Combat in The Witcher 3

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Man, read the books. Geralt fights with pirouettes and dodges, just like in that video gameplay.
I read the books and that thing what Geralt does now isn't really a pirrouette. In TW1 when you double tapped S he sometimes spinned/danced away. That was actually much closer to what could be a pirrouette.
 
I read the books and that thing what Geralt does now isn't really a pirrouette. In TW1 when you double tapped S he sometimes spinned/danced away. That was actually much closer to what could be a pirrouette.

Yeah, in that video, Geralt does an half piruoette (a rotation of 180 degrees). If I'm not wrong, that is one of the techniques used by Geralt in the books.
 
Yeah, in that video, Geralt does an half piruoette (a rotation of 180 degrees). If I'm not wrong, that is one of the techniques used by Geralt in the books.

I'm sure there is no mention in the books to geralt spinning around like a retard all the time, a pirouette is not a clumsy 360 turn and a sidestep is not a megaman dash, the idea was great but unfortunately CDPR badly missed the mark in fleshing it out imo, at least visually I think what we've seen so far is a step back from W2
 
Hey does anyone else remember something from a while back along the lines of "Geralt's battle stance will depend on threat level/number of opponents"?
 
Yeah. I do. Still, they overdid it a bit with all the spinning. I get that it's a good way to put more power behind a blow but it's a bit odd that nearly all attacks are based off pirouettes. I can get heavy attacks using them more often since they're supposed to hit harder. But what they used in the demo looked mostly like fast/light attacks.
 
I think the final game build will have much less unecessary spinning. They probabably did that in the demo because they wanted to showcase more animations.
 
Personally it could look like complete ass but if it plays well, the gameplay itself that's what really counts. Thankfully it doesn't look like complete ass(ex:W2). It's not that TW2 had "bad" animations, it just looked like any regular dude fighting not a spectacle not the dance of death it's described as, it wasn't ...Witcher-esque like TW1 but it played amazingly.

Not sure why people think there's "too many spins" one of the stances in TW1 all the attacks were spinning and Geralt does even crazier things jumping over people, adding kicks between sword strikes, vaulting over people entirely.

TW2's animations were a massive downgrade over that. Normal soldiers attacked like clumsy idiots as if they were holding the sword for the first time and often staggering after their slash. They also attacked ridiculously slow. It was almost as if Geralt was the only one who knew how to use a sword except he didn't fight like a Witcher(barring 3-4 animations) but instead like a regular swordsman there was nothing fancy about his moves, nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that would be completely stupid for a regular human to do in battle but as a Witcher would be a great move because of the superhuman reflexes and agility.

These things were all done for mechanical balance obviously but since we were talking about how it looks I thought I'd chime in.

If I can hold down block and then walk/move Geralt @ the same time, then I'll be happy. ;)
Only if it doesn't break the balance.
 
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Personally it could look like complete ass but if it plays well, the gameplay itself that's what really counts. Thankfully it doesn't look like complete ass(ex:W2). It's not that TW2 had "bad" animations, it just looked like any regular dude fighting not a spectacle not the dance of death it's described as, it wasn't ...Witcher-esque like TW1 but it played amazingly.

Not sure why people think there's "too many spins" one of the stances in TW1 all the attacks were spinning and Geralt does even crazier things jumping over people, adding kicks between sword strikes, vaulting over people entirely.

TW2's animations were a massive downgrade over that. Normal soldiers attacked like clumsy idiots as if they were holding the sword for the first time and often staggering after their slash. They also attacked ridiculously slow. It was almost as if Geralt was the only one who knew how to use a sword except he didn't fight like a Witcher(barring 3-4 animations) but instead like a regular swordsman there was nothing fancy about his moves, nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that would be completely stupid for a regular human to do in battle but as a Witcher would be a great move because of the superhuman reflexes and agility.

These things were all done for mechanical balance obviously but since we were talking about how it looks I thought I'd chime in.

Only if it doesn't break the balance.
Dragons Dogma did not break the balance, and it had this blocking mechanic. The only thing cdpr could do better, is to make Geralt not look like he is floating across the ground while holding the block button down.
e.g. As we move him up and down and side to side, it needs to look solid and believable.
As in.. No Moonwalking Geralt Please.
I think animations should both look cool and be fun to play, I will not settle for one without the other sorry bro;)
 
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Dragons Dogma did not break the balance and it had this blocking mechanic, I also think animations should both look cool and be fun to play. I will not settle for one without the other sorry

Agree 100%. The two aspects corroborate and enhance each other.
 
Dragons Dogma did not break the balance
That has nothing to do with Witcher, it all depends on how they design it. So far it seems like you can slowly move while blocking or atleast it looks like Geralt's stance changes to defensive when he comes across the Leshen in one of the trailers for example. But if block is designed and balanced in the game as something where we sacrifice movement and attacking for defence then so be it.

Besides, blocking so far has only been useful against human foes you cannot block monster attacks in the game anyway.
 
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1. Normal soldiers attacked like clumsy idiots as if they were holding the sword for the first time and often staggering after their slash. They also attacked ridiculously slow, It was almost as if Geralt was the only one who knew how to use a sword.

2. except he didn't fight like a Witcher(barring 3-4 animations) but instead like a regular swordsman there was nothing fancy about his moves, nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that would be completely stupid for a regular human to do in battle but as a Witcher would be a great move because of the superhuman reflexes and agility.

These things were all done for mechanical balance obviously but since we were talking about how it looks I thought I'd chime in.

Only if it doesn't break the balance.

1. Absolutely agree!! The bandits in particular looked like they where high, and I hated waiting with my guard um for his unnecessarily slow attack.

2. That is one of the things I actually loved in TW2. The thing is (at least for me) exaggerating these completely kills it and just as you described look really silly, superhuman speed wouldn't help at all imo. To me the witchery technique described in the books is founded on perfect fencing technique and executed with speed and precision, to me the coolest animations are the ones that look efficient, and it would be great if the animations would at least mildly reflect that , like geralt is really fencing, the perfect scenario would be if CDPR took animations from fencing disciplines from all around the world and mixed the into one, the super flamboyant sword spins, summersaults we had in W1 imo look silly because they make Geralt look like a complete amateur, but dont get me wrong, I'm all for the occasinal cool movie type attack (like the achiles stab), but not exaggerated like it was in TW1(and seem to be in TW3)
Every time I see Geralt fighting in the demos I immediately think of this

 
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Yes they were very slow but I think it was a design choice to show that Geralt has superhuman reflexes and reacts very fast compared to the average human. I didn't like it, the TW3 approach of making Geralt actually look faster is what I prefer.

Spinning is one of the worst things any real combatant can do, if you were hoping for 'realistic' combat animations then all Witcher games fail in that department because any normal human spinning/showing his back is quite simply giving his enemies a 99% chance of killing him(barring something like a riposte against a single foe), in the case of Witchers the very reason they can do it is because of their superhuman reflexes.

It's why they're such efficient monster hunters compared to your average human because they can keep up and surpass the speeds of most monsters, their entire fighting style is based on pirouettes, half pirouettes, feints, parrying. Spinning is NOT a sane technique in actual combat for any human to perform and yet despite TW2's rigid 'solider' like animations, Geralt does spin a lot.

CDPR has their own team of combat experts and they're advising on exactly that so while I may like to think my knowledge on medieval combat is slightly above average, I can certainly not match theirs so I'll let them decide what's best.
(The only thing I miss is the lunging attack from TW2, maybe it's been discarded for damaging multiple foes instead so that's cool.)

Eitherway, it's too late for the design to change anyway but by all means, discuss away.
 
All I want is a freaking guard break that doesn't involve using Ard, or Igni. Just a good old fashion shoulder ram, heavy swing, or even a simple kick. Although its not as big a deal now that you always have the ability to cast those spells, but in Witcher 2 it was a serious pain in the ass with its slow stamina regeneration.
 
That has nothing to do with Witcher, it all depends on how they design it. So far it seems like you can slowly move while blocking or atleast it looks like Geralt's stance changes to defensive when he comes across the Leshen in one of the trailers for example. But if block is designed and balanced in the game as something where we sacrifice movement and attacking for defence then so be it.

Besides, blocking so far has only been useful against human foes you cannot block monster attacks in the game anyway.
Hey best person on earth, everything is going to be just fine;)
 
All I want is a freaking guard break that doesn't involve using Ard, or Igni. Just a good old fashion shoulder ram, heavy swing, or even a simple kick.
That's there, parrying. You can see it in the demo. Although it's not that you break their guard but rather exploit them when they're most vulnerable - while attacking. But basically achieves the same thing - a way to break the enemy's defence with a (most likely)timed parry.

Also in TW2 you can just roll behind them instead of using aard or igni to break defence but in the end it falls to the fact that it's not a simple sword fighting hack & slash, it's got tactical elements(signs, bombs, daggers) and strategy(potions, elixirs) and the game expects you to use all these elements.
 
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All I want is a freaking guard break that doesn't involve using Ard, or Igni. Just a good old fashion shoulder ram, heavy swing, or even a simple kick. Although its not as big a deal now that you always have the ability to cast those spells, but in Witcher 2 it was a serious pain in the ass with its slow stamina regeneration.

there was something like this in that herbalist fight with the bandits

Geralt sorta dodged into this one dude and it stunned him for a short while, like he elbowed the dude in the face
 
I Really REALLY hope that what we saw about blocking in the demo is in the final game too. That you can hold block and move at the same time - the animations looked great when Geralt started holding his sword in different stances depending on the distance between him and the bandit. Looked very alike to some of the books fight scenes.

Also @sidspyker do you think parrying is manual or automatic? I hope you can parry/kick enemy whenever you want.
 
Yes they were very slow but I think it was a design choice to show that Geralt has superhuman reflexes and reacts very fast compared to the average human. I didn't like it, the TW3 approach of making Geralt actually look faster is what I prefer.

Spinning is one of the worst things any real combatant can do, if you were hoping for 'realistic' combat animations then all Witcher games fail in that department because any normal human spinning/showing his back is quite simply giving his enemies a 99% chance of killing him(barring something like a riposte against a single foe), in the case of Witchers the very reason they can do it is because of their superhuman reflexes.

It's why they're such efficient monster hunters compared to your average human because they can keep up and surpass the speeds of most monsters, their entire fighting style is based on pirouettes, half pirouettes, feints, parrying. Spinning is NOT a sane technique in actual combat for any human to perform and yet despite TW2's rigid 'solider' like animations, Geralt does spin a lot.

CDPR has their own team of combat experts and they're advising on exactly that so while I may like to think my knowledge on medieval combat is slightly above average, I can certainly not match theirs so I'll let them decide what's best.
(The only thing I miss is the lunging attack from TW2, maybe it's been discarded for damaging multiple foes instead so that's cool.)

Eitherway, it's too late for the design to change anyway but by all means, discuss away.

The spinning attacks, if used properly aren't useless or dangerous for the executor: simply CD Projekt red takes some freedom in implementing them.

Like the spinning backlist in unarmed fight, to make the spinning slash work and not to kill yourself, you have to strafe to the side and away from the enemy's attack radius; then you can perform it. In general it is used as a counterstrike and to break the momentum.
Of course it has to be used sparingly and when the opponent doesn't expect it.

Anyway, instead of the spinning slashes, I'd prefer a deep pirouette dodging system, with specific attacks out of the spin and more variety in the offensive options.
Up until now, the attacks seem all alike...
 
I myself am waiting to get my hands on. Thus far it does look pretty cool. Maybe not 100% effecient, but for me that's where it lives out the most, having cool fights that look cool and not 100% realistic. I believe in the books the most spin Geralt made was a half circle. In the first game he would spin around enemies when you dodge to the side (lets forget the second game's dodge system for now :p ). What I did love and still do, is when Geralt was in Group stance (first game) and to attack on all sides he would spin. To me it made sense, maybe not realistic, but it definately looked cool and gave me a sense that Geralt was a bada**. I am satisfied with the fighting thus far. Seems like a good balance between flashy and deadly moves....
 
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