I really think that the combat from games like,ninja gaiden,DMC or metal gear rising would fit perfectly in witcher 3 combat.
Couple of things I noticed after rewatching:
-there are a few moments when the player apparently targets the enemy but Geralt just stands in place and swings. This is a remnant from TW2 and I'm sure it was a defect. You would have the target icon over the enemy, hit strike, and get nothing but air. So I'm wondering how Geralt will make contact now? It appears we have to run right up to the target and Geralt won't do it automatically when we hit the attack key, a la Arkham City. Now it almost resembles Sleeping Dogs in a way.
-I'm liking the variety in evasive maneuvers and it seems Geralt would fight like that, one hand ready to cast a sign, the other holding his sword low so he can dodge attacks. But I also would like to see some pirouettes and more traditional sword moves. Geralt in the first two games felt more authentic as a sword master.
-I noticed in the Harpy fight that Geralt performs finishers without stunning. I can't believe it never occurred to me, perhaps because finishers in the other games are essentially scripted. Now it looks like a super charged attack you can pull off manually, but you're still vulnerable so you need to pick the right time to do it. This is the perfect solution. It gives more control to the player and there can be a consequence for using it poorly.
-something is definitely up with the animation cycling. If he has 90 different types he appears to be using about a dozen of them. I see no thrusting attacks at all and there's no visible difference between light and strong. Every strike is him swinging for the fences. I've always thought of Geralt as the Ali of sword fighting, so they need to have more elegant and effortless animations that show he has tremendous power but he reserves it. Right now he's putting everything he has into each move and it doesn't fit, it doesn't make him look vastly superior like he did in the first two games.
-there are a few moments when the player apparently targets the enemy but Geralt just stands in place and swings. This is a remnant from TW2 and I'm sure it was a defect. You would have the target icon over the enemy, hit strike, and get nothing but air. So I'm wondering how Geralt will make contact now? It appears we have to run right up to the target and Geralt won't do it automatically when we hit the attack key, a la Arkham City. Now it almost resembles Sleeping Dogs in a way.
-I'm liking the variety in evasive maneuvers and it seems Geralt would fight like that, one hand ready to cast a sign, the other holding his sword low so he can dodge attacks. But I also would like to see some pirouettes and more traditional sword moves. Geralt in the first two games felt more authentic as a sword master.
-I noticed in the Harpy fight that Geralt performs finishers without stunning. I can't believe it never occurred to me, perhaps because finishers in the other games are essentially scripted. Now it looks like a super charged attack you can pull off manually, but you're still vulnerable so you need to pick the right time to do it. This is the perfect solution. It gives more control to the player and there can be a consequence for using it poorly.
-something is definitely up with the animation cycling. If he has 90 different types he appears to be using about a dozen of them. I see no thrusting attacks at all and there's no visible difference between light and strong. Every strike is him swinging for the fences. I've always thought of Geralt as the Ali of sword fighting, so they need to have more elegant and effortless animations that show he has tremendous power but he reserves it. Right now he's putting everything he has into each move and it doesn't fit, it doesn't make him look vastly superior like he did in the first two games.
You're right, they aren't there, and there aren't runcycles for terrain either (notice how water didn't hinder him?) Suspect they haven't finished recording all the animations, if their April Fool's joke is anything to go by.
That's not a finisher - it's a charged slash that occurs when you hold LMB (or in this case RT) for some time. If it kills, the resulting chopped-to-pieces death animation makes it look like a finisher.
Yeah, I'm not seeing those animations either, which is strange to say the least. About the effortless combat: I think only TW1 managed to pull that off, but there you didn't really have control over Geralt. TW3 looks no worse than TW2 in that regard to me.
That's the number of animations.
See it from a different point, a lot of the animations will appear contextually, when a geralt is hit a certain way and he dodges or attacks from that position he fell, or when he is fighting different types of enemies, big small. He's not gonna have a million variations of the same attack and why would he? The guy playing the demo had a certain style of play.
But that's objectively wrong. I thought similar until we found out that the Xbox demo was pushing 20 frames during combat.
Newest gameplay looks pretty smooth.
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After watching all the videos a good amount, and slowing them down a bit, I am certain it is the constant spinning around that is bothering people. Its simply way too much, its like he spins around every other strike. Someone above said something about an issue with animation cycling, and I think that is the problem.
Once again, I think it looks good, great even, especially for not being done yet. But the spinning needs to be toned down, its annoying.
Once again, I think it looks good, great even, especially for not being done yet. But the spinning needs to be toned down, its annoying.
For me the problem with the witcher's combat is the randomness of the attack animations. When I attack I want to know which animation my attack will use and how long it'll take. Instead I'll be getting different animations of varying duration and distance and that got me killed plenty of times in the witcher 2.
IMO Demon/Dark Souls games are the pinnacle of RPG combat.
IMO Demon/Dark Souls games are the pinnacle of RPG combat.
That's the first thing they said that they fixed though, there will be no random animations that lock you in, or light attacks having different animation times. You can cancel animations, and attacks will last the same, I mean heavy will probably last more than light, but all light attacks will last the same.
From what we've been shown so far, something that plagued TW2 still exists here - you need to attack, and immediately get out of the way. That he jumps instead of roll doesn't matter much besides being less annoying on the eye. It's a bit slow, whereas I was hoping for fast-paced swordfighting. Slash, slash, block, slash, dodge, slash. Not jumping away. Maybe it's possible and it's only the players demonstrating that chose this slower approach. I hope so.
They're randomizing animations but the attacks will take the same amount of time, which makes me wonder how they're implementing strong and fast styles now. I prefer that they randomize them, it's been a hallmark of the series from the beginning.
They have completely removed roll which i disagree. Removing an alternative is a bad design. Roll spam is bad in TW2. Removing is not the solution. It should be added in for more variety in combat. Just make it having a cooldown that you can roll once for variety in combat. Completely removing it is just bad design in my opinion.
The issue with randomized animation duration was that it broke combat flow and added unneeded difficulty: because some animations were longer than others you'd either have to break off your combo (combat flow) or continue and then get hit because of how slow Geralt is (unneeded difficulty).
It's a different animation that should look more realistic than all the rolling around. I get your point (removing an option is bad), I just see it as an improvement in this case.
I saw the newest gameplay, to put it simple - the animations looks accelerated and have inconsistent speed and the transitions between them are choppy.
In the trailers it looked much smoother
I also didn't like the spin-dodge animations, I prefer the TW2's Combat Rebalance 2 dodging really
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W2 looked better imo, even with the rolling I think it looked less "video gamy" than the megaman dodge, just my opinion of course
It is a videogame and 9 out of 10 decisions when making a game are taken for exactly that reason.
yep this has been exactly the issue for me since I saw the first demo, in the trailers geralt moved with the dancer like grace described in the books, that made me think they were really going for a revolutionary system that resembled fencing, something with the looks of AC but the challenge and tactical requirement of TW series. Add triple bolt crossbows to the mix and it would kind of kill the combat in the game for me.
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