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Alright, I'm ready to call it. The Witcher 3 is an incredible story, setting, and characters, along with some fantastic quest design and truly next-level forethought and writing to account for tons of player choice, and all of it is wrapped in a game that is... okay. Mostly. It's never bad enough that I wanted to stop playing... at least, not until I was already too heavily invested to quit. But if I were any less invested, hoo boy. The Ofieri Mage. The Caretaker. Even the loving frog prince. All of these fights seem designed to highlight the game's shortcomings, which, why? Why would you do that to yourself? Why would you expose yourself like that? I'm going to stick it out to the end, but I do not expect I will be doing another playthrough. I'll look up the interesting bits on YouTube.
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Jan 1, 2023 17:53
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| # ? Jun 7, 2024 21:23 |
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This is literally my like fifteenth hard crash to home menu during this run. This time it happened during the shop menu. Literally the sheer number of hard crashes, every time i quit the game for any reason the game forcing me to redo my HUD and gamma settings, having to watch the stupid hard reloads and dandelion’s bullshit voiceovers about whatever loving thing I’m currently on…it is sapping my will to finish this game. I’m like right in the edge, despite being further in this game than I ever have before. It’s that bad. It’s that loving frustrating to deal with.
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Jan 1, 2023 17:58
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Witcher has better combat than new assassins creed or watch dogs and 90% of the other AAA bullshit, I don’t get the hate for the combat to the point where people go around fighting modded level 1 golems and higher vampires ruining the narrative tension of everyone saying said creatures are strong
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Jan 1, 2023 19:57
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skipmyseashells posted:Witcher has better combat than new assassins creed or watch dogs and 90% of the other AAA bullshit I love this game but can't agree with this. The combat controls of Witcher 3 weren't great at launch and have aged poorly—Geralt just fundamentally doesn't feel good to control in fights. He moves too slowly compared to how quickly enemies run around and his sword attack movesets are often unpredictable (i.e., every time you want to do a quick sword attack but Geralt does a really long pirouette animation instead and gets interrupted before it ends). It's also weird that he controls completely differently in combat vs out of combat. I got stuck on a ledge today in Skellige because some harpies were flying around and Geralt went into combat mode, which means you can't jump or climb anything  To give the game some credit, the upgrade system in general is really good and the variety of customisation options does a lot to smooth out the combat's rough edges (e.g., by avoiding it entirely by spamming freezing aard instead). The new signs quick cast option (which was more-or-less already done in Assassin's Creed for years now) makes magic builds a lot more feasible and fun which is great. I might install that mod that replaces all combat with Gwent.
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Jan 1, 2023 20:57
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Yeah, there’s also the fact that the game will straight up override what you want to do. They make a lot of hay out of being able to disengage/run away from combat, but you can’t when Geralt will just repeatedly unsheath his sword and face dudes you’re trying to run away from. There’s also annoyances where trolls are literally never fun to fight, any flying enemy often becomes this tedious game of keep away, you can and will get stunlocked to death by a bunch of small enemies as they force you into a corner you can’t dodge out of or run away from, and shield bearing humans are extremely tedious as gently caress. None of this is hard, per se; it’s a situation where when given a bunch of options or ways to solve a problem the developers went with the by-far most irritating one, so combat becomes this total loving chore.
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Jan 1, 2023 21:03
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skipmyseashells posted:Witcher has better combat than new assassins creed or watch dogs and 90% of the other AAA bullshit, I don’t get the hate for the combat to the point where people go around fighting modded level 1 golems and higher vampires ruining the narrative tension of everyone saying said creatures are strong I'd give the latest Assassin's Creed the edge because they really lean into the souls-lite thing and the variety of weapons is marginally more interesting than Geralt's pirouetting around, but it's at least a little better than the other like...five AC games that came before it at least Kinda funny that W3 really knocked New Vegas off the 'greatest RPG of all time' throne while still having the same issue: incredibly unremarkable combat mechanics with a lot of moving parts that you should mostly just ignore
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Jan 1, 2023 21:04
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I'm working my way through Hearts of Stone and, honestly, the fights against multiple human enemies have been the worst ones because fighting a bunch of dudes sucks for reasons that have been mentioned on this page. Arachnomorphs suck too, but at least they die pretty quickly (or at least they would if the little shits would just stop scampering away constantly). I haven't gotten to the Caretaker yet and don't remember how that fight goes (it's been a few years since I played the DLC), but the toad couldn't do much against my alchemy-heavy build that involves Geralt being completely off his tits on five or six different potions and decoctions in every big fight.  Even when froggy did get a couple of hits in, I could just wait for him to spit some more poison goop and then stand in it to get my health back thanks to Superior Golden Oriole.NieR Occomata posted:every time i quit the game for any reason the game forcing me to redo my HUD and gamma settings
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Jan 2, 2023 02:06
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Alt Aard should be Reverse Aard. Pulls enemies towards you. The most infuriating thing enemies can do in this game is play keepaway, because Geralt moves at half the speed of smell and all his ranged options kinda suck.
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Jan 2, 2023 03:19
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Actually his bombs become insane if you skill them to be nuts. In fact, bombs become the by-far easiest way to kill anything remotely challenging especially if you have superior golden oriole; throw a bunch of poison fogs on the ground, have them die to poison in like half a second, you are at full health.
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Jan 2, 2023 03:25
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Oh wow, they actually made it so the sword you get as a reward for helping out Crach is good and viable, even if you do the quest well after the recommended level. The other similar quest rewards are still usually inferior to whatever witcher gear I'm currently using, but for basically the first time ever I'm using two non-witcher swords.
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Jan 2, 2023 05:22
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The one that scales with your level is good for a while.
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Jan 2, 2023 05:31
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I finally beat the game and all dlc. After a great experience all round it was so sad that eredin and the frost mage were capped at level 30 but I was level 53 and so were complete pushovers. The random hell hounds and ghost dudes were level 53 but the end bosses weren't scaled?! That seems like a massive oversight and soured the ending a bit really, he would do these fancy moves and take off 2% of my health lol. Other than that the combat was fine really, slightly clunky but better than 90% of games out there. The story was great even if it did enjoy throwing out names of places you would immediately forget.
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Jan 2, 2023 06:20
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My favorite thing is whenever an obviously old character refers to Geralt as sonny or young man or whatever and you then remember that canonically Geralt is like 100 years old. Also like logically even if they didn’t know that I don’t know why old people think Geralt looks young. He doesn’t. He very much looks like a middle-aged dude, early forties at the youngest. His hair is all grey and he has the demeanor and attitude of a put-upon dad, not a young guy.
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Jan 2, 2023 06:24
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IceG posted:I finally beat the game and all dlc. what are your thoughts on Lambert
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Jan 2, 2023 06:25
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NieR Occomata posted:My favorite thing is whenever an obviously old character refers to Geralt as sonny or young man or whatever and you then remember that canonically Geralt is like 100 years old. It turns out there was a big marketing push to create a generational divide between a perpetual generation of teens and young adults and older folk. Geralt is on the very cusp of falling out of that younger cohort but the old peasants who have all bought into the cynical schema still consider him part of it due to certain aesthetic choices like having well maintained teeth. WhiskeyWhiskers fucked around with this message at 06:32 on Jan 2, 2023 |
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Jan 2, 2023 06:30
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Fritz the Horse posted:what are your thoughts on Lambert So this may be seen as terrible but I think I accidentally autofailed his side quest when i did some story quest...he seemed like a bro most of the time though?!
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Jan 2, 2023 06:32
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What a prick.
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Jan 2, 2023 06:38
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NieR Occomata posted:My favorite thing is whenever an obviously old character refers to Geralt as sonny or young man or whatever and you then remember that canonically Geralt is like 100 years old. It's the inverse of the Yakuza series, where the main characters look relatively young but every single enemy refers to them as "gramps" or "old man"
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Jan 2, 2023 06:42
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ShakeZula posted:It's the inverse of the Yakuza series, where the main characters look relatively young but every single enemy refers to them as "gramps" or "old man" That's just "everyone older than 25 is a fossil" Japan.
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Jan 2, 2023 06:45
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I just ran into some of the Baron's guards reciting dialogue from Pulp Fiction, that was good for a laugh.
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Jan 2, 2023 08:19
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The game has an absurd amount of pop culture references. https://witcher.fandom.com/wiki/The_Witcher_3_Easter_eggs
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Jan 2, 2023 08:34
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NieR Occomata posted:My favorite thing is whenever an obviously old character refers to Geralt as sonny or young man or whatever and you then remember that canonically Geralt is like 100 years old. Foggies just call everybody "son". What, you want they should make an exception ? At their age ?! With their sciatica acting up ?!!! *sigh* Young'uns these days, I swear to Freya...
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Jan 2, 2023 09:16
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WhiskeyWhiskers posted:It turns out there was a big marketing push to create a generational divide between a perpetual generation of teens and young adults and older folk. Geralt is on the very cusp of falling out of that younger cohort but the old peasants who have all bought into the cynical schema still consider him part of it due to certain aesthetic choices like having well maintained teeth. I forgot how at the end of each scene Geralt pulls out a cool, refreshing Pepsi and silently drinks it while staring daggers into the camera.
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Jan 2, 2023 09:17
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NieR Occomata posted:I forgot how at the end of each scene Geralt pulls out a cool, refreshing Pepsi and silently drinks it while staring daggers into the camera. that's the neutral ending. The good ending you give crisp delicious diet pepsi to emhyr and radovid and they end the war
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Jan 2, 2023 10:04
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Did the Dragon Age people crib the "once mighty and majestic elves reduced to second class citizens" from Sapkowski? I don't recall seeing that in much other fantasy fiction. Speaking of elves, are the Aen Elle tall as all gently caress or is the shots with them and Geralt just framed a certain way to make them imposing? They seem like giants.
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Jan 2, 2023 11:31
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Al Cu Ad Solte posted:Did the Dragon Age people crib the "once mighty and majestic elves reduced to second class citizens" from Sapkowski? I don't recall seeing that in much other fantasy fiction. Elven decay is at least as old as Tolkien. From there to "poo poo on the knife-ears !" is just a matter of taking it to eleven.
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Jan 2, 2023 12:34
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Fritz the Horse posted:what are your thoughts on Lambert thought he was really funny with how much of a hater he is and then really liked him after he told his backstory
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Jan 2, 2023 12:39
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Yeah an extremely common throughline of all high fantasy is all the non-human races being objectively better than humans in every way - more intelligent, sturdier, more innately magical, cleverer, live longer, wiser, etc etc etc - but the whole advantage humans have is they breed like comparative crazy and because their lives are so short they end up trying to make the most of it and are able to conquer huge swaths of land/force innovation/become magically adept/become technologically capable far faster than other races. Also usually humans are willing to gently caress absolutely everything so you end up with the half-races like -orc, -elf, etc. Typically most fantasy settings establish the elder races as focused on austerity, usually the way the race is balanced is the race will have long gestation periods or low birthrates or take many decades to reach sexual maturation. In any case all that poo poo combined usually means the elder race gets typically crowded out by the humans breeding like rats, with maybe some miscegenation thrown in such that the actual percentage of the elder race that can even produce pure-blooded members of that race is lowered, and then expansionist/imperialist human ideologies snuffing out many of the ones that are left. Witcher is unique in that the non-human treatment is really overtly racist as opposed to subvertly, but otherwise, yeah. All that poo poo is old hat. Elves, especially, since they live for hundreds and hundreds of years/are immortal depending on common mythology, and because most fantasy media portrays elves as exceptionalist pricks (which even Witcher sort of engages in) often gets the short end of the stick.
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Jan 2, 2023 12:47
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Fritz the Horse posted:
I do beleive that this phrase came from here, and then I used it in a few interviews so now it's out in the wild. Great line from whomever came up with it, kudos.
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Jan 2, 2023 13:04
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Wiltsghost posted:The game has an absurd amount of pop culture references. Hasn't this been a thing in games for quite awhile now? I know as far back as FO:NV there were a bunch of references, and I'm sure that wasn't the first game to do it.
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Jan 2, 2023 13:48
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Shooting Blanks posted:Hasn't this been a thing in games for quite awhile now? I know as far back as FO:NV there were a bunch of references, and I'm sure that wasn't the first game to do it. fallout 2 had too much and it was irking me
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Jan 2, 2023 13:51
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i watched the bad ending on youtube and man they really make it bleak for making a few poor parenting decisions
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Jan 2, 2023 14:29
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My favourite interpretation - Ciri didn't die, she just didn't want to come back 
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Jan 2, 2023 14:42
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Comte de Saint-Germain posted:I do beleive that this phrase came from here, and then I used it in a few interviews so now it's out in the wild. Great line from whomever came up with it, kudos. Stolen valour. Obviously the REAL peasant misery simulator is Kingdom Come:Deliverance (for all of the 25 minutes they stick with it before caving and making you the Chosen One)
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Jan 2, 2023 15:17
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Al Cu Ad Solte posted:Did the Dragon Age people crib the "once mighty and majestic elves reduced to second class citizens" from Sapkowski? I don't recall seeing that in much other fantasy fiction. I think Michael Moorcock's Corum series in the early 70s might have been first, with humans comitting genocide against and enslaving elves.
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Jan 2, 2023 15:38
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Kobal2 posted:Stolen valour. 100%
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Jan 2, 2023 15:40
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Al Cu Ad Solte posted:Did the Dragon Age people crib the "once mighty and majestic elves reduced to second class citizens" from Sapkowski? I don't recall seeing that in much other fantasy fiction. There is enough in Dragon Age that seems clearly adapted from Sapkowski to make one assume that DA was directly inspired by it, but when DA was being made the witcher books hadn't yet been translated to english. Any inspiration here I think it *mostly* coincidental.
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Jan 2, 2023 15:44
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And it would be a weird aspect of the setting to be brought up casually in conversations around the purchase of the rights to the NWN engine to make The Witcher too.
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Jan 2, 2023 15:53
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Fritz the Horse posted:Way way back this thread (I think?) coined the label "peasant misery simulator" for Velen and it's pretty apt. Something I like to say is that Skellige is also a peasant misery simulator. Just the skelligers aren't peasants. gently caress vikings.
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Jan 2, 2023 17:02
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Al Cu Ad Solte posted:Did the Dragon Age people crib the "once mighty and majestic elves reduced to second class citizens" from Sapkowski? I don't recall seeing that in much other fantasy fiction. I can't think of any other examples, but I think it's probably an inversion of "elves as nobility" that is pretty easy to come to. IMO the suspicious things is the Grey Wardens being cribbed from Witchers. Monster hunters created via ritual that kills bunch of them via imbibing elements of their enemies in order to become widely reviled but needed members of society seems a little on the nose.
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Jan 2, 2023 17:12
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