Constructive opinions based on the gameplay videos that are released in 2015 (NO DOWNGRADE TALK)

[luizedu]

The only (minor) negative things I noticed in the video are:

1) Vegetation pop-in abounds.

2) Secondary characters have a very short shadow draw distance. Only when roaming civilians are very close do their shadow appear.
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I imagine that video too was rendered on SLI 980s, like the demo right? If that's the case and there no higher setting to reduce these pop-in issues, it's kinda disappointing - I was hoping the video was taken from a console, not a high-end pc.

Other than that it looks amazing, both visually and gameplay wise.

EDIT: "Auf »Ultra« dürfen wir hingegen nicht schalten. Die Entwickler sagen, die höchste Stufe werde noch optimiert, solle dann aber auf demselben System problemlos laufen." (gamestar)
Seems like the demo wasn't running on the highest setting (ultra), but on high.

 

[hardom]

About cutscene: yes I remember that the witcher 2 cutscenes were awesome instead of annoying and it was used in a good balance (wasn't overused), and usually the start of a game usually is more filled with cutscenes

About graphics:walls are freaking terrible, but the face... dear lord they look like real humans (or dwarves, or elves, or gnomes)

About gameplay (fight): It is said that is perfectly balanced in fights with equipped enemys (human/elf/dwarf soldier) but the dodges still are a bit clunky when fighting monsters. I don't like showing enemy level too...

about world: did you see the map? and is only one of the skellige islands, there are more of them and some are bigger than this one! not only that, but other than skellige island there is also novigrad/no mans land (assembled together) which is a bit bigger than all of the skellige islands together! (I think)

About roach:I love that he talks with roach, but I don't like his stamina level

 

[HeelPower]

Most of the cutscenes in Witcher are interactive due to dialogue choices.They keep you on your toes in case you to have to ask something or make a decision.

Its part of the game.I don't recall many movie~like cutscenes.(though there are some and they have their uses)

Personally, I look forward to cutscenes in games. It's what keeps me going through the gameplay sessions, and a cutscene feels like the story is progressing. So, I'd hate if they reduced the cutscenes.

Sup fellow Gaffer! welcome to Witcher forums.

 

[Ancient76]

You don't understand. It's not about the color palette, but the graphics, which are whitish, faded and very bright. Compare it with what was in The Witcher.

This is atmospheric.
This is what i talk about.

That's how you find the imperfections and correct them, making a better product. Nothing is irrelevant , ever.

Games aren't perfect, not even close. Games are about compromises.
To point on some things is ok, but to say that muscle isn't 100% correct!? Or to complain about swimming with clothes!?
What, Geralt should take his clothes every time you decide to swim!? That would be extremely boring to watch!

Lets get serious!

 

[Jonek52]

I have only four complaints, the rest of the game looks extramely awesome:
1) grass. plants and vegetation. If you look at the screenshots they look far better than on the gameplay. Maybe it's a matter of resolution and graphic settings - ultra vs high.... On the video they look too sharp for me...Can you please put some better textures on it ?
2) there are no footprints on the snow...
3) The background is not blurred. I'm not saying that this should be tottaly blurred, but I'd like to see the difference beetween second and first plan.
4) Maybe the horse should have some better animations when it comes to moving down off the slope of the mountain ?

 

[caruga]

Thought I'd let you know that one of our environment artists came in to work extra early today and tinkered a bit with all of the brick walls. I can thus proudly report the issue of the sub-par quality walls fixed.

I didn't think it was an issue of the assets, but a complete lack of bump mapping or tessellation? It wasn't just the brick wall either.

 

[SpeeX97]

• facial animations coulde still be improved (LA Noire ist still a lot better than W3 here aka the gold standard...)
  

Dude, you can't complain an 100+ hour RPG with linear game with all mo-caped facial emotions.

 

[Adamastor]

i don´t know if this was been reported yet but i don´t think geralt clothes get wet when he is in water, or i´m i missing something?

 

[1337Smithy]

Geralt's boots did in the videos last year (the swamps).

 

[Exentryk]

Probably worth mentioning my two combat suggestions again:
- Allow mapping of Signs (magic) to buttons on the controller (PS4)
- Allow option to change the "Hold to Roll" control (PS4)

Currently in the battle system, opening the radial menu to use spells interrupts the fluidity in the battle system. Being able to map the spells to certain buttons (like R2+Triangle etc) will fix this.
The rolling aspect being set to a hold button makes it sluggish in operation, and not responsive enough for a action combat system. So being able to set it to another key (like L2+Square) would make it a lot better.

I feel that implementing these will make the combat feel a lot more fluid, and will get rid of the complaints that I read today in some previews (PCGamer Review).

Sup fellow Gaffer! welcome to Witcher forums.

Oh hi! Nice to see Gaffers making their voices heard

 

[DarthasBinar]

What i Liked:
+++ Atmosphere is dense as hell thanks to stunning visual direction, slavic themes and very deep storyline with interesting narrative. I am going to be immersed for sure.
+++ Extremely high quality cut-scenes, character models, facial expressions, armor design. I am very impressed.
+++ Fighting looks great, audio effects are brilliant and Geralt feels very powerful.
+++ I like complite freedom in explaoration and Geralt's mobility.
+++ Building interiors are very detailed, climatic and cozy .
+++ Looks like you managed to make the game look deeper than the W2 and that is extremely suprasing and shocking in a very good way.
+++ Rich color palette and stunning lighting really impressed me. Good work!
+++ World seems huge and very detailed and most imprtantly alive!
++ English voiceacting is strong and defenetly improved over the W2.

What I would like to see improved:
--- Please deliver the 30 fps on consoles without any drops below and fix vertical-sync in cutscenes.
-- Please reduse pop-ins as much as possible - now there is a lot of it, especialy vegetation and trees.
-- Graphicaly game looks very unbalanced, there are places like cutscenes and conversations where game look stunning and places like Skellige explaration where it looks only OK mainly due to low quality trees and vegetation.
--- Hud could be better. In fact it would be great if you could remove this terible immersion breaking hosre stamina level indicator and make small one next to map like in RDR. Also placing map in lower part of screen make the game look more organic because it would not clash with the sky as often as now. Hmn... You need to think about it... There is room for improvement in that area.
--- Camera work. What is now is not bad but it looks like a MMo a bit, please give some camera settings to the player so I can set it a little bit closer to the Geralt.
--- I would like to have the option to play the game in 60 fps on consoles even if the game was running in 600p or sth like that. Just lower the resolution and give us the that option!!! I'll sit 4 m from TV screen - it will look good and run twice the framerete. Not much work for you! But some people prefer framerate much more than resolution.

SUMMARY (long story short):
I am very impressed with overall shape of the game. Fix some bugs. Improve the framerate. Reduce pop-in, enhace the vegetation and we will have a masterpiece!!! Good work!!!!

 

[misho8723]

Well, I like almost everything we saw in the latest video but:
1., the pop-in is bad, and the draw distance is bad but could be better - particular the shadow distance
2., everything to do with snow is lacking (how it looks, how it reacts, how it sounds - I mean footsteps of Geralt or Roach
3., this to do with quests taken from preview on RPGFan : "Quests could be found by speaking to various people Geralt encountered (conveniently marked with an exclamation mark on the mini-map)" - I don't like it.. it would be good to turn this feature/option ON/OFF
4., more responsive combat - from the previews I read, the most complains were targeted on combat - like Geralt had an overly-sensitive turning circle, and the controls scheme
5., some low-ress textures - the brick walls are improved already, which is great.. but there are still there some more things to improve in this way -especially the foliage
6., and some animations could be something more fluid, like jumping for example

 

[dada228822]

Probably worth mentioning my two combat suggestions again:
- Allow mapping of Signs (magic) to buttons on the controller (PS4)

Apparently there is such option, look at sign image when Geralt is riding a horse in the very beginning of gameplay. Just after exiting a mine, before seeing harpies.

 

[Exentryk]

Apparently there is such option, look at sign image when Geralt is riding a horse in the very beginning of gameplay. Just after exiting a mine, before seeing harpies.

That most likely is for PC. This request is for consoles (PS4).

 

[macabr]

Geralt's black eye brows look bad. They should be white. There's something wrong with Geralt's face, and I think it's because of this eyebrows. Other than that, game looks really promising.

 

[HeelPower]

Oh hi! Nice to see Gaffers making their voices heard

Glad to know you're interested in TW3 now. I am sure this game will be amazing ,and ,hey, it seems to have a lot in common (Well indirectly)with stuff we wanted from VERSUSXIII for all these years

 

[Scholdarr.452]

One of the game best aspects?? I don't mind cut-scenes but what's show us so far, it has to many.. You play few minutes, then you watch Geralt few minutes, then you play again few minutes, then another watching.. I wanna PLAY all time, not to watch Geralt every few minutes.. I wish those conversations would be on gameplay level, you approach NPC, and you start talking, few questions, few answers and that's it.. To camera stays on you controlling Geralt all time, especially when you entering inn like in this last video.. On the last 35min of gameplay, I was watching Geralt talking to Djikstra for one minute, then few minutes with Johhny, and then after Johnny regain his voice there was almost 6-7 minutes talk with him and his Grany.. Then that cut scene with elder in that village, then when you kill that source of evil, and after that all cut scene until the end of the video.. So in this quest of 37minutes of gameplay, I spend over half time just watching the game.. I don't know for you, but to many cut-scenes (and long one too) kills fun for playing it..

I disagree 100%, sorry. I guess that's just personal preference thing. And I don't see games as dogmatic "I must do something all the time". I have nothing against a mix of watching and playing if it entertains me well (and it does in a story-driven RPG). You know, back in the days of the Infinity Engine games I spent most of the time reading. Now I spend the same time watching and listening. That's cool since for me a good story-driven RPG is mostly about story and dialogues. That's the core of the game and I enjoy that most. Combat and running around is just something to ease the whole thing up and to give it some "action" and variety. That's why I also love the Telltale adventures and such. On the other side, I don't think that Half Life 2 has good story telling (which is kind of the usual prime example for games which tell a story by pure gameplay). I wouldn't want something like that for an RPG like Witcher. But again, it's pretty much personal preference I guess.

 

[Olehavr]

looks good ! But please CD Project RED

1) Make the correct animation when Geralt collision with humans and animals! Example on video 2:39 and 2:44. Really looks awful... Does not seem to Next Gen RPG


2) And of course footprints in the snow!

loading screen with map on 35 min gameplay looks better than actually on 4:21

 

[Exentryk]

Glad to know you're interested in TW3 now. I am sure this game will be amazing ,and ,hey, it seems to have a lot in common (Well indirectly)with stuff we wanted from VERSUSXIII for all these years

Yeah, this is one ambitious game. Horse riding, swimming, diving, boating, seamless open world and combat, enemies (land, airborne, water) etc. All of this without compromising the story telling. If some combat suggestions are applied (like making those signs castable via hot buttons), this game would be loads of fun to play too.

We have FFXV demo in March and then this game in May. Going to be great

 

[Scholdarr.452]

You know how they made those facial animations, dont you? If not, look this up on you tube. Did you expected CD Projekt to use same technology? Seriously? You dont see any problem with that?

No, I don't. You should always use the best tech available. Is it costly? Yes, of course. But it shows. The problem is that when you've seen the "good thing" once you really dislike the "mediocre thing"...

I know what you mean. But it is really hard to do that corectly in games. In scenes like this they dont know how close you will be to other person. It is not a cutscene.

Well, I know. But as you've said, it's hard but not impossible to do. For example you only control Geralt while Vesemir is AI controlled. He could call for you and reduce speed and only begins to talk when you ride slowly besides him and quite near to him. Of course it's a subtle and minor thing but stuff like that add a lot to immersion and believablitly to me.

Well. Im guessing you have never been on Polish countryside in summer.

What do you mean? I live in Germany and I guess we share a pretty similar variety of plants and vegetation. But I don't talk about their looks. I talk about their placing (they are almost always placed alone and not besides other, useless herbs and plants like in a realistic pasture or environment).

My autistic side is agreeing with you. My less autistic side is saying me "atleast it is not full plate armor". I bet 95% of the players would whine that every time they want to swim in this game they need to undress. You know Im right. We still have mods on PC though.

Maybe you're right. But it's not always the best thing just because the majority demands it. There had been two options to "fix" that immersion breaker. Don't let Geralt swim at all or only let him swim without armour and stuff. The problems with mods is that you obvsiouly have to fight under water as well (at least the harpyies enter the water in the video). If you make a mod in which Geralt has to undress before he swims or dives he's pretty much defenseless (which is actually how it should be according to the lore and just simple reason) which kills off the whole balance of this aspect. You must design underwater passages for that kind of defenseless gameplay. Take for example AC4 in which that was actually done. Kenway couldn't defend himself under water since he had no weapons. He had to hide and avoid sharks. And well, it seems that the huge blockbuster game like AC4 DID underwater gameplay without full armour and weapons. I don't know whether 95% of all players hated it but I don't really think so. I guess the opposite is true. You just accepted it pretty fast as part of how the game was designed and it felt more natural than diving with your full equipment and even fighting under water...

Yes. To bad. I would love to see snow similar to AC3. One thing they did good there was snow. But it was only game I can think of that actually have good snow in it. They should add foot prints though.

Yeah, I hoped they would have done something similar but you can't have everything I guess. But I also think they've chosen the "easy" way how to track down monsters and such. According to the game journos who've played the game you use your "Witcher senses" almost all the time or at least very frequently. It would have been much cooler and much more immersive if they just used the surface to do that in a way more subtle way, by footsteps and trails. But yeah, that's obviously a pretty hard thing to achieve, it would have been just cool. Maybe a mod will do it some day...

Lets be honest here. There were no game in history of wideo games without clipping issues. Nor there will be in a loong time from now.

True. But the problem is actually not the clipping but how the armour is designed. If you regularly ride on horseback you wouldn't wear an armour (or jacket in that case) which isn't suited for riding. So the problem is the armour design here, not the clipping on horseback.