There is no shame in providing a crutch for those who need it. But when using it becomes mandatory for all players, that is what I have issues with. The witcher senses are a new gameplay feature in the series and the common problem with new and innovative things is that they often get too much focus and attention. People tend to show them off. Chances are the feature is somehow essential to the gameplay, meaning that like it or not you will have to use it. That is my largest concern with this game. The mandatory handholding.
Even if the Witcher Senses were mandatory to use in certain instances to be able to progress - would that actually be that bad? I don't think so.
On the contrary, I do believe that using them PROPERLY (i.e. without the minimap overriding the Senses' purpose and without that terrible environmental highlighting feature) would definitely add to the immersive aspect of the gameplay. Having to rely solely on the Senses to follow tracks/blood trails or to trace sound pings back to their source, things like that.
On the contrary, I do believe that using them PROPERLY (i.e. without the minimap overriding the Senses' purpose and without that terrible environmental highlighting feature) would definitely add to the immersive aspect of the gameplay. Having to rely solely on the Senses to follow tracks/blood trails or to trace sound pings back to their source, things like that.
Sorry, I propably should've made my point clearer. PROPER implementation of the senses would be a great idea and, indeed, a major factor in immersion. Perhaps a certain monster wouldn't even spawn unless you tracked it with the witcher senses? Following a trail with subtle hints would be great. Following a trail with half the screen glowing and telling me Climb here! Go there! would be horrible. The player should have a chance to fail and try again. What I initially meant to say is that the senses in the form that we know of, what we have evidence of, would be terrible (for me, in my opinion) to use if it was mandatory. Give me options to downgrade it to a less hand-holdy state, or make difficulty have an effect on it.
I remember in TW2 when
the witcher sense and the orange glowing blood stains didn't actually help me considerably. It gave me a general area, but it wasn't a direct line to him, and eventually I gave up searching and checked the internet for coordinates.
It might not be as bad as you guys are expecting.
you are chasing down Cedric via his blood trail
It might not be as bad as you guys are expecting.
@Atomo
Well, you could have drunk Cat also, which made the blood spatter even more obvious.
I used my medallion and had 0 issues following the blood trail, the only "problem" was that your Medallion 'shake' had a cooldown, and so you kind of had to just stop/start the whole way waiting for the CD to reset.
(This section below is more of a general comment than talking to anyone specifically)
The whole issue with the Witcher Senses I see is not the "easy" factor of it, I like the idea of having to follow footsteps and track a creature, and I don't even mind if the tracking is fairly linear because it'll still feel like you're engaged in the actual act of tracking even if a "game system" is doing most of the legwork.
The problem is all the additional and conflicting features like the Quest Icon & Direction Arrow.
Take Johnny for example, a much better solution would be to have the map display just a "general area" where he can be, like make it a really, really large area. Then you have to use your Witcher Senses, figure out which of the footprints on the ground might match the creature and follow them. Perhaps you guess wrong and it leads you to some creature that you then have to fight, or perhaps you get it right and you end up at Johnny's first go.
However in that situation there's no quest icon which tells you precisely where to go, there's no directional arrow pointing you in the right direction regardless, you are purely relying on the Witcher Senses and allowing that mechanic to truly shine. Why would I even bother activating the Senses if there's a Exclamation Mark telling me exactly where Johnny is and a directional arrow pointing me to the precise location anyway?
Either don't bother with this kind of "Batman Vision" stuff completely, or leave its implementation very simple like it was in TW2 (Highlighting loot-table items and places of power) OR alternatively TRUST your system completely and revolve lots of the games quest direction and discovery around its use, reducing directional arrows and precise quest locations to an absolute minimum. Either solution is fine, but not this over-exaggerated mix we see from the Demos.
Well, you could have drunk Cat also, which made the blood spatter even more obvious.
I used my medallion and had 0 issues following the blood trail, the only "problem" was that your Medallion 'shake' had a cooldown, and so you kind of had to just stop/start the whole way waiting for the CD to reset.
(This section below is more of a general comment than talking to anyone specifically)
The whole issue with the Witcher Senses I see is not the "easy" factor of it, I like the idea of having to follow footsteps and track a creature, and I don't even mind if the tracking is fairly linear because it'll still feel like you're engaged in the actual act of tracking even if a "game system" is doing most of the legwork.
The problem is all the additional and conflicting features like the Quest Icon & Direction Arrow.
Take Johnny for example, a much better solution would be to have the map display just a "general area" where he can be, like make it a really, really large area. Then you have to use your Witcher Senses, figure out which of the footprints on the ground might match the creature and follow them. Perhaps you guess wrong and it leads you to some creature that you then have to fight, or perhaps you get it right and you end up at Johnny's first go.
However in that situation there's no quest icon which tells you precisely where to go, there's no directional arrow pointing you in the right direction regardless, you are purely relying on the Witcher Senses and allowing that mechanic to truly shine. Why would I even bother activating the Senses if there's a Exclamation Mark telling me exactly where Johnny is and a directional arrow pointing me to the precise location anyway?
Either don't bother with this kind of "Batman Vision" stuff completely, or leave its implementation very simple like it was in TW2 (Highlighting loot-table items and places of power) OR alternatively TRUST your system completely and revolve lots of the games quest direction and discovery around its use, reducing directional arrows and precise quest locations to an absolute minimum. Either solution is fine, but not this over-exaggerated mix we see from the Demos.
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@Vigilance
Yeah, that "failsafe" to prevent the player from ever getting lost is ridiculous. Reminds me somewhat of Bethesda's apparent mortal fear that players should ever fail at anything and ragequit their games. Maybe at easy difficulty you would get both, the glowing senses with continuous trails and minimap-pinpoint-icons, and at hard settings just a general area where to search with a print every now and then?
Yeah, that "failsafe" to prevent the player from ever getting lost is ridiculous. Reminds me somewhat of Bethesda's apparent mortal fear that players should ever fail at anything and ragequit their games. Maybe at easy difficulty you would get both, the glowing senses with continuous trails and minimap-pinpoint-icons, and at hard settings just a general area where to search with a print every now and then?
That ridiculous trend isn't exclusive to any particular developer, it's widespread, even the norm, sure it's not even confined to gaming.
The REDs have said, but yes its been vague so all I'm saying is my hopeful interpretation, that they have the gameplay needs of a range of playstyles in mind, and are designing appropriately. I certainly hope this means optionable "bells & whistles".
exactly
Yeah, I hope that too.
I don't like being taken by the hand like a 5 year old.
After all The Witcher 3 is not supposed to be Assassins Creed, where you go from point A to B without having to do anything on your own.
And RPG has exploration as core pillar. Over-simplification and increased hand-holding are a death sentence for proper exploration and player expression.TW3 might be Open World, but it should be an RPG before that, and RPG first and foremost.
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It's quite simple really:
JUST have this little yellow throbbing bugger active for the APPROXIMATE direction you'd have to take to get to the 'mission area' and once you cross its invisible border and enter the 'mission area', have the game either (optionally of course) turn off EVERYTHING of the indicative sort (exclamations, arrows, overlays, etc) on/around the minimap or turn off the minimap completely.
This happening would be the signal for the player to switch on the Witcher Senses and look for corpses/killed prey, droppings, tracks, footprints, blood trails, sound pings, etc. in the vicinity to accordingly draw conclusions from resp. to follow or trace them back to their origin.
JUST have this little yellow throbbing bugger active for the APPROXIMATE direction you'd have to take to get to the 'mission area' and once you cross its invisible border and enter the 'mission area', have the game either (optionally of course) turn off EVERYTHING of the indicative sort (exclamations, arrows, overlays, etc) on/around the minimap or turn off the minimap completely.
This happening would be the signal for the player to switch on the Witcher Senses and look for corpses/killed prey, droppings, tracks, footprints, blood trails, sound pings, etc. in the vicinity to accordingly draw conclusions from resp. to follow or trace them back to their origin.
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That'd be a game from before Y2K. 
On Johnny having a marker... he's at a static location, his garden, info Geralt received bartering work from someone who specialises in precise infos, not difficult to imagine a "Here Witcher, let me mark that on your map". Roving mobs & non-static locations are another matter to be treated quite differently.
Thing is I'd support removing the map, but if you're going to carry one about with you may as well mark it.
On Johnny having a marker... he's at a static location, his garden, info Geralt received bartering work from someone who specialises in precise infos, not difficult to imagine a "Here Witcher, let me mark that on your map". Roving mobs & non-static locations are another matter to be treated quite differently.
Thing is I'd support removing the map, but if you're going to carry one about with you may as well mark it.
I played a game recently where it did this, and it felt right. Sure it was a little silly that NPC's were "marking" location after location on your (Hand Drawn??) little map, but I was able to forgive that because it's a game and it makes more sense than ending a conversation and my character just magically knowing exactly where to go.
I feel like CDPR wouldn't do something like that though because it would break their dialogue flow. They want cutscenes and dialogue to feel 'cinematic' and well written, and usually good writing doesn't include NPC's telling you after every conversation that they marked the quest location on your map, it's a little too "gamey".
Ultimately I can't think of the best solution (Well I can, it's the way Morrowind does it but I've given up on seeing that in games ever again), but there has to be a better way than the game having 3 different ways of telling you exactly how to reach your destination, and 2 of them completely contradicting the 3rd and making it redundant which is meant to be one of the big new "features" of TW3.
Just made me think, imagine a game mode where you have no fast travel and no precise markers, you must ask people around and mark stuff on your map to find the locations you're after... that'd be more than 100 hours of gameplay, right?
So, Morrowind?
Yea, I love Morrowind.
Its a fair point, but there may be a balance to be struck thats ok, even unnoticeable, maybe they did it already in TW2, those canyons & ravines near Kaedweni Camp for instance, kind of mazey, Geralt might get pissed at someone who didn't help him navigate them.
Obviously I agree about redundancy, its why I'm hoping its all optioned... fact is i'll take vocal direction, even text, over total absence or gps.
Its a fair point, but there may be a balance to be struck thats ok, even unnoticeable, maybe they did it already in TW2, those canyons & ravines near Kaedweni Camp for instance, kind of mazey, Geralt might get pissed at someone who didn't help him navigate them.
Obviously I agree about redundancy, its why I'm hoping its all optioned... fact is i'll take vocal direction, even text, over total absence or gps.
Yeah.
Although there is nothing wrong about GPS in general, the problem is if it becomes too detailed.
At the moment we got at least 2-3 mechanics/features telling us the same thing, that being where exactly to go.
Not only is it redundant as you said, it also makes the great idea of the Witcher senses which CDPR had, about studying about monsters, tracking the prey, hearing sounds and seeing marks and being able to follow trails, absolutely UNNECESSARY. Which means by making this so easy they throw one of their great ideas out of the window.
And then there is the problem that the Witcher senses are too obvious.
PS: You are from Ireland? Love the country, was there on vacation a few years ago, we went to Dublin and Galway, Burren National Park and in Connemara. Amazing landscape and VERY friendly people. We drove almost 300 km with the bike
Exactly. This"sense mode" makes actually sense in case of Witcher but it is actually irony that it feels totally unnecessary for the game because other tools help you enough. It is kind of ironic.
Also they could use it in right way as some sort of visual puzzle to help you recognize track and hunt monsters. Instead...meh. I´m basically repeating after you but my point is you´ve got the point.
EDIT: I´m currently reading a book about game desing and I came to understanding why are cliffs highlighted. It is simple way of showing players the ways where to go and how to explore the world which they could actually miss.
At the same time the solution of the problem could be way simplier without making stupidos out of players. You basically have first few hours of gameplay for inroduction of the game, right? So why not to force players in some early "one way" quest to find out how do cliffs look and that you can climb them. I think it would be enough for players to recognize that this is the cliff, I can go there and I can use them later in the game.
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PS: You are from Ireland? Love the country, was there on vacation a few years ago, we went to Dublin and Galway, Burren National Park and in Connemara. Amazing landscape and VERY friendly people. We drove almost 300 km with the bike
I think we are in concert regarding Witcher Senses and metagame provided directions. I've commented more in other threads about this so I've maybe kept my comments here concise, but basically I want to play with as little handholding as possible, I am prepared to work like a Witcher to find my prey, however I accept that to make the game approachable to a wider audience some handholding may be implemented, what I hope for is options or difficulty levels providing for all of us.
Yeah, I'm from Ireland, and my favourite holiday of all time was bicycling down that west coast, including those places you mentioned which are all fantastic... The Burren is an incredible "moonscape" of a landscape, did you visit Poulnabrone Dolmen and see the baby domens growing all round it?
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Hell, even if you want to highlight cliffs, why highlight them so BIG AND BRIGHT? Just a subtle red outline would be enough and it would hurt the visual experience of the Witcher sense a LOT less than what we currently have in the builds that have been presented.
Or at least have a "highlight cliffs on/off" option with default being "on".
EXACTLY
There is nothing wrong with handholding as long as it is optional. Just give us different levels of Witcher senses, like difficulty levels. Something like this: "Witcher Senses: Peasant, Soldier, Witcher" - "Peasant" would have it all, "Soldier" would show the tracks and all normally, "Witcher" would make the visual cues less obvious and "in your face".
Hell, even without the "Soldier" option it would be enough. Or just make it like the game "Thief (2014)" and give us difficulty and UI customization in some areas.
Just don't make it too easy for those who want the REAL Witcher experience. I mean after all this is why they included the Witcher senses in the first place, to improve the Witcher experience and make it more immersive.
I don't think so. But I saw it from a distance if I am not mistaken.
We also went for a 1-day-visit to the cliffs. Really amazing starring across the Atlantic and imagining that somewhere in that direction lies America
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Ahh the Cliffs of Moher no doubt, perfect for blowing the cobwebs off ye !
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If you liked that precarious sight, you should've taken the boat to Aran and visited Dun Aengus, hard to believe people needed such a defence on the edge of the world 3000 years ago, and these days must be one of the best places to view an unadulterated nightsky.
Actually closer than you think, if you could time travel back a few million years
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Curious case of "life imitating geography", that ancient boundary & separation has been quite closely mirrored by the medieval clan divisions & national rivalries, and of course the metaphor for later emigration to America is almost too much.
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So i was just thinking... is the "Witcher Senses" ability going to replace the "Witcher Medallion" ability? you know how in W2 you could press "Z" and it would highlight any loot that was nearby. Is that going to be incorporated into the "Witcher Senses" as-well or will they both be separate?
It's a good question actually.
The 35 minute demo for instance there is never a "Medallion ability" used (Like Z in TW2). However at the same time, when Geralt is meditating before the Werewolf battle there's an option to "gather brushwood" (Presumably a herb or some lootable item) and it isn't highlighted by Witcher Senses. Also the actual medallion on the UI doesn't shake, pulsate, or anything like that, ever ... All it ever gets is an extremely faint red glow when in Combat.
It could just be that the Demo was missing features or perhaps it's simply that what they wanted to show, where they went and what happened was so restrictive that they never encountered a situation where such features were shown, but it's certainly something that's a little up in the air.
Unless they've said something about it in an interview I missed (Or can't remember), then I guess it's just another thing we'll wait to find out about over the next 4.5 months.