Combat in The Witcher 3

[SatDude]

Shift + spacebar during a fight just made my Geralt perform a common roll. Several tries (with a lot of incoming damage as a result) with zero success.

Yeah, it's not possible. The guy who said shift+space works infight for him, must have a very exclusive build.

Further on that matter I really hope (if CDPR does not fix this) it will be moddable when the REDkit is released. I'm no modder so I could be wrong, but from what I've read in the nexus forums, it's not possible to mod that.


On another note, are you guys bothered by the input lag? I know it's in the game to make the animations look smoother and/or the game more "cinematic" ... but jeez the movement feels wonky. Walking stairs or narrow paths is only possible with slow walk .. or a lot of luck. Or is this only a mouse and KB issue ?
I also noticed in combat, in a lot of situations the actions are delayed as well. For example if you start the spin attack, and try to dodge or block mid way, it always finishes the animation first, which results in Geralt being hit. In general the actions Geralt performs look smooth, but feel very unresponsive. I would prefer "jerky" or otherwise weird looking animations but being able to react in a split second. But that's just me...

Thoughts ?

 

[WitchyWitcher]

Soma combat grievances

These are just some really minor things that annoy me during combat:

1) Wraiths spin move has some really bad hit detection and breaks quen bubble even with full stamina. You can be like a foot away from that move and it still hits and if that wasn't bad enough it breaks the quen bubble on the first hit leaving Geralt ready to eat the sword hit.

2) Single Arachnomorph attack counts as double. Specifically their short lunge attack. For the little ones it isn't that bad but for the big guys it can be a real problem. You can go from 100 vigor to less than half with this glitch ( I imagine that it Isn't intended to work like this).

3) Dog and wolves just bounce of the quen bubble. This isn't as annoying as the other ones but it does look funny when Geralt is in a huge pack of dogs and they just bounce off the bubble not even receiving damage.

4) Humans and their dumb running attack. I get the purpose of this move you want the enemy to get into melee range so he just charges like a jackass but the animation is so long (seriously they can run a good 15 or 20 feet during this attack) plus several AI can initiate the attack at the same time. It can just get really annoying when you have to deal with 2 or 3 enemies doing this move at the same time.

5) After the most recent patch I noticed that using the crossbow sometime locks Geralt in the firing and reload animation. On a game that requires you to be so mobile it can be a real hindrance just having Geralt stand there waiting to complete his animation which takes a little bit of time to complete.

6) Also on the subject os crossbows sometime when you fire the game just stutters. Its almost as if the game is loading the bolt you just fired.

Well thats about it. If you have any other thing that annoy you during combat please share. Also I'm playing on PS4 patch 1.10.

 

[Exentryk]

1) Wraiths spin move has some really bad hit detection and breaks quen bubble even with full stamina. You can be like a foot away from that move and it still hits and if that wasn't bad enough it breaks the quen bubble on the first hit leaving Geralt ready to eat the sword hit.

2) Single Arachnomorph attack counts as double. Specifically their short lunge attack. For the little ones it isn't that bad but for the big guys it can be a real problem. You can go from 100 vigor to less than half with this glitch ( I imagine that it Isn't intended to work like this).

3) Dog and wolves just bounce of the quen bubble. This isn't as annoying as the other ones but it does look funny when Geralt is in a huge pack of dogs and they just bounce off the bubble not even receiving damage.

4) Humans and their dumb running attack. I get the purpose of this move you want the enemy to get into melee range so he just charges like a jackass but the animation is so long (seriously they can run a good 15 or 20 feet during this attack) plus several AI can initiate the attack at the same time. It can just get really annoying when you have to deal with 2 or 3 enemies doing this move at the same time.

5) After the most recent patch I noticed that using the crossbow sometime locks Geralt in the firing and reload animation. On a game that requires you to be so mobile it can be a real hindrance just having Geralt stand there waiting to complete his animation which takes a little bit of time to complete.

6) Also on the subject os crossbows sometime when you fire the game just stutters. Its almost as if the game is loading the bolt you just fired.

1. Yes, their hitbox needs to be fixed.

2. This is intentional and works like this for other enemies too. One attack to remove Quen, and 2nd to deal damage. Would be stupid if a monster did his big super lunge attack and all it did was take your Quen off.

3. So the game has accurate collision? Great!

4. So you want the humans to just stand there and die? The combat isn't intended to be a cake walk.

5. Animations that lock you in to place are intentional. It's a form of balance. For example, Firestream was quite powerful, but it locked you in place, and took a while to catch hold of the enemy. This was a way of balancing the move. (Firestream has been nerfed to oblivion since then, and now it is utterly useless, but that's another matter).

 

[BoboTheMighty]

Agree fully on 4.
I've been practicing martial arts for more than 20 years, and I've NEVER seen anyone, not even a complete rookie who never held a weapon in his life, attack like that. You don't leave all of your vital organs open for that long during a sword fight, you don't need an instructor to tell you that.
I get what CDPR tried to do, to make them look like they've never had any training and swing with more force than skill.
But they went too far with it, and they leave more of an impression of being either completely drunk or retarded.
Entire human combat needs an overhaul...far less hit points, but faster animations and vastly better and more aggressive AI( more circling around Geralt, far less taunts, working as a tandem, etc).

 

[WitchyWitcher]

1. Yes

2. But the problem is that its full stamina and it's the only enemy in the entire game that does it. It should at least absorb the hit and not stun so you can dodge the second attack.

3. Quite the opposite it has bad collision. One attack should not count as two hits it should just count as one and enemies shouldn't bounce off the quen bubble.

4. I don't want I have no real problem with the attack itself just the duration and frequency in which it us performed.

5. You can move during firestream but slowly and I am talking about a hard lock up Geralt just stops moving to play the animation.

But thank you for your opinion.

---------- Updated at 02:15 AM ----------

I agree sometimes the human AI is too passive and just stands there. They need a better balance without the AI feeling overly agressive or overly passive. And not standing in front of you all the time.

 

[Exentryk]

2. It's not the only enemy that does that. Fiends, Cockatrices, Griffins, etc, all do two attacks with their lunge attacks. And no, it should not be changed. You can easily avoid the whole lunge attack. I am not sure what you mean about the stamina. Are you saying the lunges from Arachnomorphs drain your stamina?

4. So what would you like to have instead? Feel free to elaborate.

5. I know what you're talking about - the reloading animation. My point is that it is there as a form of balance. If you could just keep shooting bolts while running, it could be abused really easily.

 

[WitchyWitcher]

2. With big enemies like those I don't have a problem because they have huge tells but with smaller enemies its harder to evade since their attack animation is so short and the arachnomorphs attack in swarms so that lets the bad collision attack stack letting them stack damage stupid fast (just in case i don't mean the big leap attack i mean the short lunge they have on land)

4. The attack cost stamina (like a large amount so they don't spam it) and reduce the distance it has.

5. I don't mean that Geralt should run and gun with the bow he should still be able to move at the same pace he has when he casts firestream. The problem right now is that it's a hardlock that wasn't like that before. (Quick aim not precise aim)

 

[durundallives]

The AI pauses and doesnt press the attack. They are clumsy and slow and lack any kind of fluidity when they dont decide to completely ignore combat to try and 'jeer' at you (which always ends poorly for them). It really makes death march too much of a cake walk, and handicapping an unsatisfying second best solution even with the mods which make them auto behave less and 'dodge' more. Id rather ninja gaiden level of frenzy than some of the absurdity they engage in

 

[WitchyWitcher]

Geralt with the ability to use both his sword like Ryu would be cool.

 

[treen]

Rly wonder if devs played their own game or not

Cuz, the hit judgement in combat is so shit now, for the geralt's strike... well its only a problem when the Griffin, Basilisk, Forktail etc dont get hit even tho they r in swrod rage
But when the opponent's strike??? serious problem cuz the geralt's striking speed in kinda slow for the human enemy. Even the judgement of human opponent is way too fast so and too wide so even tho i dodged the attack, it still hit the player.
Well it's not a big deal when the damage is kinda normal, but when facing the boss monster like one at sewer in Heart of Stone??? this is annoying
And even the monsters in Heart of Stone r toooo unbalanced, when i fight with giant spider in cave for getting the jade spiders were too fast that i cant even follow them to attack, so i tried to flank, fake them. BUT none of them worked, spiders were fleeing when i approach to attack every time and the igni doesnt burn them too.
Srsly, is it a game to challenge? or a trap for fuck me?

 

[Sethanor]

Yrden for the Spiders or Bombs ... i thought the HoS enemies were a good change of pace compared to most vanilla enemies which you could mostly just button-mash to death.
I've tried a heavy-attack focused build but i didnt like it cause in group-fights it puts a huge malus on you which grows by the number of enemies and at some point not even bombs/signs can give you a safe opportunity to engage.
fast-attack focused builds are very fine though.

i think the combat system is fine in W3, but i would have liked if they put in at least 2 "stances" to choose between "acrobatic attacks" which include some avoidance or smth like that and "straight forward attacks" which make you combat style a bit more basic without all the spinning and stuff

 

[Brogan80]

Srsly, is it a game to challenge? or a trap for fuck me?

Oh, that classic dilemma!

 

[Pawel1995]

Actualy when we talk about the combat, I have to say that the first expansion does Boss fights well! They are special and not easy, so they improved quite a bit in comparision to the main game. In the main game some boss fights were just TOO easy, for example it was harder to fight a group of wolves than fighting the first Wild Hunt guy, which is pretty sad. Same about the ending of the game,

Spoiler

the final boss fight vs Eredin was done (for me) after the first try, while the fight vs Ilmerith was quite hard for certain builds

(Also sad that the probably hardest fight in the main game, was no boss fight but the "imbalanced" fist fight vs Finneas. Many people didn´t complete that quest, just because of this guy being so bugged.

 

[sprringfeld]

I hope the developers have sort of plan to add alternative combat movement (like the one we saw in 2014 gameplay trailers. Just different dodge moves). It's not like the witcher has a variety of arsenals. There is crossbow and bombs but they aren't as sofisticated as sword-play in terms of control and amination. Signs are great but not fit for primary weapon. They are only there to aid you, while swords do significant damage.

It gets tiring to play same style of combat repeatedly. It happens in any games.

 

[fynnoke]

Hello to all,
is anybody still active in this thread?
I´ve been thinking for some time, how combat system in a maybe new Witcher game could look like. So I´ve decided to be a little creative an I wrote down my thoughts. The file is attached. I would love to hear your opinions and maybe start a discussion.

greetings

 

[Riven-Twain]

So I´ve decided to be a little creative an I wrote down my thoughts.

That's quite the comprehensive document you have there. Commendations on the thoroughness and thought you've put into it!

 

[John1789]

Love the combat in the Witcher 3

 

[fynnoke]

Thank you. It took a while indeed. The goal was to bring a little bit more variety. It´s not that i didn´t enjoy the Combat in the Witcher 3 but just thougt there is more to it.