I would really hate this solution. It would dumb down the game even more.
I would really hate this solution. It would dumb down the game even more.
I care. And @Dubya75. And everyone else who supports this thread. I think you're confusing the word "balance" with "neutralizing". The concept of balance is maintaining consistent challenge throughout the experience, not making everything easier.
This is what I hated about the series. It's monotonous, boring, and frustrating. Reloading ad-nauseam and mashing the same button for 20 minutes straight does not an immersive challenge create. (Well, a challenge to patience, maybe.) I was frowning after those sequences. It wasn't challenging, it was trifling.
And this is something I loved about the series. Very similar to what I suggested about skills being "milestones". It also followed a training system that actually gave you something tangible (like new combat moves, extended chain attacks, etc.). I feel like Risen 1 had it down the best. Easily the most enjoyable combat out of all the "Gothic" games. And yes, there was noticeable disparity between fighting different types of enemies. Also a plus. (Incidentally, if you like the Gothic style of combat, have you ever played Exanima? Far cry from the same feel, but the same idea of timing and footwork.)
I'm not sure how much testers have been up to the task so far...and these "rune words" may end up breaking the balance even further. It took me, less than two seconds to see how messed up inventory system is in the initial release...how do these fundamental, obvious things are missed in a game where you have more than two hundred people working on it. Why isn't Axii exploit or Quen spamming still fixed?
They should hire Lautreamont and put him in charge of fixing game play, as he seems to understand it better than they do.
IMHO the easiest step to make the "balance" more enjoyable is simply removing the bonus/malus that depends only on the level difference. I know, there are mods for that. Hard monsters are hard like they should be, not more, and the same for easy monsters (not easier).
If you are good and prepared you can tackle almost anything at any level; if you want it easier return later with better skills and equipment. This should satisfy both who wants an hard challenge any moment and who want such challenge to be hard but not tedious.
After that we can discuss if and how Geralt/equipment should grow, how powerful the enemies should be from the beginning, how they scale among themselves (and not compared to Geralt; I can understand that different Drowners have different strength, but not that it is caused by the player's level). How skills and slots should work/interact (the actual system is pretty awful with both useless and overpowered skills; oils are lame, mutagens are lame). Remember, Geralt is a century old witcher, his power should not grow too much in the few weeks the game take place.
I don't know many games, but I think Dark Souls 2 is a good example to follow. Monsters are static, some weaker and some stronger, but they don't change with the difference of level. There are people that finished it at lvl 1 with starting gear (the almighty mace), because the most important asset is the player's skill and his knowledge, character's stats came later.
If you are good and prepared you can tackle almost anything at any level; if you want it easier return later with better skills and equipment. This should satisfy both who wants an hard challenge any moment and who want such challenge to be hard but not tedious.
After that we can discuss if and how Geralt/equipment should grow, how powerful the enemies should be from the beginning, how they scale among themselves (and not compared to Geralt; I can understand that different Drowners have different strength, but not that it is caused by the player's level). How skills and slots should work/interact (the actual system is pretty awful with both useless and overpowered skills; oils are lame, mutagens are lame). Remember, Geralt is a century old witcher, his power should not grow too much in the few weeks the game take place.
I don't know many games, but I think Dark Souls 2 is a good example to follow. Monsters are static, some weaker and some stronger, but they don't change with the difference of level. There are people that finished it at lvl 1 with starting gear (the almighty mace), because the most important asset is the player's skill and his knowledge, character's stats came later.
SigilFey, I think what Haplok is saying is how Gothic didn't for the sake of balance try to enforce artificial "You're not level high enough to X" rules on the game. If a player is crazy enough to tackle an enemy way above his level, than LET him. And it's no big deal, if you receive a weapon that's more powerful than it should be for your level...that's the whole point.
Balancing the game should feel intuitive, something that player doesn't even notice as something being enforced upon the game. Dark Souls is a great example with how they handled it with weapon/stat dependencies and alternate animations to go with it.
Balancing the game should feel intuitive, something that player doesn't even notice as something being enforced upon the game. Dark Souls is a great example with how they handled it with weapon/stat dependencies and alternate animations to go with it.
Well you can tackle any quest but with the weapon level requirements and alchemy being gimped in the beginning, it's an unrewarding slog to fight enemies even 5 levels above you. The level requirements for weapons should be the first thing to go, it completely takes the fun out of crafting and finding new gear. Find the right weapon, then you should be able to tackle a much stronger boss. Sometimes I think Diablo and the older RPGs had exactly the right idea with stats - you go to your first vendor and he has some magnificent piece of armor that you can buy right away...if you have ten zillion gold pieces. It was the economy that balanced things out. If you bought the armor early you were broke and had no money for anything else. But the game let you do it. TW2 was similar with crafting. You could craft some mad gear but damn you had to really scrape up orens. Everything about loot in TW3 is 'can't equip this, can't craft that, this is too low, this I have to stash till level 28, this is worthless, this lasted me one hour...'
Agree. Just finished yet another run with TW1 and TW2. I love that in TW1 we don't even bother with this. And TW2 has no level restriction so with a little farming for monsters parts I could craft everything I needed as it became available in vendors throughout the different acts.
While I looove Dark Souls, the process is wholly based on grinding. If what you are suggesting is adopting the same style of combat mechanics, then I agree -- just not as much grinding.
The lore of the Witcher is completely different to that of Dark Souls.
It is appropriate to "learn by dying" in DS, as you have an unkillable 'dead' character who just has to recover their position on death. Grinding and 'hard' difficulty is possible, but not to my taste at least.
Geralt is a vulnerable, mortal, but very proficient fighter. He isn't supposed to be continually buffed on elixirs, nor to end each fight 3/4s dead ~ though he does sometimes get wounded and even defeated when incautious, totally outnumbered or outclassed by magical means.
When it is necessary to be continually on 4-5 potions, spam signs in every fight, and still routinely die and reload.... then the combat isn't "too easy" even if most of the time you can walk away from fights without actually being dead. The context is important when contrasting the fights/deaths ratios.... anything other than lots/0 is not looking good for Geralt.
Unless you claim that you in fact never, ever suffered a death in the entire playthrough, except to bugs, like the boat catapult.
It is appropriate to "learn by dying" in DS, as you have an unkillable 'dead' character who just has to recover their position on death. Grinding and 'hard' difficulty is possible, but not to my taste at least.
Geralt is a vulnerable, mortal, but very proficient fighter. He isn't supposed to be continually buffed on elixirs, nor to end each fight 3/4s dead ~ though he does sometimes get wounded and even defeated when incautious, totally outnumbered or outclassed by magical means.
When it is necessary to be continually on 4-5 potions, spam signs in every fight, and still routinely die and reload.... then the combat isn't "too easy" even if most of the time you can walk away from fights without actually being dead. The context is important when contrasting the fights/deaths ratios.... anything other than lots/0 is not looking good for Geralt.
Unless you claim that you in fact never, ever suffered a death in the entire playthrough, except to bugs, like the boat catapult.
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Meh, it's splitting hairs. If the game makes it next to impossible to enter an area because everything is so powerful it insta-kills you before you can react (which is the case in all of the Gothic games), then it's basically the same thing as having an area closed off. RPG developers need to take a cue from the GTA model. You really have the run of the world, and you can experience the world from the get-go, and you know ahead of time when you are doing something that is going to end really, really badly.
Now, take that system and add more immersive combat, the ability to unlock awesome skills, and world altering events (and mountable dragons). Forget levels. You wanna know how I know an enemy in GTA is going to be tough? Because the cutscenes make them out to be a badass and they pull a pair of uzis out of their coat before I take them on. Not because they have a little red circle reading "28" over their head.
(What the @#$%! is happening to the planet? Did I just use GTA as an example of how role-playing should be done!? It's bizarro-world, man...)
Is a tough issue considering the type of Open World game Witcher is. I think we have to rely on exp from the main story too much, the side quests give almost nothing in comparison. I found that doing all the possible side quests at my level then progressing slowly through the story helped me keep things fairly balanced, with Death March difficulty making sure it didn't get too easy.
I hate grinding and randomness. It was a trick to lengthen game longevity in the '90 (along with waypoint saves), we should be able to do better now. For the same reason I quickly fed up with Path of Exile, Tochlight and Diablo 3, I grinded enough with the first two Diablo.
Pick just the best things from dark souls that could fit in the witcher world like equipment scaling (less), static world, not everything.
I would list a lot of changing but most of them sound like the enhanced combat mod that already exist, I really must try it in the next play through.
Just wait a week or two, guys. There will be a mod coming out that fixes all that stuff and more. The only mod you'll need. 
(Sorry platformers. Go email your respective companies and yell until they allow you to use mods. Or better yet, get a PC. )
(Sorry platformers. Go email your respective companies and yell until they allow you to use mods. Or better yet, get a PC.
)
Yeah because instead doing main quests by being overleveled is smarter....lmao. At least you would have a challenge and have your exp, points not wasted.
Also people mentioning GTA hope they are not serious about that....GTA isn't an RPG it's a totally different type of game.
And then there are those of us, oh wise sage, that appreciate what we have been given, warts and all.
Most people do, even who criticize it more than others. For games that turn out a disappointing, I simply don't care about leaving any feedback on what could be improved, like throwing away a poor book.
In this case, Wild Hunt is a classic example of when you create something outstanding, it will make it's lesser parts stand out even more. And we all know, they could do better here.
Personally I found that, when you can finally feel powerful towards the end of the game, is a good reward for grinding out the beginning of the game where you are weak and vulnerable. Especially Death March on NG+ which by the end of that you can still be killed by grey enemies simply because once the levels scale so high enemies are usually hitting pretty hard even if they are 10 levels below you. All these "its too easy its almost unbearable" kind of statements just sound like people wanting to be elitists to me.
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I've been thinking the same thing. Only I cannot find any reliable mods which do just that - remove the level dependent bonuses/maluses - from monsters, NPCs and Geralt.
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Oh, don't get me wrong, I do consider the game rather revolutionary in many aspects. And very enjoyable. Probably GOTY for me.
But it makes the failings in a few base, key areas more apparent and painfull. These entire level adjusting (+800%? Oh come on!), restricting (your level 4, so you can't use that level 34 sword you just found the schematic for even though you have all the components...) and gating concepts (this way is blocked by monsters 20 levels higher, so you can't pass.... oh and by the way, even if you are very skilled, we also buffed them with +800%, just to be sure) are just wrong.
If the devs didn't inflate the equipment stats so much with the levels and went more towards the "alternative" path (think Dark Souls equipment), instead of clear upgrade, this all would have been much easier.
Its a shame they departed so far from The Witcher 1. In so many aspects it was the best game in the series. Monster hunting, alchemy, economy!, books, itemization (I'll take quality over quantity any day), even character progression (system was weird... but at least rewarding). And none of that modern nonsence devs started introducing with The Witcher 2 and continued in The Witcher 3..
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