play through. 

As for reviews, I think it boils down to The Witcher 2 being an excellent game for the time.  It improved/corrected most of what was wrong with the original title, but managed to keep some of the things that annoyed me.  Quests ended up getting kind of repetitive outside the main story line.  The story is fantastic, though as D mentioned it does end up rushed in the final act.

Title: Re: The Witcher 2 Sucks!
Post by: Quemaqua on Wednesday, February 08, 2017, 06:42:18 PM

I didn't really find that it felt particularly rushed. It all comes to a head and goes somewhere because it sort of has to. I really took my time with the game, did a ton of the side stuff, really enjoyed it. In some ways actually like it better than Witcher 3, though 3 is clearly the superior game, and one of the best games of all time. I love that whole series. Even the shitty first one.

Title: Re: The Witcher 2 Sucks!
Post by: MysterD on Wednesday, February 08, 2017, 08:24:51 PM

Quote from: Quemaqua on Wednesday, February 08, 2017, 06:42:18 PM

I didn't really find that it felt particularly rushed. It all comes to a head and goes somewhere because it sort of has to. I really took my time with the game, did a ton of the side stuff, really enjoyed it. In some ways actually like it better than Witcher 3, though 3 is clearly the superior game, and one of the best games of all time. I love that whole series. Even the shitty first one.

Let me also add - I did play W2 BEFORE the EE.

So, if Chapter 3 is any better post-EE, given CDP's pedigree of how they do Enhanced Editions (i.e. they re-voiced, re-did, and fixed a lot of Witcher 1 dialogue + voice-acting with TW1 EE), it would not surprise me.

I really disliked in W2: Non-EE also...

(click to show/hide)

...How it set up Yennefer + The Wild Hunt stuff.
It felt like it was unnecessarily tact onto the whole Letho ordeal, for Letho to be the one at the very end who has + knows most of the stuff about that.

Also, before EE - the game did NOT have the Multiple Ending Slides to give your choices some weight of impact at the end, either. B/c gamers complained, those were added later.
CDP's great at listening to their fans.

Also, while TW1's combat was much different - I did feel that in the character stuff + story stuff, it felt much more complete than W2 Non-EE.
W2 Non-EE really dropped the ball in Chpater 3 for me, TBH.

Title: Re: The Witcher 2 Sucks!
Post by: Quemaqua on Wednesday, February 08, 2017, 08:30:28 PM

I played after it was all patched, well after the fact. My experience was universally positive, so I suspect they did fix whatever may have been wrong.

Title: Re: The Witcher 2 Sucks!
Post by: K-man on Thursday, February 09, 2017, 07:50:53 AM

I certainly played post-patch, and I had issues with the game.  Design decisions more than anything, though I will maintain the last chapter still felt kind of rushed.  The gradual buildup to the showdown with Letho across the entire game was very well done, IMO.

I'm certainly diving back into 3 once life circumstances will allow it.