I’d speculate that this may be due to animation driven controls. In my experience, in development you’ll cede movement to be completely driven by the animators (so ground speed always matches the characters movement) and depending on the animator or those interacting with them, this can create bad results. Jumping is the easiest example. An animator working entirely outside the game will insist a jump begin with a crouch followed by a jump since that’s how jumps happen in real life (it also touches on a bunch of the key elements of animation any good animator has been taught). In game, this makes your jump feel delayed, so most games with good jump-feel start the jump immediately when the button is hit and just pull the feet up after the character is airborne. I’d guess similarly the boat-y environment controls in Witcher 3 are to make transitions to different speeds or directions look smooth and natural, but at the cost of how they feel in-game. Working with animators in situations like these requires a lot of iteration to get something that doesn’t look janky but also feels expressive. Bad game-feel can happen because animators work exclusively in their art tool on animations and aren’t playing with them in game enough. Boat-y controls are easy to fall into in third person games.
Fair enough - I’m actually not having any trouble moving Geralt around and looting, 99% of the time it’s fine (sometimes indoors I can get stuck on a bannister or a chair or something, but it’s not too frustrating). I hammer A while I run, GTA V style, and it lets me pick up plants while I’m running so I run in zig-zag patterns to collect anything that pops up near my path, too, and I just hammer A while I’m walking around near stuff that looks lootable, and I don’t worry if I m issed something (obviously that’s not what I do in a cavern where I just killed a big creature, for instance, I carefully use my witcher senses and loot EVERYTHING in those cases).
That is brilliant! Definitely trying that tonight.
Fair enough. I do think they could solve the windup time with a few numerical tweaks. They used the same fundamental system in TW2 (watch Geralt go from standing to walking to running) but the transition was much faster. Someone thought it would feel better to slow that down. Probably a mistaken belief it would feel like Geralt had more “weight.”
I can’t blame them too much on some of these things. That combat mode range? They’re still duct taping the Neverwinter Nights engine for that. The movement/combat system interaction would need a complete overhaul. That’s a lot to ask when they also changed their streaming engine and hired an army of quest designers.
But you have to sit down and hammer out the movement system. Have to.
Oh well, I’m used to it by now.
Right, I did this too at first. Plants are easy when you’re on foot. The problems came when I felt compelled to loot every crate in an interior room, where FOV already sucks, or a bandit camp that is full of frustrating clutter. Then I started looting every mushroom in caves during tense quests where running around like a maniac wasn’t appropriate.
Finally I stepped back and realized how absurd it all was. I consciously made tweaks to how and when I looted. I’m much happier for it.
That’s probably a good way to approach it - I mean, you really don’t need to loot everything, there is plenty of stuff to pick up and ways to earn cash to buy what you may be missing here and there. To take it full circle, I just wanted to offer a counter to your comment for folks to stop looting everything that wasn’t in a chest, since I think any lootable container could well have a lucky dice roll and include something super useful. I’ve pulled rare and expensive ores from random barrels in peoples houses - no idea why or how they would have gotten there, but some of these ores run like 200-400 Orlens and I’m glad to have just a few extra in case I ever need them!
I think your approach is a good compromise for people who still want lots of loot. At this point gold means nothing to me and the diagrams mean very little now.
That is brilliant! Definitely trying that tonight.
Warning, do not try this in town. I’ve been doing it out of GTA habit and a) you stop at every torch to light/extinguish it, and b) if you loot a crate with guards nearby, they aggro.
Sigh. I read somewhere that even if there isn’t a storage in the game, you never lose items in the game, so you actually can store them “wherever”. So I put my griffin armor in the ground in the blacksmith in Perch’s Crow. X hours later, it disappeared.
I’m going to roll back, losing four hours of game.
I do hope CDPR rethinks the looting and crafting system. On one hand I appreciate that they have bags and barrels placed naturally throughout bandit camps and homes. And in the real world, people make stuff out of other stuff.
But I think there’s a growing awareness of the difference between depth and unnecessary complexity. (I’ve seen a few people talk about it on this forum.) I think players also understand how streamlining doesn’t always mean dumbing down. Think about how much better the brewing system is now.
Personally I’d remove crafting entirely and leave it for alchemy. They can always design quests to acquire materials for custom weapons and armor.
I’m not getting my hopes up though. I suspect CDPR thinks this is an important and enjoyable part of RPGs. There’s no publisher to tell them otherwise, and the OCD addicts aren’t going to tell the dealer to stop pushing. We just need to take the good with the bad. The old school / European approach to RPGs is both compelling and maddening.
Can’t you just re-craft it?
I left some sentimental items on the ground and they haven’t disappeared yet.
P.S. Crow’s Perch :)
I actually really like the name, “Perche’s Crow”.
Huh. Thanks for the advice, somehow I didn’t think in something that obvious: just craft it again. It isn’t like I’m lacking in crafting materials.
Timex
3436
Yeah, this was my experience… although I tested it with garbage stuff (books and crap).
I’m not sure exactly what triggers it being lost… or if maybe NPC’s actually pick it up even.
Now, one thing you CAN do, I believe, is sell the stuff to merchants. if you sell something to a merchant, it seems to stay there forever… So, in some ways, you can use them as storage, but there’s a decent fee for withdrawing stuff from them.
I like the crafting in witcher 3. It isn’t nearly as clunky as it is in Dragon age inquisition.
Streamlining isn’t always dumbing down, but isn’t always not dumbing down either. These forums are also very much pro RPG lite, which makes sense though as that is the way things are going.
On a somewhat related subject, can I get rid of all these letters and books cluttering up my usable items tab once I’ve read them? I’m slightly worried about missing out on quests and/or other benefits.
Goodness yes. Read them once and see if it triggers anything. Quest items are on a separate tab.
Bateau
3440
I have a pretty annoying issue with my game, bought some recipes from vendors to do some testing and once I loaded the game, moved on and returned a few hours later, those recipes are no longer sold. Do merchants replenish their inventory over time or am I screwed?
I think they are random. Loot is too, so save if you find a good item.
I think you find or buy recipes until you’ve collected all of them. That’s why looting them isn’t strictly necessary.
I don’t know if merchants eventually respawn or if it’s a one-time thing at the first interaction. Just keep checking new merchants as you find them and buy all the cards and recipes.
Bateau
3442
Yeah, I’m just worried that some variable that says I already bought the recipes somehow got baked into my save file.
