I really don’t understand why they didn’t keep the “press shift for cursor” approach from TW1, that was super comfortable. Not only was it useful for looting specific objects but you could easily mouse over bars and status indicators to know what they meant.
Really I have no idea why they moved from the old interface to the slicker one, which doesn’t really help. The inventory was much better before, you could look at the small squares and instantly know what you had. I really didn’t mind the clutter, and it looked cool, now it just seems like they’re trying to say “Hey, we did a slick, modern looking AI!”.
I’m not a fan of Tetris inventories but I do prefer cell-based inventories to list-based inventories.
I get this feeling too. It baffles me that they put QTEs in there, I don’t see any good reason for that. That and the scripted sequences.
The rest of the game is great though, and looks amazing, I’m especially happy of the direction they took for combat, it’s so much better.
It’s obvious that clearer presentation of basic game rules is a positive but, still, reading the instructions when something eludes you in game seems like an obvious course of action.
Jag
1683
But at least they added an option for Easy QTEs which I appreciate tremendously. Good move by CDP.
Stealth is optional in the dungeon because if they discover you, you just kill them. I actually didn’t bother with stealth until the end of the dungeon sequence.
And IIRC the second or third tutorial tip says something like “if you miss any of these tips you can always go to your journal (J) and read them all”.
Kurina
1685
Same here. I pretty much dislike QTEs with a passion, and I immediately clicked the box to lower their difficulty before I started. It is nice just sitting back and watching the scenes, and only dealing with QTEs for the fist fights. However, even the latter is friendly and hard to mess up, as they provide ample time to see and hit them.
Regarding the tutorial though, I could almost understand this, but I feel this is offset by the information in the game journal and the game’s manual. It isn’t just a sheet of paper as with most games these days, but a proper manual explaining the interface, keys, and everything else. I skimmed through it while waiting for the game to install, and felt pretty confident with things once I loaded it up.
Budvar
1686
To be fair (I’ve yet to start the game), if a complaint is that the tooltips disappear too quickly or without enough notice, then having a tooltip pointing out where to view the missed tooltips is probably got going to help the game
I agree, but reading the manual while playing the game in ye olden days was a lot more convenient because you could just pause the game and pull out your paper manual to look stuff up. In most cases, reading the manual either means ALT-TAB to open the pdf and risk crashing the game, printing it out on your own beforehand, or reading the pdf on another device. Digital manuals may have the advantage in package costs and “green” manufacturing, but they’re just not as convenient as paper.
The Journal in the game is good, but there’s still a lot of stuff that’s either missing or pretty badly explained. For example, after you get your first mutagen you get the pop-up and journal entry that tells you how to use mutagens, but not really.
Oh, yes. While I’m a big proponent of digital games, not having a printed out manual is really the biggest drawback. Which is partly why I’m still waiting for my CE of Witcher 2 to arrive. And, also, why I went and printed Star Control 2’s manual after getting it on gog.
Agree but on the other hand, so far we’ve had exactly one person complaining that he didn’t know about the Journal, so maybe the tooltip doesn’t disappear THAT quickly.
So if you don’t lookup the controls in the manual, don’t want to go into the Options screen, don’t read the tutorial tooltips and don’t go into the Journal screen, what do you think the game should do to comminucate controls to you?
Finding the Journal screen in an RPG is not exactly rocket science.
Well, if you are moving into digital world, you gotta get a tablet. Printing is so last century :)
What about the lovely new book smell? And the feel of the paper? I’ve been using computers for the better part of 30 years, and these days do almost everything in a digital form. The big exception is reading books.
I’m not complaining about the mechanics, I’m complaining about tutorial design. I’m not joking when I say I’ve done 30 reloads, and I am not new to RPGs, to put it mildly.
It’s interesting re manuals, in that if you buy a downloadable version, you basically don’t know you’ve got one do you? I.e. nothing points to its existence - it doesn’t get an entry on the launcher or a desktop icon. Or did I miss that too :)
Edit: Damn - just checked and it does have a launcher entry :)
Geralt is a bit sluggish… sometimes. Seems to me that they’ve moved to an ARPG approach on an engine which was built up from Bioware’s Aurora (as have Bioware themselves) and it’s about 92% fit for that purpose. It’s not as fluid as say Gothic 4, which makes slash and roll combat fluid for all it’s many other flaws, and those guys famously didn’t get to use the original Gothic engine. I suspect CDP have a few remaining code areas where the history is visible. Combat seems like a big step up from the first game though.
I don’t recall the journal tooltip, though I’ve only played briefly, just up to defeating the upstart. I’m sure I would’ve found it eventually, but, yeah, those tutorials seemed to mostly be popping while I was already busy attending to something else, and I know I’ve missed a few.
Think they could have offered a little more obvious, gradual approach to learning the combat. It seemed like a considerable departure from what I’m used to, both from most games or how I remember the original Witcher.
Didn’t seem like I could maintain a good defense while I was surrounded. Any time I engaged one guy at all, another would bear down on me. Block one guy, and I’d still take a hit in the flank. Block-attack-roll and they started leapfrogging after me so that I’d have to tumble up and down the length of the map to keep from dying. Generally, I’d get through the fight, sure, but take enough damage that I wouldn’t have much left for the next bunch. I died quite a bit until I rolled and trapped repeatedly to keep others off my back.
When it came to one-on-one, however, it was ridiculously easy. I got the upstart guy backed into a wall pretty quickly, and just repeatedly whack-whack-blocked him until he died, and he couldn’t get a hit on me.
I’m sure I need to take greater advantage of potions and abilities, and I appreciate the realistic aggression and challenge, but I would’ve expected the introduction to ease you in a bit more.
Also, for the chaining, and maybe I have this wrong, but it seemed to me like the strong attack has a quicker chain than the fast attack, which is curious.
I still have work to do figuring out timing, and such, anyhow.
Am I this miscreant? The game should do what other games generally manage to do and communicate its mechanics in the part where they say they’ll communicate the mechanics. It’s not rocket science.
You must be joking but I’ll bite it. There’s an entry for the manual on the launcher.
Also, if you have a printer you can simply print the PDF manual. Then you have it on paper. Just saying!
Don’t be an ass. It’s explained in the manual, which is part of the game, and two times in the game itself: First, in the ingame tooltip (number 23, exactly, as they are ordered by date, i am seeing it right now with the game alt-tabbed). That, if you an’t read in the middle of the combat, you can read it again in the journal. And second, in the combat section of the ingame help (again, journal).
Or you could look up the list of keys used in the setup of the game to know what are the controls. That’s four ways to know the key.
When the game said you have an inventory (i key) and a journal (j key) didn’t you bothered to explore the sections of both?
Frustratingly, the game is still like Witcher 1 in Geralt moving around the environment… or more exactly, not moving. He won’t climb the 60cms rock platform he has in front of him, nor he can’t cross the small bushes in his way nor he can’t fall to a lower height (of less than 120 cms) if it’s no at scripted usable area like a ladder.
