Combat in The Witcher 3

[laughingjoker]

A post has been deleted (it's been deleted twice now, that can earn you some formal warnings so try not to repeat it). As I said, please, stay on topic and try to be polite.

Wait you deleted my post? What was wrong with it? Also you need to delete it again sorry thought the forum was messing up.

Edit: Alright no justification was given for the removal of my post by the moderator, and I was sent a warning. Top class act you guys are running here I think I will go ahead, and log off permanently as I refuse to participate in any forum run like this.

 

[randyrhoads]

Back on topic:

That dodging animation is bad or wut? AMIRITE?

 

[Pedrolago]

back on topic:

That dodging animation is bad or wut? Amirite?

hell yeah

 

[ReptilePZ]

Back on topic:

That dodging animation is bad or wut? AMIRITE?

Yeah, it's a bit... dodgy. I've said it before (in this very thread probably): the dodge animations from TW1 are the best I've seen across all three games so far.

 

[HellKnightX88]

As stated before you'll have dodges, pirouettes (and even rolls IIRC), so it's not all going to be just dodges. As for the dodge animation itself it could use some work here and there (feels to jerky).

 

[shawn_kh]

As stated before you'll have dodges, pirouettes (and even rolls IIRC), so it's not all going to be just dodges. As for the dodge animation itself it could use some work here and there (feels to jerky).

You see I don't get it. When are we going to pirouette and when are we going to dodge ?
Isn't pirouette basically a stylish way of dodging ?
So I say CDPR should just get rid of the dodging and just work on pirouettes, because pirouettes look more badass and they fit Geralt's style of fighting more.
Normal people dodge, and fast, strong,mutant, sword-master witchers pirouette because they are too cool for dodging like regular people.

 

[HellKnightX88]

I would assume it's there to provide more variation in the movement. They can serve the same exact purpose but there's more variation there and TBH I really like that idea/implementation. Who knows, maybe the pirouette dodge is functionally different as well in that it opens up opponents to hits instead of just avoiding.

 

[kissybyc]

Maybe the pirouette is activated by dodging while holding the block key? I can see it as a "block-dodge." Of course that means the dodge key should better be mapped on the mouse.

 

[kissybyc]

Another issue (don't know if it's been raised yet), but do you guys find the combat a bit too... rhythmic? It seems Geralt slashes people now like Dante from DMC - a bit too fast and brisk to be realistic. This does strengthen the feeling of combo (1, 2, 3, 4....) but I find it taking away some of the beauty of body animation as the attacks lands too quickly. But perhaps it's just me.

 

[Vigilance.492]

I found the dodge animation alone to be fine, the issue seems to be when he would dodge immediately after striking or dodge in rapid succession... The flow/blending between the animations looks a bit wonky.

Hopefully even without the 'Glorious Polish Animator' they can still have used these "polishing months" to tighten it all a little better, but even in its current state it's certainly far from looking bad and definitely flows better then TW2.

 

[Osiris666]

[video=youtube;mjT4JepA-Vc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjT4JepA-Vc[/video]

Hey, thats my group!

 

[Lieste]

Where you are going wrong is not opening with Axii or Aard.

 

[topeira]

Will enemies be dynamic and unpredictable or have patterns?

hi guys.

im just curious if enemies, especially the human ones, in the witcher 3 will be dynamic or pattern based.
what is that?
pattern based is like the enemies in Batman:arkham or shadow of mordor or most Assassins creed games - you have enemy types and each type is extremely simple and predictable and there is a way to defeat him if you know the move combinations. for example - there is the weak enemy who never blocks (just attack until dead), there's the enemy who has a shield who always block (do a move that removes the block and the attack until dead), the enemy that always dodges (wait for him to attack you then counter) etc etc. this type of approach to enemy AI is , what i call - binary. their behavior is always the same.

then there's the dynamic type - an enemy has several ways to react and sometimes he does one thing and sometimes the other - an enemy can block your, but sometimes he just takes the hit, or an enemy might sometimes dodge you, sometimes parry you. sometimes an enemy will do a normal attack and sometimes a power attack.

Do you know Which kind of AI will be in TW3?

 

[The_Crow.410]

hi guys.

im just curious if enemies, especially the human ones, in the witcher 3 will be dynamic or pattern based.
what is that?
pattern based is like the enemies in Batman:arkham or shadow of mordor or most Assassins creed games - you have enemy types and each type is extremely simple and predictable and there is a way to defeat him if you know the move combinations. for example - there is the weak enemy who never blocks (just attack until dead), there's the enemy who has a shield who always block (do a move that removes the block and the attack until dead), the enemy that always dodges (wait for him to attack you then counter) etc etc. this type of approach to enemy AI is , what i call - binary. their behavior is always the same.

then there's the dynamic type - an enemy has several ways to react and sometimes he does one thing and sometimes the other - an enemy can block your, but sometimes he just takes the hit, or an enemy might sometimes dodge you, sometimes parry you. sometimes an enemy will do a normal attack and sometimes a power attack.

Do you know Which kind of AI will be in TW3?

Well in the 35.min gameplay the bandit with the shield didn't stay only blocking he attack Geralt various times so they AI of the bandits are not as simple as the AI of the enemies of batman and AC, and we are only talking about bandits i think there gonna be more advanced enemies and with a more diverse AI.

 

[topeira]

Well in the 35.min gameplay the bandit with the shield didn't stay only blocking he attack Geralt various times so they AI of the bandits are not as simple as the AI of the enemies of batman and AC, and we are only talking about bandits i think there gonna be more advanced enemies and with a more diverse AI.

well obviously the shield guy attacked. in any type of AI an enemy would attack. otherwise what would he do there? wait to die?

the point is more about defense and reactions and less about attack and initiative. the pattern enemies have usually one attack and one reaction to being attacked. usually they have one type of attack and when you attack them they always react the same - either get hit, block or dodge.

skyrim is an example of AI that isnt pattern based. they have a pool of moves they can do and they react from that pool differently every time.
a shield enemy in skyrim might block, might bash, might strafe, might just get hit, might attack, might power attack..... skyrim's enemies are not that sophisticated without mods but that's the general idea - they are not predictable.
batman or shadow of mordor have enemies with shield as well but this are very pattern based - they ALWAYS block, you can NEVER counter their attack, you HAVE to jump over them and attack from behind. such an enemy will NEVER suprise you. NEVER behave differently. NEVER require a different tactic. attacking with the "roll over and hit from behind" will NEVER fail. everything is very binary. very static.

what we've seen in the aformentioned witcher 3 video seems like a batman kind of enemies - the enemies without the shied NEVER blocked. the enemy WITH the shield ALWAYS blocked. to kill him geralt waited for a counter which disarmed him.
so im wondering if there is another clip that shows a behavior that isnt static. patterned. predictable....

also, im not talking about beast and moster AI because it makes sense that enimals cant counter, block or parry. they just attack. it's more obvious that they will be predictable offence based kind of AI.

 

[freakie1one]

@topeira, considering the first two Witcher games were pattern based, and the enemies shown in the trailers/gameplay of TW3 were also pattern based, I'm thinking it's safe to assume this is how the game will be. Most of the AI in TW2 was very simplistic and only characters such as Letho actually had more versatility but even he was pattern based. Once you figured out the proper combination to hit him (strong attack, weak attack, dodge) then killing him was also easy and predictable.

Pattern based combat is definitely not as much fun as dynamic combat (like that found in Sui Generis); however, if they improve upon what they had in TW2 then it should at least be fun for a few playthroughs before becoming too easy and repetitive. Luckily the Witcher games have a strong story and combat isn't the main focus of the game despite being a large part of it.

 

[Garrison72]

Which is why I want them to add aspects like timed combos and parries. It's safe to say the latter is in, but there's no telling how long we can spam attacks before an enemy blocks, or what even governs that. This was a flaw in TW2, where the combat system got short shrift because the number of strikes you could string together was fixed, and it could be accomplished by button mashing. If they can build on that in a meaningful way, vary enemy patterns more, I think the combat system will be great. Just look at Dark Souls, it's heavily based on patterns and move sets.

 

[topeira]

most games are pattern based, but i have a feeling assassins creed UNITy will be dynamic. looking at combat from various off-screen videos of the game seem to show the same enemy types reacting differently to being attacked. you can see the same enemy gets hit, parries, counters and rolls away. should be interesting to see if im right and to what extent.
i also read that parrying in ACU needs to be in kind of a delicate timing and also by moving Arno in the right direction. seems satisfyingly more comlex than before....

in the witcher i hope there WILL be a challenge defeating even two humanoid enemies of the same type because how they behave (not because they do not get staggered by hits or do massive damage yet take little). i dont like it when the reason why an enemy is tough is because when you hit him he doesnt react but keeps attacking. in many cases that feels like a forced challenge in an un-fair way.
Ryse had a small mix of predictable patterns and some dynics in AI behavior, though only in the offense department. certain enemies would do weak AND heavy attacks, which each required different way to defend yourself. i dont think this will be the case with TW3 but i am hopful there will be something interesting with it.

there is a very big difference in the way geralt blocks in TW3 since you can block AND move at the same time, though i havent see what happens when geralt blocks. not that i can remember.
in the E3 video i think he just blocked passively and returned an arrow. i hope that in order to open up an enemy for a counter attack more is needed than to hold down the block button and that's it. something timing based will be prefferable.

 

[EliHarel]

Taken from the Interviews thread:

To me, there almost always needs to be a penalty for blocking/parrying, or else it just makes many combat encounters boring and way too easy. God of War had this issue, Assassin's Creed has this issue... There's no penalty and so all you do is hold down a button and you literally cannot die. I have 0 issues with the change away from Vigor as a separate point based system, but you NEED some kind of payment for parrying/blocking in an action game like this or else it'll become like the pre-patched Quen in TW2 for TW3, which becomes a some super dumb easy way out for tons of encounters in the game.
Dark Souls has endurance consumption, Batman requires timing, Witcher 2 had vigor... You need something.

I definitely do not want it to amount to holding down a button like in AC. But neither do I want it to be limited by energy, because that mechanic encourages the TW2 playstyle of roll-spamming. Only this time it's dash-spamming. That's just a visual difference, in essence it's the same thing. I think the game should encourage you to stay in the thick of things, and give you the tools to do so. That's why I'd go for simply a timing-based parry, like in Arkham.

Unless you would add some penalty to dashing away as well. So long as jumping away is free to use, at all times, and parrying is with a penalty, then the scales are tipped in the dash's favor.

Either way - definitely no "hold down constantly to parry no matter what" method. That's extremely dull. At the least make it timing-based.

Actually, I don't see any situation where taking away the need for proper timing to parry is good. There has to be a need for proper timing.

 

[Vigilance.492]

Cheers for bringing it over here, I did think if I'd kept going over there it was veering into problems.

Anyway I 100% agree. I wasn't necessarily suggesting that parrying had to use energy... Just that there has to be SOME kind of payment for it.

Whether it's a timing thing as you described, energy related, or perhaps even an interesting combination of both, there just needs to be something that stops people from holding the button down infinitely.