The devs said that most of the combat animations are about one second long, sword attacks can be cancelled mid-swing as well. They learned from W2's animation locks.
Yes :yes:.
Are there any gameplay videos where you can see that?
Haven't heard anything about that yet, but I highly doubt it. At the moment we've only seen pirouette, dash and roll.
I believe if you look closely at the 35 minute demo you can see some of it in action, don't remember if it was the English version or the Polish one though. Will look it up.
EDIT: You can see Geralt dashing a couple of times before the combat animation finishes in the waterhag fight: http://youtu.be/dlq2t91ZUGw?t=21m39s
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I'll miss it.
My main gripe with Witcher 2 was that the same rinse-repeat strategy beat everything. There were different builds, but it still felt like roll-spamming dominated. That was no less true on dark mode. I didn't feel like I had to change my strategy for different enemy types much, except maybe Letho and the Kayran. I also felt like some tools were useless or too expensive to find their place in the short campaign, like lures+ traps.
Obviously campaign length makes W3 an entirely different beast.
I feel like Witcher 2's combat was a step back, it became too messy to really be strategic, it was like I was constantly trying to bring the battle back under my control (i.e. avoiding getting flanked), before which, planning and strategy can't really take place. Witcher 1 felt more 'paced', even though it was still real-time and flowing like its sequel, i'm not sure why? I also felt like there was more strategy to repositioning yourself, instead of just spamming it. Witcher 1 felt somehow more of a game of chess than Witcher 2. I just can't put my finger on what lies at the root of the difference. Maybe the ability to take more hits, maybe the automated dodging, maybe the ability to take potions mid-battle, maybe just the way attacks are more predictable and telegraphed in their animations.... not sure. I think the answer most likely lies in the more drawn out length of battles, healing resources mattering more--so that prevailing, long-term strategy is more important than whether or not you dodge this or that hit in the short term?
Witcher 3's combat looks superficially similar to Witcher 2's, but hopefully they perfect the formula this time.
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You'll be happy to learn that they are discouraging spamming roll this time around by making it harder to use, you also have more to choose from when evading, in the form of the dash and pirouette. All in all W3's combat looks to be an upgraded version of W2's combat, but in a good way.
Well, I remain skeptical. I couldn't even call Witcher 2's combat good, but I know that's not uncontroversial. I think it had the potential to be great, the ingredients were all there, it just wasn't balanced correctly. I'm quite fussy when it comes to such things. I also feel like part of the unresponsiveness on the PC version wasn't even due to the design but actual technical issues where input lag occurs. I wonder if they deem Witcher 1's combat to be worthless and containing nothing worth retaining.
You can't just hold the button to parry. Holding just makes you block attacks, while to parry, you have to time the attack button press at the same as the enemy attacks.
Sounds like turn based or ATB battles from Final Fantasy might be more up your alley, than say action combat. W3's combat is action oriented, so dodging an attack at the right time, parrying enemy attacks, movement in the battle field etc, matter more. Nothing wrong with either system, but this game's combat is most likely not for you.
Personally, I think this seamless action combat fits the new open world Witcher games perfectly. Giving him a few more spells like Blizzard, Thunder, etc, might also be cool, but I am not sure how well that fits with the books.
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I'm not that narrow in my interests, I enjoy various genres. I suppose I went into Witcher 2 expecting a certain kind of combat and seeking a certain kind of experience, and got another--having it framed as an RPG kind of does that. But I don't think Witcher 2 particularly excelled at the DMC/God of War thing either. I guess I just felt it could be more, and it was trying to be, or there wouldn't be these vestigial elements like parrying/riposte, that are obsoleted by rolling in the majority of cases. I didn't feel that there was particular nuance when it came to planning or strategy, or that I had to come up with a special tactic to take out a particular beast.
Fair enough. I haven't played W2, and W3 will be my first ever Witcher game, so I'm looking forward to exploring the battle system. From what I can tell though, action combat usually shines when the difficulty is high, like say you try to not take a single hit from the enemy. Trying to approach battles with that mindset might get you more out of the battle system than say normal mode just face rolling everything with those spells and some sword finishers. I guess there'd be other ways to do it, but I'd have to try this system first before speculating further.
Thanks for the correction. Witcher 3 will be my first Witcher game.
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I'm currently half-way through a dark mode campaign, and it feels the same as normal, just less forgiving. It doesn't really force me to change how I play, only that I do the same strategy with more consistency and vigilance. I honestly can't see a way for me to play this game in a smart way. In a manner of speaking, it's too hard to play smart. As I put it earlier, you're constantly trying to reign in control of the battle, to prevent it becoming a clusterf*** of blows raining down on you from everywhere. It's too chaotic to really think so you fall back on one single coping mechanism.
Maybe if I outright forbid rolling, plucked the spacebar out of my keyboard or something, then I'd discover new depth to it. Or I'd just get molested.
I remember playing W2 for the first time, on hard difficulty. I liked the idea of parrying, so I decided to focus on that-max points in parry, vigor earth runes. Closer to the end of first chapter my parry probably became more OP than dodge, I was basically standing and blocking everything nonstop like a boss(except big monster obviously). Then I saw my friend playing while focusing on signs, which made signs OP. Yrden, axii, aard-oneshot-killing spree. Didnt try alchemy tree, but heard that it can be ridiculously OP. Sure, you can still win by "quen run away" tactic, but its not like game forces you to do it.
My current build is magic-focused but I find keeping the vigor and doing more sword-damage still more effective. Sword strikes are an unlimited resource.
Yeah, alchemy was crazy. It meant that you needed to spend time on weapon oil and drinking potions, so it wasn't as 'smooth' as signs or swordsmanship. Without the potions, your were pretty weak. With them, however, and later in the game when your skills nearly erased all negative effects and increased the positive ones? It was crazy. You could end up dealing more damage than a swordsmanship focused build, as well as enjoying other things such as bolstered signs, quick health or vigor regeneration, and more.
The article by Kevin VanOrd got me really excited for the combat. I think he is a good journalist, and I trust him.
The bolded part in particular. The fights themselves are good enough to feel like rewards in and of themselves.
Sounds awesome. I like how you have to adjust the height of the bow to compensate for gravity (grr, I know there's a singular word for that practice, but it escapes me right now...). The last game I played that did archery well was Thief (the original, not the reboot).
Yes he liked it, Kevin also talked in Gamespot's weekly show and discussed more of the game, liking pretty much everything he saw, and saying the fights felt like an actual important and meaningful event, even the common ones he just stumbled upon like the sirens, and he went on again to highlight that he never saw a creature like that before in a game.
In terms of combat I already said in TW3 there will very likely be depth, but its hidden in the unlock tree, because it consists mainly of active abilities, a totally opposite design philosophy compared to TW2, in TW2 you look at two fights, or play them, one with a Geralt lvl 5, and another one with Geralt lvl 30, and they are extremely similar, stats and values are different mainly, this wont happen in TW3.
In TW2 the two main problems to me were the lack of accurate and useful moves, such as strafing and shorter quicker dodges, the lack of responsiveness of course, but the most important one was not being able to choose attacks precisely, that automated feeling was the key problem.
In TW3, even though they said millions of times that now 1 click equals one swing of one sec or less, we see many longer moves and leaps with spins and so on, the reality is that imo making every attack being able to be interrupted and lasting only one sec was not needed at all. There is no problem in being locked to attack animations as long as they are your responsability, the problem with TW2 then, was that animations would trigger randomly or unexpectedly and so you'd fall victim of the game's decisions, not yours.
If I die because an attack was too long or exposed but i chose to make that move in the first place then its all good, just regular proper risk-reward balancing of combat like it happens in all games. Since now in TW3 we can unlock specific moves and use them at will this should be mostly fixed, but I still dont know if you can control those leaping forward moves with jumps and all that.
One extremely positive thing I read only in 1 preview of the 30 or so I read, was that when you attack as Geralt, and the enemy is far away, Geralt just swings in front of him and hits the air, he doesnt jump forward, or moves and then attacks, he just does exactly what you told him, when and where you told him to do it, that indicates a change of priorities, the player control is now more important than making sure they dont have to calculate the right distance with automatic adjustments, as TW2 did, and its a major improvement imo. I dont remember if the journalist was locking onto an enemy or not however, I hope TW3 doesnt auto lock like TW2, which was another part of the problem.
In terms of combat I already said in TW3 there will very likely be depth, but its hidden in the unlock tree, because it consists mainly of active abilities, a totally opposite design philosophy compared to TW2, in TW2 you look at two fights, or play them, one with a Geralt lvl 5, and another one with Geralt lvl 30, and they are extremely similar, stats and values are different mainly, this wont happen in TW3.
In TW2 the two main problems to me were the lack of accurate and useful moves, such as strafing and shorter quicker dodges, the lack of responsiveness of course, but the most important one was not being able to choose attacks precisely, that automated feeling was the key problem.
In TW3, even though they said millions of times that now 1 click equals one swing of one sec or less, we see many longer moves and leaps with spins and so on, the reality is that imo making every attack being able to be interrupted and lasting only one sec was not needed at all. There is no problem in being locked to attack animations as long as they are your responsability, the problem with TW2 then, was that animations would trigger randomly or unexpectedly and so you'd fall victim of the game's decisions, not yours.
If I die because an attack was too long or exposed but i chose to make that move in the first place then its all good, just regular proper risk-reward balancing of combat like it happens in all games. Since now in TW3 we can unlock specific moves and use them at will this should be mostly fixed, but I still dont know if you can control those leaping forward moves with jumps and all that.
One extremely positive thing I read only in 1 preview of the 30 or so I read, was that when you attack as Geralt, and the enemy is far away, Geralt just swings in front of him and hits the air, he doesnt jump forward, or moves and then attacks, he just does exactly what you told him, when and where you told him to do it, that indicates a change of priorities, the player control is now more important than making sure they dont have to calculate the right distance with automatic adjustments, as TW2 did, and its a major improvement imo. I dont remember if the journalist was locking onto an enemy or not however, I hope TW3 doesnt auto lock like TW2, which was another part of the problem.
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Yeah, the game could feel willful at times, although you could eventually make it more obedient when you learned its nuances. The worst thing was when distance detection would glitch out, and it would perform that move that's like Scorpion yanked you into the fray yelling "get over here!" --only you're already right in front of the target, so you end up performing an attack twice as slow as the heavy attack in close combat for no reason.
Yeah, like one of the previews that complained about it said that its just like Witcher 2 where you have to spam quen to stay alive. However, that could very easily just mean that he didn't get acclimated with the new dodge and roll mechanics.