Annoying game mechanics / design choices

[jacozilla]

Annoying game mechanics / design choices

Obviously, there's going to be large and varied range and substance of opinions on just what is and is not annoying, and by how much - or how little. But for me, the ones I reserve most my limited ire because overall the game is so good - are the mechanics that have no option and little to no work around.

Specifically, for me I have two main beefs -

1. Auto select of weapon - not talking auto sheathe here, but the opposite - auto draw of silver or steel sword. This made it past the QA filter likely because in all fairness it doesn't come up that often - but when it does - it sucks big time.

There is one quest in particular, won't say which or what for spoiler avoidance - just that you are forced into a mixed species fight - one kind silver sword, one kind steel. Unless you know the fight, and specifically hop all around to avoid this game mechanic, what happens is your character goes into an indecisive frenzy and keeps sheathing / pulling out the "right" sword.

Anytime one of the "wrong" type gets near you, your character pauses to sheathe and redraw, only to do it again a second later when the other "wrong" type gets near you. It is maddening. Again, not a frequent occurrence, but when it happens - just sucks.

I would much, much rather take a few whacks with my non-optimal sword - but still have a sword, any sword, out and in the fight - then be forced to be unable to take a swing because game decides I need to sheathe and redraw the "right" sword.

2. Playing as Ciri - I hate it, I despite it. I will of course play a 2nd and probably 3rd play through to try different stuff, but I gotta say, the only cause for even the briefest hesitation to want to replay the game would be because of having to play as Ciri - with NO dodge.

I don't mind playing as Ciri the character, what I mind is the utter lack of the single core component to thriving and surviving in death march mode.

Everyone is going to have their own favorite or 'OP" build. But I'll go out on a limb and say no build that does well in death march ignores the mechanic of dodge.

Ciri has a teleport that people call dodge, but it is a far, far cry from Geralt's minimal distance side step dodge. A side step dodge is so utterly good at countering that if I had to choose I'd lose Quen in a heartbeat vs keeping side step dodge. Which of course Ciri has neither. She has compared to the minimum distance side step dodge, a super long teleport side ways or any direction "dodge" that is fairly useless compared to what normal side step dodge gives you.

So there it is - one pretty rare occurrence, but when it happens it just makes you hate the game for that 2 minutes you need to deal with the scenario that forces you to be a draw-redraw monkey, and the no-side step dodge Ciri forced play that makes me want to uninstall the game for the 2 hours or so you are forced to play without dodge.

 

[mbaker51591]

Lackluster sailing, undersea and underwater combat!

Sailing in the game felt like a chore to me due it is not that so immersive. Really sailing a boat felt like a motor boat. It will be really cool that doing some signs animation explaining why the boat felt like a motor boat. Especially in Velen and Novigard!Yes sailing skellige is ok but seriously fighting the creatures of the sea is just pure annoyance.

Diving undersea there are no fish and whale. It really felt halfass. Crossbow felt OP in undersea. Really i am fighting a monster that is specialize in underwater combat then died w/ one hit of the crossbow. It will be better that Geralt can use sword in underwater combat but not effective that's why he needs to use crossbow. Also i am lvl 30+ and undersea creature cannot do any damage w/ me.

Halfass implementation of Crossbow! Yes crossbow is good at fighting flying monster and OP in undersea combat but that's it.
Personally i think crossbow suppose to be effective w/ humans and non-humans but not so effective monster due it got an achievement in the game but it really felt boring to the crossbow achievement. Even the crossbow ability is lackluster.

Buggy Crafting Mechanic! Yes the patch will fix this but seriously it is also one of the core of the game if i am going alchemy. Crafting Mechanic of this game is not properly tested!!

Enemy lvl Scaling! Personally i think mobs of the main quest suppose lvl scale w/ my lvl to give me more challenge w/ combat.

 

[YrdenNerf]

I didn't finish the game but playing Ciri is really easy for me, playing on 3rd difficulty !
She regen health naturally, has an OP finisher to attack all enemies, and for your regards on her dodge - just dodge once back and then forward, this basically the way i can kill anything in the game without getting hit, she does this faster than geralt !

 

[SmilingSword]

Weird things like potion toxicity being different from decoction toxicity, but bonus potion duriation working on decoctions. Food regenerating health. Underwater controls. Death March being so damn easy. The starting armour not having a full set of 4 different level upgrades.

 

[TheWotcher]

Inventory tabs
Books, notes, potions & decoctions, oils and bombs being in the same tab in the inventory is not that good. IMO, books and notes should have their own tab. Bombs could maybe be in the same tab as weapons, too.

Auto-draw and auto-sheathe
It gets very frustrating when Geralt just decides to sheath his sword in the middle of a fight for no reason and tries to fight with his fists. Then it takes about 5 seconds before he can draw it again, no matter how much I press. I'd love them to just give us an OPTION to turn it off somewhere in the options menu.

Sailing
Having a bunch of Sirens eat my boat every single time I go sailing in Skellge is not fun at all. It completely put me off sailing so I just fast travelled when I needed to get to an island. Lowering the number of Sirens above the ocean would be nice.

 

[MaIkavian]

I agree about the weapon auto select. Even though it happens very rarely that you are in a situation where you need to switch between the weapons, when it does, it is annoying.

But honestly, i can not agree about Ciri. I feel Ciri to be completely overpowered because of her dodge/teleport ability.

First, she attacks faster then Geralt. This is most noticeable when fighting humans because once you exhaust their stamina they are dead. They don't have time to regain their stamina and react, unlike when fighting humans as Geralt.

Second, you can dash/doge/teleport behind enemies THROUGH them, again, unlike Geralt. Meaning, you can start the fight, land one or two hits, teleport behind them, land another one or two hits, repeat. If by any chance things get messy, i start dashing around the map, till she regenerates enough health.

At first i also had issues when fighting as Ciri, but once i figured this out, i found it way easier to kill stuff as Ciri then as Geralt.

 

[shagwell142]

So you like the character with two swords but cant stand his two swords, but you hate the character with only 1 sword...


I dont see any issue with the sword drawing, you can even pre-draw before you go into combat.

I havent had the problem of him alternating drawing swords cause two differnt mobs are together. But I wont shrug it off that it dosent happen. However, ill bet it dosent happen very often...

so far the most annoying game mechanic is not having every game mechanic.. since so many people here are thinking they are playing games that are custom tailored to their personal prefrences.

if you talked about the horse random stopping, or maybe too much momentum underwater.. id have taken this more seriously.... seriously...

 

[TNMike875]

Auto-sheathing- Not just what the Op talks about but Geralt sheathing after combat. I draw my sword manually going into combat, he will sheath after its over even though I can see more mobs just twenty feet away. If I draw the sword manually don't sheath it until I do it manually.

Cir-Despise playing as Ciri. She's stupidly over powered and the game play is so different from what I want when I play Witcher. She is a Dragon Age character in a Witcher game.

Inventory- Not only are too many things shoved together making it too cluttered, but why when I go to the herbalist are things not organized alphabetically?

Sailing- Not too bad except the sirenes damaging your boat...why? They're an annoyance.

Underwater combat-Would have rather not have any mobs underwater than have to one shot them with a crossbow. If you couldn't make a real underwater combat system then just don't have any at all.


Edit: Want to add having to go to KM to get pieces of the latest DLC armor. Its level 14 armor but to get to KM you have to finish a quest thats about 3/4 way through the main quest meaning your going to be in your 20s.

 

[mbaker51591]

Auto-sheathing- Not just what the Op talks about but Geralt sheathing after combat. I draw my sword manually going into combat, he will sheath after its over even though I can see more mobs just twenty feet away. If I draw the sword manually don't sheath it until I do it manually.

Cir-Despise playing as Ciri. She's stupidly over powered and the game play is so different from what I want when I play Witcher. She is a Dragon Age character in a Witcher game.

Inventory- Not only are too many things shoved together making it too cluttered, but why when I go to the herbalist are things not organized alphabetically?

Sailing- Not too bad except the sirenes damaging your boat...why? They're an annoyance.

Underwater combat-Would have rather not have any mobs underwater than have to one shot them with a crossbow. If you couldn't make a real underwater combat system then just don't have any at all.


Edit: Want to add having to go to KM to get pieces of the latest DLC armor. Its level 14 armor but to get to KM you have to finish a quest thats about 3/4 way through the main quest meaning your going to be in your 20s.

Personally i really don't have problems w/ the siren due you will get a horn to stop the siren from flying and temporarily stop them. It will be really cool while sailing the boat, you could use the horn. Also the problem w/ sailing is that is just to dry. There are no underwater monster boss only bunch of cannon fodder. Like hell to only to defeat the siren just go underwater and kill them there w/ a crossbow. Also in deathmarch fighting underwater and if your high lvl than them and have proper gear you will not get damage at all. Compared to fighting them in land drowners and sirens could kill me if iam not careful enough even though i am higher lvl than them.

Seriously are Drowners known to drown people but are really weak in the game in underwater.

 

[Mohasz]

I'd love if you could boost your speed while sailing with Aard. ^_^

 

[moonknightgog]

I agree about the auto select of weapons, and I partially agree on Ciri's powers. There's should be just ONE blink, but she should doge when you press the DODGE button. And should have counter attacks.

 

[ONLY_ONCE]

I still think, we should be able to map our own controls.
I still want to move a couple buttons, so I can draw/aim my crossbow with with left trigger and fire my bolts with right trigger
I agree about playing as Ciri, I'm not a big fan of it either.. but then again, I have zero interest in playing Gwent either.. It would be so nice to turn off all Gwent quests/cards for me personally.
Hey maybe with that option, the game will run even better, who knows.. lol

 

[IoriYagami76]

I'd love if you could boost your speed while sailing with Aard. ^_^

LOL Clever !

 

[bobbie424242]

A few annoyances:

- The retarded inventory

- equiping weapons with oils is tedious and repetitive. same for repairing armor/weapons.

- No unified movement. I mean Geralt can be in normal mode, combat mode, underwater mode, boat mode, .... Geralt feels like an inflexible puppet.
He sucks at climbing anything that the developer does not want you to climb, in difficult to predict ways. He can get stuck in places he cannot get out, forcing you to reload a saved game. All of this remembers you are just playing a video game after all.
Movement is much more coherent, unified and immersive in FPSes.., say Skyrim,

- camera/movement in tight interiors

- the fucking fall damage

- auto sheathe

- ennemies hardcoded to stay whitin their very small zone, rather than chasing you for a while

 

[Gerudon]

Which of course Ciri has neither. She has compared to the minimum distance side step dodge, a super long teleport side ways or any direction "dodge" that is fairly useless compared to what normal side step dodge gives you.

What? Ciri's short range teleport brings you directly behind the enemy, making her parts really easy for the most parts. Until Geralt gets a lot of the op skills and items, she is actually stronger than Geralt in my opinion.

The biggest problems I have with the game are:

a) the interface, specially the inventory is just terrible and clumsy
b) overall controls, specially movement with horse or on foot are very imprecise and sluggish, even with a gamepad.
c) the textures of a lot of walls, rocks and objects are for whatever reason about at least one if not two steps below the rest of the textures in the game. They stick out and look really bad and I hope a texture pack will fix it sometime
d) THE F****** GLITCHES AND BUGS EVERYWHERE and I haven't even suffered from some of the worst problems other people had, but the game still is full of them. Items don't work, Quests don't finish, Skills don't do what they are supposed to and so on and so fore.

 

[moonknightgog]

- equiping weapons with oils is tedious is repetitive. same for repairing armor/weapons.

Uh...wut?

 

[jacozilla]

A number of people have responded based on either an error interpreting my OP, did not fully read, or the one troll who is just that. I should have highlighted in bold and will do so now - side step dodge - Ciri has no equivalent.

I never called Ciri weak, not OP, etc - not liking is not equal to calling her weak.

Yes, she can be OP. Yes, she can port through a mob as an alternative to regular dodge - but my main point was that she has no side step dodge, which is simply put - a core mechanism of surviving death march fights. There is no hardcore mode ala Diablo in W3, but if there were, side step dodge would be the sole reason you might be able to complete the entire plathrough on DM without a single death.

I wrote the post right after doing again the escape from temple isle scenario - but instead of running try fighting the endless respawning group at base of the hill - the 16 mobs or so that respawn infinitely. Her lack of side step dodge shows up particularly frustrating in that scenario

 

[Smurfin]

Ciri's fast teleport move is not bad, you can move forward at an enemy and hit from the back. Why side step or roll when you can just position yourself better, at the back of the enemy.

 

[KOngo-Otto]

- equiping weapons with oils is tedious is repetitive. same for repairing armor/weapons.

start---> extreme_Facepalm.exe

 

[SmilingSword]

Let me zoom out on the map more.


Also I have to say I dig the Ciri sections of the game, nice little change and she is so OP, that if you don't like them, you can just power through them in a few mins tops. The hardest thing you ever have to do as Ciri, is win a piss easy horse race.