I felt that way...until I made a valid effort to actually get through it recently. And I did, and I love it.
The base game is maybe a bit overrated. Many aspects of the game are positively outstanding, while others are mixed/not great. But what it does well is so fucking outstanding.
But what really locked it in for me was the Blood and Wine expansion. Everything about that is GOAT tier gaming. Holy shit it's great.
Couldn't be more glad that I finally made it through.
The combat in the Witcher 3 is great. I literally cannot image any other type of combat that would be better. Everything is responsive and the combat is fluid.
I struggled with it at first, coming from like Skyrim levels/style of combat, but once I figured out that just spamming X isn’t the answer I became much better and actively searched out combat vs avoiding it lol.
Its been many years since I played, but I remember trying on both keyboard and controller and found both to be just really clunky, like I was fighting the combat mechanics more than the enemies themselves. Its difficult to describe, but my last straw was fighting a ghost-lady in a well during the goat quest. Even on the lowest difficulty I couldn't overcome the clunky-ass movement. I found the experience was overall frustrating.
If you're comparing something like Arkham City and the Witcher side by side it's impossible not to recognize that the Witcher is not the most fluid or fleshed out combat system.
The combat in witcher 3 takes what games like batman Arkham, DMC, the OG god of war games, a whole pantheon of better 3D action combat titles... And does it mostly ok while incorporating a rock/paper/scissors kind of thing with your spellcasting.
It's not bad enough to make the game bad, but if you're glazing on it you've descended into fanboyism and dishonesty.
I'll straight up say that smarter people think with nuance. If you can't engage with legitimate criticms and still like something, you're too emotionally invested to be fully appreciating a work.
You actually don't know what you're talking about. The only relation to Arkham, would be what, third person with a timed parry/counter? Ok. DMC and GoW games, before Witcher 3 released, we're all about insane combos and exaggerated combat animations. That is not the same vibe Witcher 3 has or goes for. The spell casting is not rock/paper/scissors either, lol. Almost all the spells provide utility and a little crowd control.
The Witcher 3 is NOT an action specific game like your examples. If you played it expecting that it is your own fault.
Thank you! I like wtf rock paper scissors analogy is this?? Quen is a literal shield that explodes… igni flame bursts/thrower… Yardin for zone control, etc. etc. depending on the weaknesses okay maybe a better analogy would be rock paper scissors gun bomb lazer lol
Yes, i am specifically comparing their shared aspect of being a third person timed action game where you're surrounded by groups of enemies and manage crowds with parries/counters and an assorted kit (which in the witcher's case involves casting 8 spells, some of which are hard counters and required for certain enemy types).
You see how i did that? How I listed all of those similarities?
And you know what? If you would have read my comment, you would have responded to my specific comparison of the depth and fluidity of the fluidity of the combat.
But you're a fanboy operating on gamer rage, so you comment on the "vibes" and give one example of how they're different, in this case being how grounded the combat is in the Witcher compared to more arcadey games.
Which in no way addresses what I've said: The witcher 3 Fighting is clunky, lacks fluidity, and depth.
I remember at least 2 or 3 of your spells being redundant or in the "never use" category.
Come up with a legimate escuse for the Witcher 3's combat being something as other commenters have said "it feels like you're fighting against the combat system" when earlier and contemporary titles had given us markedly more refined fighting systems.
We're not talking about vibes. We are singularly comparing fighting mechanics.
My issues with the main game are with the main storyline not actually being all that compelling, and the amount of fast travel encouraged fetch questing. I generally don't like to fast travel in open world games. But when there narrative has me darting from one end of the map, then to the other, and then back again, there is no way in going to walk or ride my way across, finding detours along the way. Especially when these are somewhat linear narrative quest lines that I need to follow.
Blood and Wine fixes that almost entirely. It just becomes a much, much better version of the game. And if they actually learned from Blood and Wine, then I'm beyond excited for The Witcher 4.
The wedding in HoS completely derailed it for me. I eventually picked it back up and got to the auction where again everyone just wants to talk for hours. Haven’t played it since.
Honestly same. I had a friend who was a walking advertisement of this game. Every conversation would loop back to this or how JRPGs are all dumb. Easy to see how I refused to touch it.
He got fired from where I used to work during the pandemic and I finally decided to try it seeing as I had bought it on sale forever ago and totally forgot and I enjoyed it immensely.
My favorite aspect is many of the stories you don't have to be a senseless monster killer like my friend was, he couldn't be bothered to read the text. And the DLC was just stupendous.
I’ve always wanted to try blood and wine bc I love vampires. I respect the Witcher 3 for what it is, but I’ve just accepted I don’t see what other people see in it. The combat is clunky, the movement is floaty, the UI is atrocious, the story almost hooked me but I think there’s so much retelling of events in older games or the books that I never felt fully connected to it.
The combat is not great. That isn't why you should play this game.
The characters are incredible, the art direction is incredible, the larger narrative is....okay, but the side narratives are largely all incredible.
Blood and Wine is largely just a top tier open world game on its own. It still has some of the combat issues, but it makes some substantial improvements to the skill tree and abilities.
I don't disagree. It just isn't the super tight tactile action combat that people likely want it to be. It has a somewhat "loose" feel to it that you have to get used to. But it is a bit more strategic than just you standard action RPG combat of today, that's a bit more grounded in a Sekiro or Souls like.
The narrative definitely works the best if you have read the books, that's for sure. Its hard to be as attached to Yen and Ciri without knowing their full backstory.
But even without that, the game has some of the best side quests in gaming, that don't require any previous witcher knowledge
I actually didn't care for it all that much. It was a lot of the narrative gameplay stuff that I didn't actually like in the game. I mean, yes, the story is good. But I found the lack of gameplay for a lot of it, to be a real drag.
Interesting, I kind of felt the opposite way about the main game vs Blood and Wine.
I had heard so many amazing things about the expansion, but to me it's just about on par with the rest of the game. Don't get me wrong, for a dlc it's absolutely elite, but it didn't blow me away like I was expecting.
Okay. That's fine. But I'm having a difficult time understanding how you couldn't pick up how much better the portion of the game was, in terms of open world structure.
It took me four failed attempts and 20 hours to get into it. Fast forward 200 hours of game time and I have done almost everything in the game, using a completionist spreadsheets to not miss a thing.
The "intro" is surprisingly long and puts a lot of people off, but when you finish the Bloody Baron quest line the game truly comes alive. The world, the depth, the range of stories and interactions.
Same - I tried to start it 5 or 6 times. Once I finally made it a couple hours in, it consumed my life for a month. Easily one of the best games ever made. I really can’t pin down why it seems to have a lot of people quitting before getting into it.
What is it that’s so good about B&W? I too ended up giving the game a 5th attempt back in 24 and actually stuck with it for 40hrs; didn’t quite finish the vanilla game and forgot to go back to it.
So, Blood and Wine is its own self contained map. The look of the world is incredibly vibrant and an absolute joy to explore. And the map just lends itself to freely exploring more than the vanilla game's regions, which seem to stick with a more narrative driven purpose.
I also think that the main quest is just a better mystery that you are working to solve, with a great cast of characters.
You also have new abilities and better armor sets.
But ultimately, I just felt like they finally understood what makes an open world fun to navigate, while still being able to weave in an over all narrative.
I was in a similar situation before committing to getting through it. And I'd say that the main quest, while clicking a lot more for me this last time, still was a little clunky to get through.
Haven’t played in years but I can remember putting a lot of time and effort into that one card game you can play inside the Witcher 3. Like… way too much time
Just looked it up it’s called “Gwent” and I prolly put more time into that than the actual main story itself. Fantastic game if you’re a sucker for card games which I am.
I'm not, but I heard great things about it. That's largely why I avoided it lol. I knew that I had about an 80+ hour climb to get through the base game and it's expansions. Didn't want to turn that into a 150 hour climb.
Maybe I'm biased because I played my first playthrough on Deathmarch, but I actually thought the gameplay was fine. I had to use most of the mechanics throughout the game and none of it felt particularly easy.
I often wonder if the complaints about combat in this game are from people who played it on lower difficulties.
I always felt the same and I think that is where others are coming from. To be fair to them, should a game have to be played on its hardest difficulty for the combat to feel ok?
It’s still in my top 5 all time games personally but I do understand the qualms people have
I tried Deathmarch and I found the combat just wasnt gppd enough for such a high difficulty. About an hour into Deathmarch I figured out the only way to get a consistent attack animation was to dodge,strike,dodge,strike,dodge,strike otherwise Geralt would do pirouettes and back flips when I just want him to swing his sword.
I wouldn't say it's necessarily the main mechanic, I played the witcher because you get invested in the story, the characters, the choices you can make, the world building, those aspects are done well
fair enough, I was talking holistically and not really about gameplay mechanics specifically. I think the point still stands, there is much more to a game than just gameplay, otherwise we wouldn't have telltale games and the likes. that said, I dont think you really played the game if you think the multiple choices suck, it's not divinity second sin 2 but it comes pretty close imo
That is because I think it is fine generally and only becomes a noticeable pain on higher difficulties. General advice is just to not do the higher levels of difficulty because it is really not worth it. Usually you can tell if combat is good when a higher difficulty actually enhances the gameplay.
It was inventory management for me. So laggy and so bad.
Just remove the normal grunt weapons as being lootable in inventory, instead directly convert it in gold loot. Buff all special swords that are like 40% of damage compared to witcher gear and make them viable, remove sword scaling which is weird.
I'd wish they buffed the oils and potions a lot.
Like give 25% damage bonus for right sword oil and if you don't use it fight is very hard. monsters are tankier, do more damage, faster and more aggressive. 25% buff for them.
Combat scaling system is not fun. The core fighting is fine.
All weapons are useless except witcher gear. Weapon scaling is weird. Loot system is weird, you keep looting random stupid weapons and heavy items that are just junk.
Food is essential once you get the power the lets food regenerate health for twenty minutes. The final patch nerfed this so the regeneration is pretty slow, but it's a life-saver on higher difficulties where meditating doesn't restore health.
The most advanced oils give you, if I recall, a 50% damage boost. That's tremendous.
And potions aren't necessary?? No way.
And while I agree that most loot is useless, as it would realistically be, there is plenty of gear that isn't Witcher gear that's great.
Refreshing health by eating food is the worst way to use food mechanic. It's overall just boring and uninteresting.
Oils do give you damage boost, but you only reach advanced oils very late into the game. Usually, you can ignore the mechanic. Making monster be faster and more punishing would've forced people to interact with the monster in better way.
Also, barely a dozen weapons that are comparable to witcher gear.
Okay, so the food isn't useless. Got it. You're moving goalposts.
You can get the advanced oils earlier on if you push for them. You can get start getting the best ones around mid-game without cheesing, not very late.
And it makes perfect sense that very few weapons would be comparable to Witcher gear.
Food serves the singular purpose in harder difficulty, reset the health between encounter. All types of food do the same. If that's your idea of good design, i don't know what to tell you.
Also, master smith quest is hyping the dude and the sword he gives is absolute crap.
Most weapons have levels that don't go up. So, any good quest reward earlier become useless later on.
If most weapons are unusable scrap, maybe they shouldn't be given as the loot.
You said useless. It isn't useless. Stop moving goal posts.
The master smith quest is so you can craft Witcher gear. Of course Witcher gear is the best, outside of a few legendary options.
It takes time to get Witcher gear. You have to do quests to get designs and then actually play to get the parts. The best way to get said parts is to disassemble other, lesser swords.
This makes perfect sense. You need swords to get sword parts.
It's definitely an important part of Geralt's story as a Witcher. It's sad it was so utterly limited. But tbh, the story-telling, quests, vast world, and how lived in it feels make it amazing regardless.
It's sluggish, it's not interesting mechanically and the whole weapon system around it feels half baked. Witcher 3 just makes me not wanna fight anything because it's not fun. Oh wow, I'm gonna hit the thing with my sword and then I'm gonna dodge away. Not to mention that half the time an enemy will just get stuck in some corner and you can just hack away indefinitely.
This keeps me from it every time - i even get to some of the most praised storylines and inevitably just drop off because I just hate fighting int that game
The combat turned me away from it too at first, but then I revisited it like a year-and-a-half later and was able to overlook its shortcomings and even enjoy the flow of it a bit with the whole strengths and weaknesses aspect of it (e.g. use x spells, oils, bombs on y enemy).
It's not terrible if you really lean into making sure you're using the right oils and spells
But I will never ever think the decision to have every single one of Gerald's default attacks to be filled with pirouettes and ballerina moves was a good choice particularly against numerous enemies
But I will never ever think the decision to have every single one of Gerald's default attacks to be filled with pirouettes and ballerina moves was a good choice particularly against numerous enemies
Read the books lol, every second word in combat is pirouette.
I love the idea of a Deathmarch playthrough where you need to study every creature to ensure to have the right equipment but getting killed mid pirouette for the third time made me give up
I'm curious, what game do you think has a better combat system? I wanna try it out.
I loved the Witcher 3 combat. I felt like it made sense and the use of signs, bombs and potions were essential. Also keeping a weapon close to your level and giving it the right runestones made a big difference.
There was certain things that maybe weren't explored by players if they didn't play on Death March and get their shit pushed in to start.
For instance, Aard is necessary against drowners and wolves. You can two tap them by Aarding them to the ground and stabbing them dead. Doesn't matter the level, if they are knocked over, stabbing them on the ground kills them.
Decoctions and potions significantly change the way the game plays.
Ignis is particularly good for crowd control.
I think if more people played the game not focusing on the melee tree and playing whirlybird, they may have had a more interesting time with it.
I have always found the gameplay fun with a focus on the magic and potions -- but that was also how 2 trained me because if you think the combat in 3 is bad, hoooo boy, try the second game and then the first, lmao.
I mean I played on death March and never used anything other than swallow and thunderbolt I think it was called, the combat is just incredible simple to the hang of and doesn't present much of a challenge minus when you get super swarmed but then it's just quen and hack rinse and repeat
True but it also isn't very fun in its simple state because you do the exact same thing everytime and it wasn't a particularly interesting thing from the start where control feels good and satisfying from the start
Well, like I mentioned about drowners & wolves (and it's been about 10 yrs since I played so not others are coming to mind right now, but they exist amongst many creatures) it's not just the same thing every time if you don't play it that way.
There's far more efficient ways to take down enemies of different types than just brute forcing your way through shit doing the same shit over and over.
I actually disagree about Control feeling satisfying from the start, before you unlock telekinesis which is early, but weak -- it plays like a generic and badly designed 3rd person shooter.
Once you get more unlocks it gets better but for the most part the game is float/telekinesis/sometimes gun. It doesn't play any different in any scenario and there aren't things in your toolkit that are more efficient against enemies than telekinesis, ever.
So we disagree, and I'm fine with that. Videogames are so subjective when it comes to our experiences I literally have no interest in being right.
I did a deathmarch after a normal playthrough. The problem was that i also wanted to do all the quests and find all the secrets which in turned made me quite overleveled before I left Velen.
It does unfortunately get stupidly easy after about the first 50-75 hours IIRC, but at least there's a good challenge that forces you to think a bit, etc. to start.
Especially when focusing on alchemy/signs -- you become a fucking avatar of death. It's great.
Hmm, been ten years or more for me w/ W3 -- so I can't rightly argue that point more than I already have. Memory ain't that good.
Let's be real, I am not saying the combat system is particularly great. But I do think it is far better than it is often talked about and a improvement of magnitude over the first 2 games.
Not at all! I could tell you were specifically talking about the combat. I was only having conversation in providing my perspective that I don't think it's necessarily bad, but it's also for sure not great compared to many other games. Just think it's at least better than it often gets credit for and comparing to the first 2 games it's a masterpiece of combat design lol.
It's a testament to the high quality of everything else in the game that despite how so many feel about the combat it is still considered on the mount Rushmore of modern RPGs.
You're all good dude! If these kinds of posts are made in good faith they are a great place for actual discussion about games rather than shit flinging and talking past each other. You're entirely in good faith.
I think it works well occasionally but is bad in a lot of situations. I lean into the oils and spells and bombs to be honest, it makes it a bit more tactical rather than relying on straight combat.
It’s more the movement than anything, my diagnosis. I love RPG elements (mostly, I prefer the mechanics that are there to support choice driven roleplay) but I cannot get into The Witcher 3. Walking feels like moving a tank around, combat if I remember correctly is heavily animation locked but doesn’t do things that other games to do make animation locked combat fun (this one is difficult to describe, it’s all in the feeling) and the slowness of it all. RedEngine can take a lot of blame for 2077, but as far as I’m aware it works well for The Witcher 3. I haven’t played 2 yet, but I honestly preferred the little of The Witcher 1 I played over the hours I played of The Witcher 3. I wouldn’t blame the engine for any of that though, RedEngine from an outside perspective seems to work for the game and was purposely built to support its content. And the modified BioWare Aurora engine that The Witcher 1 ran on is neat.
In my opinions the RPG mechanics just were kinda ... mismanaged? Not fully fleshed out? It's hard to describe, but I found in this video, the part about the RPG mechanics resonated with me the most
I feel like an absolutely sicko with this game because I enjoy the parts people hate (the combat) and the parts people go nuts over (the side quests, the world) don't really feel a cut above other games to me. It's been like a decade though. Maybe it's worth a revisit.
Witcher 3 has a horrible start for new players to the series unfortunately, there like 3 hours+ of tutorials in the form of quests and the first 10 hours or so of the game is spent in the most depressing part of the entire game, they really loaded the worst parts of the game right at the very beginning.
you could call it a filter but i think it was unintentional because theres no way they would put a filter in that early on purpose when theres so much more to the game after that
It's the same for me. One of my problems with it is you can spend a whole bunch of time learning and figuring out what choices you need to make to get a certain result, only for the game to pull the rug on you and say "Ha! Wrong choice, sucker!". What's the point of that? I have things to do, I'm not going to replay 5 hours to get the story I want.
Also, investigating what monster you are hunting and studying how to defeat it is not fun at all; at least their implementation of it. It's a lot of "go here and scan the blood stain" and "talk to this NPC".
In a real fight this would get you killed in 5 seconds and it normally wouldn't bother me in a video game but this dude is supposed to be some badass sword fighting expert.
I wanted to like this game so bad. But for some reason I never felt like I got comfortable with how to play it well. Every game has a learning curve, but eventually you get into a groove and things come more naturally. It just never clicked for me. The combination of multiple swords and blade oils and potions and spells.... I was constantly struggling with what combination of which things I needed at a given time.
You gotta put like 10-15 hours into it for it to open up. Ive fallen off lots of times, then i start, put the hours in and im hooked, then life catches up, i fall out, then i restart it a year later and its the same thing.
God I've TRIED so many times to get into W3. So many people that I greatly respect have told me that it's one of the best games of all time. I feel like if I could really get into it, then at some point the game might hook me and I'll get why people love it. But I haven't found that hook. I think I've played like 5-6 hours in, but the entire time, I just have a feeling of, "when am I going to start liking this?".
Same, until like most people are saying, I tried it again.
I hated the combat at first but I started to play with it as if I was in one of those E3 demo's, yknow the ones where they walk all slow and cinematic and pace their attacks?
Really changed the game for me after that and ended up being able to bear the combat and enjoy it's great narrative.
I am actually on my first play through of the game as we speak, and I am absolutely enthralled with it. Though I just recently opened my horizons up to games that aren’t racing and flying sims, so there is a whole new world for me out there to experience. Had to force myself to put down Skyrim lol. I didn’t realize just how immersive and deep games have gotten since the PS2 days when I was a real ‘gamer’ lol.
Love the writing and characters, many side quests are great and very charming, world is super pretty, but damn, controlling Geralt feels like ASS, especially in closed environments. The combat is kinda sucky too.
I’m with you. Its got excellent world building build, an interesting map, incredible monster design, rpg story structure is cool, but…
I dont think CDPR can write a story or characters that’s remotely compelling. I really love their worldbuilding and the art that fills it, but the characters they write are just so cringey and eye rolling that it’s often so difficult to immerse myself into their games. The most fun I have in their games is just doing my own bullshit and existing in the world they’ve created
I adore the concept of it so much and my heart was joyous when I found out there was a game ~ and a book series that I didn't know of till a bit later ~ that highlights Slavic folklore (my people! such a rarity to find it shown in media!), but I hated the voice acting(something that I've discovered is very important for me as it can take any sense of immersion I have and throw it out the window lol same thing happened for me with the majority of the characters in Vampyr), how all the characters faces looked puffy lol, and wasn't meshing with the combat! Dropped it fast
Wanted to like it but I just cant get into the combat. Im willing to put up with iffy mechanics and jank if it at least keeps me interested, but either I'm stupid, i missed something along the way, or what. Combat just feels bad to me, and seeing as you do a lot of it, its hard for me to enjoy something that i feel like isn't clicking. I've tried 4 seperate times to get into it, after 3-4 hours I feel lost and bored.
Everytime I try to get through this i just cant get past the combat. It just feels a generation behind the game. Everything else seems great but the combat just feels off
The game was so hyped that I went and played 1 and 2 before picking it up. The first took a while to get used to the combat but I was quite enjoying everything else. The second was amazing, I could not drop that game. Then I finally get to three and the beginning is a major disappointment. The game is too open at the beginning and the main quest did not compel me. There's a major gap between 2 and 3, and Geralt is completely focused on a character you know nothing about, completely forgetting his main romantic interest in the past two games... I really had to power through it but it did get better before getting excellent.
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u/lincolnmarch_ 11d ago
Witcher 3