The Witcher 2

[Lu]

I've been starting to kick ass as I got a better idea of what certain enemies do. I've also started using a lot of Yrden, which is soooo useful! It basically creates an immobilizing trap. Enemies usually just come straight at you, so they walk straight into it most of the time.

I got a few issues with the UI though. For one, it does not tell you the quantity of the bombs and traps on your belt. You cannot, when already in a menu screen, go straight to another screen. For example, if I'm in my inventory and want to go to my journal, I gotta exit the inventory and THEN go to my journal.

I was also looking for monster fighting tactics, but get this: They're not in your journal. You have to go to your Character page, go to Attributes and THEN knowledge. Another thing I also found out is that you don't have to meditate distribute talents.

[brkl]

Dragon! Protect the King! Dragon! Protect the King! Dragon! Protect the King! Dragon! Protect the King! Dragon! Protect the King! Dragon! Protect the King! Dragon! Protect the King!

The first minutes are a bit tedious so far :x

[elmuerte]

press X to dragon?

[Erkki]

Is game awesome? YES!

Ok, so I've only just completed those four interrogation sections, but man. It's better than I expected. And I think I expected a lot. The animations seem precise, the game is gorgeous (and runs bearably with Ultra settings, but I might turn something off to get a bit better framerate).

The tutorial completely sucks of course, and I don't like the menus besides the quick menu. Combat is way too hard in the beginning, but I love it! I'm playing on Hard, at first I got killed a lot in the first solo fight (near ballista) until I realized you have to play really tactically and not just run into the middle of a group of enemies. I still haven't figured out how to deal with a group in close quarters without dying a few times (the tower fight was a pain in the ass), but I guess the character skills you get later will help.

And seriously, I did not expect it to look this good. Even too detailed, hard to find the loot I'll bring my widescreen work monitor home for the weekend, should be even better then.

If the rest of the game is as good*, BioWare can suck dwarf cock.

* actually should be better when it opens up

[Moosferatu]

I haven't had time to play much, so I got to the first bits of combat just now. I don't know, it doesn't seem that difficult. It's irritatingly difficult to target specific enemies, but it seems like you just hammer the left-mouse button for the weak enemies and use E and the right-mouse button for the heavy ones. It's annoying that there's no way to see the keybindings in game. I'm going to go read the manual now to make an attempt at not being completely clueless.

[Erkki]

I don't know, it doesn't seem that difficult. It's irritatingly difficult to target specific enemies, but it seems like you just hammer the left-mouse button for the weak enemies and use E and the right-mouse button for the heavy ones.

I usually use left-right-left-right until I need to block. But actually the difficulty seems to be in not getting surrounded. In the first game you could pretty much swing your sword around in the middle of a bunch of enemies and survive, in this one, not so much.

I'll give it some more time, but I think the Hard difficulty is actually HARD. Might switch back to normal soon.

[Gwardinen]

It's irritatingly difficult to target specific enemies, but it seems like you just hammer the left-mouse button for the weak enemies and use E and the right-mouse button for the heavy ones.

It gets more difficult, particularly because it does that hardcore RPG thing of just having things that are stronger than you be around without warning you that they're stronger than you. So if you happen to explore in a certain way without getting some levels first you can run into some nasty fights. I'm not noting this as a "flaw" per se as I'm sure a lot of people like it that way, but given my current dissonance with the combat system it's not always clear to me whether I'm fighting something I shouldn't or whether I'm just having trouble fighting in general. I tend to only go "aaah" in understanding once I then come across people on the internet warning others away from those things.

The targetting difficulty, thinking about it, may actually be the source of most of, or at least much of, my frustration. The way the attacks are now just performed alongside dodges and blocks in a fairly non-targetted way makes it seem like the game should control like a character action game to me. Particularly since it becomes much more fluid when using a gamepad, I really feel like it should work like God of War, Assassin's Creed, Bayonetta, Arkham Asylum etc. style game in which attacks move in a direction that is then interpreted towards an enemy to a greater or lesser degree rather than locked towards a specific enemy.

If this was how it worked, I'm sure I'd find it a lot easier to deal with, as I'm constantly trying to shift targets quickly to deal with new ones attempting to jump in and the system just won't let me much of the time. It's like the game still thinks I'm targetting things with a cursor, and it feels clumsy as hell. Maybe I'll get used to it but I don't really understand why it has chosen to go this route rather than the current standard method.

I'd be curious to know whether anyone who is enjoying the combat feels like the semi-locked targetting system is improving their experience in some way? If so, how?

[Erkki]

I agree that the targeting is the weakest thing about the combat. Directional would be better. Can you retarget when the quick menu /slomo is open? I guess not. That would help as well.

PS. I haven't actually used the space bar at all in combat. Does it vault over enemies as well? I've only used the double-directional-key thing for dodges, and a bit annoyed that it doesn't have vaulting like in the first game -- no quick getaways when you are completely surrounded.

[Forbin]

press X to dragon?

lol. More like Press M1 to dragon. Why is M1 the contextual control for EVERYTHING?

It still infuriates me that they put out all that bullshit about making PC games for PC gamers. To them PC game means broken and unpolished obviously, because all they've done is put out a console style brawler with controls that are retarded in every sense of the word. The only reason I can think that this game isn't day and date with an xbox version is that they couldn't pass cert.

[Brannigan]

I really don't have any issue with control. The only minor gripe is attack being same as loot. That's really it. Otherwise I feel totally comfortable with them.

[Moosferatu]

So, is there no combo system? I saw no mention of one in the manual. I miss the group combat style. Are the only ways of hitting multiple enemies bombs, traps, signs, and those special X moves?

[Brannigan]

So, is there no combo system? I saw no mention of one in the manual. I miss the group combat style. Are the only ways of hitting multiple enemies bombs, traps, signs, and those special X moves?

There's stuff that unlocks in the sword tree for hitting multiple enemies

[a purple future]

There's stuff that unlocks in the sword tree for hitting multiple enemies

i actually just unlocked those shortly before heading off to bed and they're GLORIOUS. the first time you wipe out a whole room feels so good.

i feel like the game finally starts fully coming together about 2/3 of the way through chapter 1, which is what, 6-8 hours or so into the game if you're not rushing? which is kind of funny considering the last game I beat before this was the nu-Medal of Honor, which took me just under 4 hours to beat the entire game.

[Lu]

I think I'm nearing the end of chapter 1 and I'm LOVING this game! The attention to detail is amazing and this openess. Really great! I kind of got over the quirky combat and I've even gotten alright at it. The voice acting is a step up from the previous game too.

[brkl]

The game is pretty stellar in many ways, but playing it just feels like work a lot of the time.

[a purple future]

The game is pretty stellar in many ways, but playing it just feels like work a lot of the time.

maybe but i love RPGs like that. this game is exhausting to play for more than two hours at a time or so, mostly because of information overload/ feeling like "work"

that's also probably why it takes 6 hours to get you up to full speed...

[Erkki]

Having played a bit in Flotsam now, I think I prefer the original game's focus on witchering and UI. There are so many tangential details here that it's more of a regular RPG than The Witcher. All these crafting materials, weapons and other junk you pick up distracts from the alchemy and witcherly stuff. On the other hand, all the extra stuff makes the world feel more detailed and reminds you that maybe you don't quite need to pick up everything, except I'm not sure why bandits carry timber on their person.

The menus and UI have all this small text and are harder to navigate. The original game's UI where entering any UI screen would take you to pause mode from which you could easily navigate to other screens, was much better.

Still, the other stuff like the beauty of the world and good looking characters and better voice acting and even more meaningful choices (it seems) and the combat changes make up for that.

[Erkki]

Man, fighting the Kayran was tough in Hard mode. Every hit could kill me unless I had Quen shield and it was very timing-sensitive occasionally. Preparing for the fight payed off though, but still took about 15 attempts.

Even a drowner can kill me in two blows if it's lucky (probably from behind). But since it supposedly gets easier later, I'll endure.

[Brannigan]

Man, fighting the Kayran was tough in Hard mode. Every hit could kill me unless I had Quen shield and it was very timing-sensitive occasionally. Preparing for the fight payed off though, but still took about 15 attempts.

Even a drowner can kill me in two blows if it's lucky (probably from behind). But since it supposedly gets easier later, I'll endure.

The kayran fight is pretty much like that on normal too. If you manage to survive a hit by some miracle, it's by a sliver of health. After getting the kayran armor made and getting other upgrades most mobs don't do much to me now.

[brkl]

Yeah, that was what I was trying to get past when I wrote my last post. I got almost to the end, but couldn't figure out

what to do when it started throwing rocks. Each rock would kill me if it hit, they were really fast and I couldn't see anywhere to go expect hiding behind a piece of rock. Turns out part of the scenery wasn't just a barrier after all... I spent at least 20 minutes hearing that constant rock throwing sound because I had no idea what to do.

[Brannigan]

Yeah, that was what I was trying to get past when I wrote my last post. I got almost to the end, but couldn't figure out

what to do when it started throwing rocks. Each rock would kill me if it hit, they were really fast and I couldn't see anywhere to go expect hiding behind a piece of rock. Turns out part of the scenery wasn't just a barrier after all... I spent at least 20 minutes hearing that constant rock throwing sound because I had no idea what to do.

same here, they didn't really give a cue for the last bit on that fight at all.

[a purple future]

yup, i died a bunch of times just trying to figure out what i was even supposed to do there. and then of course once i did, i did it the first time.

[Erkki]

Brought my second 22" widescreen monitor from work home for the weekend. Much better on this, though there are still narrow black borders, I guess because it's 16:10 and not 16:9. Had to turn the video options from Ultra to High, though.

I just made it to Chapter 2, having skipped a few quests in Flotsam. I like the monsters a lot better than in Witcher 1, as there doesn't seem to be something like the mass of drowners in this game. Sure, there are the Nekkers, until you do the contract and are rid of most of them. The Witcher contracts make a lot more sense, instead of 'kill N fuckers, nevermind that twice as many will come back' you have 'get rid of all the fuckers on the edge of town'. Every contract seems to end with a boss fight and the area being mostly cleaned. I think this is how it should be.

I'm missing those trophy quests though. Now trophies are just something that give you stats upgrade while you wear them. And they sell for really little coin.

I've noticed some things that are kind of better, but kind of worse compared to Witcher 1: no longer those annoying pauses when talking to merchants or other people, but talking to merchants is now an entirely quiet affair (sometimes). Neither geralt or the merchant says anything, you just pick the dialogue options.

[Erkki]

Oh, and by the way, did anyone find the fight with

the kingslayer

totally impossible? I had to switch from hard to easy for that.

I guess I could have done it on normal maybe had I known that you only have to get him to about half his health. I was able to hit him lots in a row using the riposte, but then he eventually cast Aard to throw me away and then Quen. Whenever he cast Quen, I was usually fucked. It should be possible on Hard, but it would take way too much work.

It didn't help at all that the game stripped all the fucking potion effects I still had on before that fight.

[Erkki]

Oh, and one more thing. Does anyone else find it annoying that when you fight someone and then leave a certain range they will just leave you be. You can go back and forth on the border of that range and they'll just react with a binary switch: attack/fall back. I guess it makes sense that if you attack some bandits or monster, they won't follow you across the map and leave their 'nests', but the range seems way small and it should be a bit less binary than that.