At the beginning of Combat...

[whitelion1284]

At the beginning of Combat...

Hey all,

I play on Death March and keep having this issue: I'm getting killed right at the beginning of combat b/c Geralt "hops" instead of dodges, or takes one to the face instead of parrying. In other words, the enemies are in "combat state" but Geralt is not. So I was wondering how other veteran players handle this? What do you do? How do you stay alive long enough for Geralt to wake up and realize he's being attacked?

My rig:
Haswell i5 4690k @ 4.5ghz
16GB Ripjaw RAM
Nvidia 980 ti 6GB
win 7 x64

 

[TWISTEDOUTLAW]

Spam the hell out of the space bar can help. I also find that drawing the appropriate sword manually puts Geralt in combat state if he hasn't him self.
I also found this very frustrating in the Arena of TW2. You start the round with enemies crossbowing you and neckers up to your waist while you wait for Geralt to actually be controllable.

 

[Vigilance.492]

I know sometimes if you SPRINT into combat the enemies will engage you slightly before the system automatically puts Geralt into a combat stance. I have had such an issue before, and after that I just ensured to always engage combat in a more methodical manner and just avoided "charging in" so much. The other possibility is that Geralt gets too far away from combat, he disengages, but then the monsters suddenly re-engage and that same odd over-lap occurs with Geralt being slightly to slow to re-engage.
Basically as long as Geralt draws a sword, he starts moving slowly and the camera pans back, you're good to go.

If the issues you're having are occurring when you're already 2-3+ seconds into combat, then I've got no clue, as apart from the aforementioned combat disengage scenario, I haven't personally experienced such a problem.

 

[whitelion1284]

Spamming the space bar results in this absurd looking "hop" that makes me want to punch my monitor, usually cos something is biting me in the ass while he does it.

It's not 2-3 seconds. It's usually little more than 1 or so, but on high difficulty it's enough to earn me a significant wound. The best example I can think of is right at the beginning of the game, when Geralt leaves the inn for the first time and ends up in the fist fight with the 3 thugs. I always end up taking a shot to the face cos instead of blocking or dodging Geralt just stands there with his hands at his sides. This kind of thing happens to me all over the place and when combined with him putting his sword away at every opportunity, getting shot by arrows I saw coming but didn't parry despite spamming RMB, or ignoring the enemy right next to him to swing in the general direction of an enemy thirty feet away and I wonder, time and time again: What the hell is going on?! What is Geralt doing?! Why doesn't this feel smooth and intuitive?

So, what am I doing wrong?

 

[Vigilance.492]

It sounds like just the nature of the game. Sadly when you've got a "combat stance" and "non-combat stance", with differing sets of input/controls, if the game isn't HYPER sensitive to the switch, then situations like what you're experiencing occur.

What you're describing sounds very much like stuff I've experienced, and you just have to kind of come up with as many preventative measures as you can (Like approaching every encounter carefully, methodically etc) and then sometimes you just have to shake your head at the game when situations out of your control occur (Like Geralt dis-engaging from combat based on distance and then getting hit with arrows). Ensuring you've saved frequently enough to not get too miffed by it.

Perhaps there's a mod (If you're playing on PC) that exists, or will exist eventually, that allows you to control when you go into the "combat stance", but other than that, there's not a whole lot that can be done about it.

 

[whitelion1284]

Thanks Vigilance,

aye, I'm not happy with the combat / non-combat states. There are far far far too many situations where the overlap is painful. Under attack and need to hop a fence? Tough. Under attack and need to climb a ledge? Tough. Under attack and Geralt hasn't noticed? That's called an arrow in the face. In combat and get too far away? Watch Geralt put his sword away just as the enemy circles back around and bites him in the naughty bits. At least there's a mod to stop that. IMO the same controls should always do the same thing. The game just is not smart enough to handle the shifts well enough and it's a shame, really, cos it really drags down the enjoyability of what is otherwise a work of art.

 

[TWISTEDOUTLAW]

Just out of interest are you using KB+M or controller? ( i understand your on PC...)

 

[whitelion1284]

KB+M