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[Soulwynd]

No, I said the first game is misogynistic. Women were achievement cards. Yes, there were no moral consequences to it, you could fuck them all (well, not all, some of them excluded the others). Fucking them in game or not doesn't change the fact they were achievement cards.

Btw, there are plenty of consequences irl for being a shitass fucker.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You're given the choice to join the Scoia'Tel (Actually, you join the non-humans cause), the king slayers (I -think-; The option was there, but I didn't pick it), or the humans. The thing is, the Scoia'Tel were helping the king slayers at the beginning and yes, you could have jumped off and joined (or beaten them) right there and honestly, doesn't seem it would have made a huge impact on the plot. The king slayer you see at the beginning is only one of them. The scoia'Tel you see at the beginning are meaningless and you can fuck them all up later. So you would have ended joining the humans if you killed them all down there, or either scoia'tel or king slayers if you joined them at the prologue.

As for the contempt, the girl the elf wants to crown is human (At least she looks human and wears human clothes, unless her ears are hidden under all that hair) and follows a human prince. His goal is not about racism, he wants to create a free state for non-humans and humans alike. Course, he's a racist, but he can put that aside for something better.

No, a lot of time passes since then. People know he's the king slayer (even tho he is not) and like I said, they congratulate him for it. Of course, if you join the human side of the story, you're in the middle of people who aren't happy about kings being slain and then you have Roche, who's a backstabbing jackass, to vouch for you.

But you don't realize he's Geralt. He beats every fucking last one of them. Everything that stands in his way dies or is pushed aside, unless of course, you're on an on rails cutscene. Plus he can easily join the non-human side and be praised for it, since you are... spoilers...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Helping them create a huge human-dorf-elf free state anyway.

So he would have plenty of protection and a lovely home.

No, it's not an interface element. He says it, with his voice, that his medallion is going off and there's danger around. Or that there is magic around because of his medallion. And in one of the cutscenes he does mention there was no danger because his medallion would have detected it. You probably picked different dialogs and ended up with different cutscenes.

He mentions both during gameplay and dialog, several times, that his medallion is picking danger or magic. And during gameplay it also picks important items out without you having to activate it. Probably because the items are magic, but it does so.

[Drakale]

Disclaimer: I'm not even at the end of the first act(flotsam) so my report here is not the most informed.

I've been playing it on Hard and I'm quite challenged so far.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Anyone else beat those scorpion things queen in the first act on hard? They one shot you if you get hit from the back, very hard fight but rewarding when you win it. Finished one off with those throwing daggers, they actually do excellent damage. I expect to be raped by the Kayran :/

My cons so far:

• Targeting as was mentioned is quirky. Often you will target the guy behind everybody else, and due to the combat mechanic Geralt will roll right up to him in the middle of the pack. On hard this mean instant death.
• Lack of control over Geralt. When you press attack, it's a gamble. Will I do a lightning quick attack that permit me to quickly retreat or a fancy spinning move that let me vulnerable for 2 seconds? On harder difficulty this is the cause of most deaths with the precedent point. This also force you in an hit and run style, because you never know what your next move will be so might as well back off.
• Unclear game mechanics. I had to look so many things up to understand how it works its not even funny. Most of the issue people has derive from this. For example the "not blocking" bug is due to the vigor bar being depleted(yes the same bar you use for signs). No vigor no blocking. Some things have no actual explanations in game, like the sun rune, wtf does it do?
• The mini games are super dull. They managed to make the dice poker thing even more boring than the original. I mean common, one round wins all, and all you have to do to become a champion is challenge a guy by betting 1 Oren until you win. Boxing is super easy even on hard, unless it gets much harder/fun later but I'm not holding my breath.
• I can rob people's home without consequences. This one is not exclusive to this game, but something Morrowind like would make more sense.

Pro:
Everything else. Its a really gorgeous game, and you get "in character" kinda like in Batman:Arkam Asylum.
Some dislike the potion system, but I feel they are missing out. Don't play it arcade like, don't hoard those potions and only use them after you die and reload , they are plentiful so use them. Before entering a cave, think about what kind of creature you expect and prepare in consequence. Sure you're going to look silly when you prepare for Nekkers, carefully plan out your attack, and spring on a group of Scoia'tel, silver sword in hand, but that's fun too.
The tools are also a huge improvement over the original. The bombs and daggers are very fun to use, you get to target them in a slow motion sequence. The trap are kinda meh at this point, but maybe they get better.
Leveling system looks interesting, but I barely touched it yet.

[Toady Two]

To use runes you have to have a high quality sword with upgrade slots. You then drag the upgrade over the inventory slot to make the sword deal additional effects and do more damage. Same thing goes for armor upgrades.

[Drakale]

To use runes you have to have a high quality sword with upgrade slots. You then drag the upgrade over the inventory slot to make the sword deal additional effects and do more damage. Same thing goes for armor upgrades.

I know that, but the sun rune have no description of what it does.
Also, Bomb that does Incineration 30%... 30% of what? I assume its the chance of proc, but then what damage does it do? If it fails does it even do any damage? Really hard to say, even with trial and error.

[Toady Two]

Sun rune is just +% damage IIRC. Earth Rune is probably best as it gives health.

[Virtz]

No, a lot of time passes since then. People know he's the king slayer (even tho he is not) and like I said, they congratulate him for it. Of course, if you join the human side of the story, you're in the middle of people who aren't happy about kings being slain and then you have Roche, who's a backstabbing jackass, to vouch for you.

But you don't realize he's Geralt. He beats every fucking last one of them. Everything that stands in his way dies or is pushed aside, unless of course, you're on an on rails cutscene. Plus he can easily join the non-human side and be praised for it, since you are... spoilers...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Helping them create a huge human-dorf-elf free state anyway.

So he would have plenty of protection and a lovely home.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

He doesn't know that at the time, though. He knows nothing about the motives of the parties involved, especially considering a dragon turned out to be a part of it. Having him instantly make a decision to join the king slayers right after they've offed the person he was guarding would be inane.

And nobody I've encountered downright congratulated him on it, but then I didn't join the terrorists. Then again, who the heck congratulates you? The scoiatel know it wasn't you since they know the real kingslayer from the start. Humans are generally either indifferent or negative towards the killing.

Also, Roche may be a homicidal asshole (much like Iorveth), but I haven't seen him being a backstabbing jackass anywhere.

Also, you really need to differentiate between story logic and gameplay logic in games. In gameplay, you have people surviving shots to the head, getting hacked at multiple times with heavy blades and even surviving gigantic explosions. In story, people can die from a single shot, stab or blunt hit. I ain't about to go "durr, why are people nearly immortal???" with regards to setting based on gameplay. Similarly it goes for character power. You cannot force the player to fail in an Action RPG by any means other than a cutscene, because player skill is so decisive that given the chance a player can win against anything that isn't completely immortal.

Despite what the gameplay would have you believe, Geralt is not an omnipotent badass. He got killed by a pitchfork wielding peasant before.

No, it's not an interface element. He says it, with his voice, that his medallion is going off and there's danger around. Or that there is magic around because of his medallion. And in one of the cutscenes he does mention there was no danger because his medallion would have detected it. You probably picked different dialogs and ended up with different cutscenes.

He mentions both during gameplay and dialog, several times, that his medallion is picking danger or magic. And during gameplay it also picks important items out without you having to activate it. Probably because the items are magic, but it does so.

Out of curiosity, where does he say this with regard to a person? It can detect "danger" as in monsters and other magical beings, but I don't recall anything about dangerous people.

[Soulwynd]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

He doesn't know that at the time, though. He knows nothing about the motives of the parties involved, especially considering a dragon turned out to be a part of it. Having him instantly make a decision to join the king slayers right after they've offed the person he was guarding would be inane.

And nobody I've encountered downright congratulated him on it, but then I didn't join the terrorists. Then again, who the heck congratulates you? The scoiatel know it wasn't you since they know the real kingslayer from the start. Humans are generally either indifferent or negative towards the killing.

Also, Roche may be a homicidal asshole (much like Iorveth), but I haven't seen him being a backstabbing jackass anywhere.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The king he was trying to get away from? To whom he made a deal he would be free right after this was done? Seriously?

If it was me, I would have jumped right after the asshole. He's a piece of cake to beat, so are Scoia'tel. I also didn't know about the rest of the story when I mentioned I hated that prelude and I was already of the opinion he shouldn't have just been captured. It's stupid and you should have options.

The dorfs and some people do depending on the quest sides you pick, but then someone has to mention it wasn't him and they act like it doesn't matter. The best part is, if it's some random person saying it, Geralt doesn't even bother trying to fix it saying "It wasn't me." He just plainly doesn't give a fuck.

Not sure if you got to the meeting on the chapter one, but the asshole rushes in with the commandant crossbowman and later gives a lame excuse. Course later on it wouldn't be considered backstabbing, since I didn't pick his side, but he's still a jackass.

Also, you really need to differentiate between story logic and gameplay logic in games.

Uh no. Not once, not ever.

If I can destroy armies during the gameplay, like fuck I will accept someone with a pitchfork during a cutscene. What happens during gameplay is part of the story in the player's perspective, you can't just say he's not a badass who destroys everyone when he is a badass who destroys everyone. The only moment he is not, is when you have no control over your character actions and that is what is extremely stupid.

Game developers need to learn to be more consistent. A player -should- be given the opportunity win against anything as long as it fits the character and failure to do so doesn't necessarily means any sort of game over. Uncontrollable cutscenes with decisive moments are the apex of story-telling failure in games. You have this huge platform where you can let the player interact with the story and then, when it's most important, the player has no input. Furthermore, you can use the player's failure in gameplay during any given point of the game as part of the story. Take ARMA (Either ARMA or the OpF, don't remember which one is like this) for example, when you fail a mission, you face the consequences and are put into missions that are consistent with your failure. This sort of perspective is also present in 7.62 where not only taking nearly -any- shot pretty much means you're fucked up, but failing is an option and you can go on with it.

Really, you're just giving a lame excuse because you have come to accept the bullshit that's put in front of you. I will never accept it and will always criticize it whenever it's there.

Out of curiosity, where does he say this with regard to a person? It can detect "danger" as in monsters and other magical beings, but I don't recall anything about dangerous people.

It was either in the prelude or in the first chapter. But if memory serves me right, I think he was talking about a sorceress. So that might explain it to the book-savvy people. Still is a huge writer's crutch in my point of view.

[Comp112]

Been playing this, at first I kept dying near instantly (I started talking about the dragon). I tried again, from the first part, and now I am learning it, and enjoying it a lot. Takes getting used to from what I normally play though.

[Virtz]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The king he was trying to get away from? To whom he made a deal he would be free right after this was done? Seriously?

I think you missed the part where money was involved, then. Geralt was constantly bitching about how little he gets payed and there's mentions of witchers never living to old age since they just get rusty and die fighting monsters or something. Apparently he expected to earn enough to retire forever. Good luck getting that from a bunch of elves.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Also, there's nothing "easy" about beating the other witcher. He loses the fight with him in chapter 1. And the fight itself leading up to it is hard enough with all the character upgrades gotten up to that point since he can just Aard your ass and there's nothing you can do against that in gameplay.

Also, you really need to differentiate between story logic and gameplay logic in games.

Uh no. Not once, not ever.

If I can destroy armies during the gameplay, like fuck I will accept someone with a pitchfork during a cutscene. What happens during gameplay is part of the story in the player's perspective, you can't just say he's not a badass who destroys everyone when he is a badass who destroys everyone. The only moment he is not, is when you have no control over your character actions and that is what is extremely stupid.

Game developers need to learn to be more consistent. A player -should- be given the opportunity win against anything as long as it fits the character and failure to do so doesn't necessarily means any sort of game over. Uncontrollable cutscenes with decisive moments are the apex of story-telling failure in games. You have this huge platform where you can let the player interact with the story and then, when it's most important, the player has no input. Furthermore, you can use the player's failure in gameplay during any given point of the game as part of the story. Take ARMA (Either ARMA or the OpF, don't remember which one is like this) for example, when you fail a mission, you face the consequences and are put into missions that are consistent with your failure. This sort of perspective is also present in 7.62 where not only taking nearly -any- shot pretty much means you're fucked up, but failing is an option and you can go on with it.

Really, you're just giving a lame excuse because you have come to accept the bullshit that's put in front of you. I will never accept it and will always criticize it whenever it's there.

Uh-huh. Right. You keep thinking that. There is always inconsistency between cutscenes and gameplay unless there are no cutscenes or nothing happens in them. People in cutscenes who die in one hit usually require multiple smacks to the head in gameplay. There's gamey logic and then there's "realistic" logic (realistic in the sense of the game world), usually reserved for cutscenes.

And in both Ofp and ArmA the storytelling and dialogue is so few and far between that it costs considerably less to make alternative paths. If TW2 allowed multiple "paths" based on success/failure, you'd be bitching about how the paths don't differ enough since they'd either have to re-use side-quest characters and voice-overs and make it incosistent or leave the alternative paths completely barren and uninteresting.

Also, you mentioned Prototype. The game where the main character just goes "I can rebuild myself and swim out of water in cutscenes, but in gameplay I'm very mortal and drown".

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And on an unrelated note, the pitchforking is from the last of the books, it wasn't an event created for the game.

I'm also curious how you'd like a game where Geralt is as good as he was in the books. Like getting two bowmen together would be enough to take him down. And he'd usually just fight single monsters (which are rare at that) at a time. Not to mention he could be killed by a human in one hit.

Out of curiosity, where does he say this with regard to a person? It can detect "danger" as in monsters and other magical beings, but I don't recall anything about dangerous people.

It was either in the prelude or in the first chapter. But if memory serves me right, I think he was talking about a sorceress. So that might explain it to the book-savvy people. Still is a huge writer's crutch in my point of view.

Might've meant he could detect spells being active or the sorceress charging up to cast something. But I dunno, don't remember that.

[nenjin]

This thread has given me an excuse to post this. It's not directed at anyone, but this thread makes it a decent place to post it.

Clicky

[Kanil]

I don't particularly like the game, although most of my complaints would be due to personal taste more than anything and thus not too important.

One thing I do find pretty bewildering however is the pace of combat, combined with quick time events. The two seem... a bit apart from one another.

Hit that monster with your sword. Good. Hit it again. Keep hitting it. He's dead, here's another one. Hit that one about eight ti-PRESS X TO NOT DIE!!!!-Where were we? Oh, yes. That monster still needs to be hit about five more times before it'll die.

Particularly when fighting the first boss, with his insta-kill attack/QTE.

[Soulwynd]

I think you missed the part where money was involved, then. Geralt was constantly bitching about how little he gets payed and there's mentions of witchers never living to old age since they just get rusty and die fighting monsters or something. Apparently he expected to earn enough to retire forever. Good luck getting that from a bunch of elves.

And with a dead king you expect to be paid retirement anyway? Har har, I don't see your point.

I also bet you become a escape goat if you take the human route of the story.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Also, there's nothing "easy" about beating the other witcher. He loses the fight with him in chapter 1. And the fight itself leading up to it is hard enough with all the character upgrades gotten up to that point since he can just Aard your ass and there's nothing you can do against that in gameplay.

Forgive my assholeness here, but my reaction was, and I quote "LOLWUT?!"

I beat him without losing a single HP. He was an easy fight and it wasn't even fair to him.

Uh-huh. Right. You keep thinking that. There is always inconsistency between cutscenes and gameplay unless there are no cutscenes or nothing happens in them.

With the way they are right now, I wish there were no cutscenes in games. Ever. But yes, I will keep thinking that and you keep thinking what you think. I apologize for the rudeness beforehand and you can report the post to Toady if you want, but it's a plain silly excuse to separate in game and cutscene logic/realism. It's dumb. It just doesn't work. It's inconsistent. It's pointless. If a game developer is going that route with his citscenes, please remove them. Entirely.

Right now, the mainstream gamers and developers keep prancing around about immersion, realism, good story, and dialog. But when it comes down to it, everything you were capable of doing in the gameplay doesn't fit what happens in the cutscenes. That's not immersion, that's not realism. Hell, that just fucks up any story you're trying to portray. Sure, the dialog may be fun, but most often than not they don't even fit the character. A lot of times you have heroes who are simply genocidal/homicidal fuckwads who have the nerve to say to someone that killing is wrong and trying to destroy the world is wrong. Shyeah right, like someone can say that with a straight face are killing well over 1000 intelligent creatures and humans.

I'm sorry, but you're wrong and I understand you think my opinion is wrong. If you want to discuss more and disagree with my opinion, you can necro my old thread over here, in fact; I want to necro it some time soon, due to certain new games that brought to light even more things I ended up hating about modern games.

If TW2 allowed multiple "paths" based on success/failure, you'd be bitching about how the paths don't differ enough since they'd either have to re-use side-quest characters and voice-overs and make it incosistent or leave the alternative paths completely barren and uninteresting.

Don't assume things. I would enjoy that a lot more. Don't you know I love Daggerfall and fucking hate Oblivion? Well, now you do, so don't assume crap. Not that it matters, the only point where I died so far (that wasn't because of the controls simply locking up to the point moving your mouse didn't move the camera) was the huge tentacle monster sort of thing, while playing on hard. I would be so pissed to play that game on impossible, simply because the only times I die is because of a bug and that would mean a lost character. Wouldn't mind having lost a character to that stupid monster tho, it was a fair fight for a change.

Rest assured, however, that if there's something meaningful to 'bitch' about any given game, I will 'bitch' about it. This all started with me reviewing the game which the OP unfairly actually bitched about. I merely pointed out the facts about the game. But people had to go:

Soulwynd Y U NO accept the uncontrollable cutscenes.

(yಠ,ಠ)y

Then I had to strike the challenge accepted a gallant hero pose:

"Because accepting things that could have been done better is for fools who don't give a shit. Furthermore they're meaningless and completely ignorable when the gameplay itself proves them to be so. If I have to pick the actual story to be either what you do during gameplay or what happens during cutscenes, I will pick the gameplay nearly every single time. Cutscenes are supposed to be the icing on the cake, not the cockroach that fell in the dough and you just found in your mouth."

Also, you mentioned Prototype. The game where the main character just goes "I can rebuild myself and swim out of water in cutscenes, but in gameplay I'm very mortal and drown".

Oh really? I wasn't aware of that, I never fell in water in that game. I guess we can scratch Prototype out of the consistency list then.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And on an unrelated note, the pitchforking is from the last of the books, it wasn't an event created for the game.

I'm also curious how you'd like a game where Geralt is as good as he was in the books. Like getting two bowmen together would be enough to take him down. And he'd usually just fight single monsters (which are rare at that) at a time. Not to mention he could be killed by a human in one hit.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Doesn't matter, this isn't a fucking book. I don't care about the book. I'm not reading a book. I'm playing a game.

Do I have to bold those to get the point across?

I don't care what he can or cannot do in the books, even if I had read it. I don't care what his powers are in the book or what his medallion can or cannot do in the book.

This isn't the book, this is the game. I'm discussing the game, not the book. Don't even bother comparing the two either. It will only end in fallacy and tears.

To be honest? I would love that game.

Remember were we are? This is sparta the DF forum. Losing is fun.

To be fair, Geralt does die to a couple hits on hard so it is similar to that in many ways. If it wasn't for the stupid fail controls, this game could be an awesome hack&slash game.

Might've meant he could detect spells being active or the sorceress charging up to cast something. But I dunno, don't remember that.

Probably so. It seems like I'm picking the dialog options nobody is picking. Ie. Fuck everyone, I'm the mother fucking white wolf. (Altho, Trish is a hottie, so I'm keeping her.)

I was tempted to pick the dialog where you supposedly joined the king slayers, or at least tried to, but then I was so annoyed by the stupidity of the prologue's cutscene I decided I wanted to kill that bastard with muscles bigger than his head.

[Thump]

So much passion!

I find the best way to handle games I don't like is to not play them. /shrug

[Virtz]

I think you missed the part where money was involved, then. Geralt was constantly bitching about how little he gets payed and there's mentions of witchers never living to old age since they just get rusty and die fighting monsters or something. Apparently he expected to earn enough to retire forever. Good luck getting that from a bunch of elves.

And with a dead king you expect to be paid retirement anyway? Har har, I don't see your point.

I also bet you become a escape goat if you take the human route of the story.

Point is he was feeling RAEG at that point because someone killed his benefactor. And if he did run off, he'd some day have bounty hunters knocking on his door with 10 crossbowmen behind them. And I don't think he'd be up to the challenge when he's like 60 (enough ranged enemies can fuck you up even in gameplay logic).

I wouldn't know about the human route yet, though. I was hoping to get the patch before continuing.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Also, there's nothing "easy" about beating the other witcher. He loses the fight with him in chapter 1. And the fight itself leading up to it is hard enough with all the character upgrades gotten up to that point since he can just Aard your ass and there's nothing you can do against that in gameplay.

Forgive my assholeness here, but my reaction was, and I quote "LOLWUT?!"

I beat him without losing a single HP. He was an easy fight and it wasn't even fair to him.

Fighting him in plain melee I occassionally received an unblockable aard to the face with little to no warning. Did you fight him only with things available to you in the prologue?

Uh-huh. Right. You keep thinking that. There is always inconsistency between cutscenes and gameplay unless there are no cutscenes or nothing happens in them.

With the way they are right now, I wish there were no cutscenes in games. Ever. But yes, I will keep thinking that and you keep thinking what you think. I apologize for the rudeness beforehand and you can report the post to Toady if you want, but it's a plain silly excuse to separate in game and cutscene logic/realism. It's dumb. It just doesn't work. It's inconsistent. It's pointless. If a game developer is going that route with his citscenes, please remove them. Entirely.

Right now, the mainstream gamers and developers keep prancing around about immersion, realism, good story, and dialog. But when it comes down to it, everything you were capable of doing in the gameplay doesn't fit what happens in the cutscenes. That's not immersion, that's not realism. Hell, that just fucks up any story you're trying to portray. Sure, the dialog may be fun, but most often than not they don't even fit the character. A lot of times you have heroes who are simply genocidal/homicidal fuckwads who have the nerve to say to someone that killing is wrong and trying to destroy the world is wrong. Shyeah right, like someone can say that with a straight face are killing well over 1000 intelligent creatures and humans.

I'm sorry, but you're wrong and I understand you think my opinion is wrong. If you want to discuss more and disagree with my opinion, you can necro my old thread over here, in fact; I want to necro it some time soon, due to certain new games that brought to light even more things I ended up hating about modern games.

Right. So you just hate cutscenes all together. Fair enough. Though I'd save that as a complaint for when there are no bigger problems considering how common this is.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And on an unrelated note, the pitchforking is from the last of the books, it wasn't an event created for the game.

I'm also curious how you'd like a game where Geralt is as good as he was in the books. Like getting two bowmen together would be enough to take him down. And he'd usually just fight single monsters (which are rare at that) at a time. Not to mention he could be killed by a human in one hit.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Doesn't matter, this isn't a fucking book. I don't care about the book. I'm not reading a book. I'm playing a game.

Do I have to bold those to get the point across?

I don't care what he can or cannot do in the books, even if I had read it. I don't care what his powers are in the book or what his medallion can or cannot do in the book.

This isn't the book, this is the game. I'm discussing the game, not the book. Don't even bother comparing the two either. It will only end in fallacy and tears.

To be honest? I would love that game.

Remember were we are? This is sparta the DF forum. Losing is fun.

To be fair, Geralt does die to a couple hits on hard so it is similar to that in many ways. If it wasn't for the stupid fail controls, this game could be an awesome hack&slash game.

I'm just explaining the source of these things. The story in the games is supposed to be a continuation of the books. They could hardly rewrite how he ended up where he did, don't you think?

Anyway, this sorta feels pointless. You can't accept the difference between gameplay and cutscene logic and that's fine. I can to a certain extent (as probably can most). Furthermore, I still look towards the books for explanations as to why Geralt acts the way he does since it's a continuation. You don't. Not gonna see eye to eye here.

[dogstile]

So, you really can't see how retarded it is to single handedly slaughter your way through an entire level without batting an eyelid only to get the snot kicked out of you in a fight where you should easily be able to win? (bulletstorm jumps to mind here, even though you win, what the hell man)