Convince me that this is worth playing

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Convince me that this is worth playing

Look, I've done the tutorial, and played what I think is about half the prologue. I finished the Witcher 1 the other day, and this game just feels like a massive downgrade so far.

-I had massive issues with cursor lag/delay. I've fixed it (I think), but it either remains when I'm doing arm-wrestling or that part of the game is just bad.
-The controls seem convoluted as all heck compared to the Witcher 1, especially with that silly ctrl-menu you have to use.
-Meditating to use potions? Really?
-While buttonmashing LMB to "load ballista" or "aim ballista", all I could think of was "press F to pay respects". That dumb pseudo-QTE is ploughing dumb, and the prospect of playing through a game using that sort of nonsense is not compelling to me.
-Not to mention the times where I'm thinking "this could have been a cutscene...", such as when following the king up the siege-tower. All you're doing and all you CAN do is follow him. There is NOTHING to interact with except ladders. And when Foltest takes command over a ballista in a cutscene, hands you the spyglass, the game gives you control to look around over a very limited area through your spyglass, but all you can do is click to start the next cutscene. How dumb is that? What was the point of having control to look around? I've tried clicking while looking at different things through the spyglass, and the outcome is the same, no matter where you look. "Aim 3 degrees higher". It's like that stupid part in Dragon Age:Inquisition where you're just pressing W for 5 minutes while walking through a snowstorm...

So I know I've played pretty much nothing of the game, so please, tell me it gets better and that it's worth it. Is the combat going to be fluid once you get used to it? Are there good hotkeys or was to change keybinds? Looked, but couln't find any. Is there going to be more dumbass pseudo-qte-nonsense and cutscenes that aren't but should be?
 
Good news: The QTE with the ballista is as difficult as QTEs get. Bad news: There are more, and at least one of them is onerous if you do not have an adequate system.

There is a story with considerable political intrigue yet to unfold for you, but if the likes of climbing the siege tower is something you find burdensome, maybe this game is not your cup of tea.
 
On my first playthrough, I was close to giving up roughly where you are now. I also made a similar post (but in another forum) and got the advice I'm going to give you.

Basically, what Guy said, but I'd like to add one thing to that. Originally, the Prologue section was also the tutorial (before they wrote a separate tutorial). That means that there's stuff in it that's getting you used to the controls. The climb up the siege tower, the amount of walking around "on tracks". It's also very linear, which can be very frustrating. That ends once the main story starts.

If you're not totally pissed off, I'd recommending waiting until you're about 30 minutes into Act 1, after the Prologue is over. If you still don't like it by then, don't spend any more time on it.
 
@Dostojevskij , no-one can entirely convince you of the game's worth. In the end, only you can decide that for yourself. If you wish to discover if it is worthwhile, keep on playing. Many people -- myself included -- coming to the second game directly from the first were put off by the prologue, and, in terms of game-play, The Witcher 2 is quite simply not The Witcher. However, for those who enjoy the story of the Witcher, and are interested to see why others have praised the game, the rough journey pays off, if one has the patience. As to QTE, you can disable the harder ones from the in-game menu. Limited reassignment of keys should be possible under 'options: input settings' of the game's desktop launcher.
 
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Sken

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There are many sections in the prologue that would have been better as a cutscene. Its the part of the game that has been criticized many a time.

Once you finish the prologue, the meat of the game begins, and it truly is worth it. Captivating story, real consequences for your choices.

I play on PC and personally prefer the combat using a controller over m/kb.
 
Thanks for the replies, guys
Yeah, I was VERY annoyed when posting (still am, but not as much).
Hearing that the prologue is what it is because it used to be the tutorial helps a bit, though. It's not so much that climbing ladders revolts me, it's how extremely on-rails it was that just seemed silly af. I've never been able to understand those sequences, they just really break my immersion because I get so aware of the limitations you're under.
Also learning where the key rebinds are helps, so thanks for that aswell.
Just having those two things in mind means I'll most likely be able to motivate myself in a few days to get into it.

But yeah, having played the force unleashed made me hate everything that comes close to QTE:s and on-rail playing. Playing Dragon Age II made me allergic to how PC-games suffer from being made with console in mind (controls and menus get REALLY dumb). And also having played Witcher 1 made me have fairly high expectations for the sequel, I guess.

However, knowing that the prologue isn't representative of the rest of the game, and knowing how to rebind keys and being able to get a clear view of them is great, so it should help me get further into the game where the plot (I hope) will be able to keep me invested.

Cheers!
 
Well, figured I could give you an update so you know what became of your advice. I did manage to get back into the game with some very well rebound keys to fit my liking and habits from the witcher 1, and actually finished the game yesterday. I probably have to say I enjoyed it, though I won't be doing a second play-through. Far too many console-shenanigans for my liking to do that now that I know the story. I really missed being able to pause in combat, zoom out, and my god, the menus... Well, I shan't turn this into a review, and I'm guessing my opinion on what was good and what was bad doesn't differ that much from everyone else's anyway, though I might be a bit more allergic to the bad things than most.

So thanks again, I'm off to play the Witcher 3!
 
Convince you?

Why? You already branded fully this game of "Don't want to play" so I don't see why should I add anything in defense of game in here because whatever I say, mention....you will not be much pumped-up to keep playing this game.

If you need to "force" yourself in order to just enjoy something.....I say change game.
 
Convince you?

Why? You already branded fully this game of "Don't want to play" so I don't see why should I add anything in defense of game in here because whatever I say, mention....you will not be much pumped-up to keep playing this game.

If you need to "force" yourself in order to just enjoy something.....I say change game.

You should probably read past the first post before commenting. The OP has already completed the game.
 
thinking about witcher 2 now

now that i'm just replaying HOTS on Newgame+ waiting for Blood and Wine, i am seriously thinking about playing witcher 2 for the first time.

what turns me off initially is the graphical difference-- for instance, looking at triss in witcher 2 is painful now that i see what witcher 3 is capable of.

but what about the rest? how's the story, how's the character development, and gameplay? you guys recommend it? any mods you guys recommend to make it a more beautiful game?

i know there's a mod out there that replaces witcher 2 triss with witcher 3 yen, how about a more ambitious replacement of all existing characters in the witcher 2 world if there's an existing witcher 3 counterpart with a graphical improvement?
 
Witcher 2 is a superb game and if you liked TW3 I recommend you give it a try. Sure, some things are different, but overall it is a great experience, in some ways even better that TW3. Graphics are really not that bad, sure some character models are worse but overall the game still looks quite nice, the story is great, it is more political compared to TW3, sometimes darker and offers branching paths that significantly change the experience depending on what you choose. There are some really great characters and moments in the game that alone are worth playing it. Combat, while similar to TW3 in some basic things(2 swords, signs, dodging) is different, less fluid, maybe a bit harder, and may take some time to get used to after playing TW3, but IMO it is worth it. The game is smaller in scale compared to TW3, more linear and has several smaller areas instead of an open world, but some of the locations are really beautiful and interesting to explore.

I would also recommend you to play TW1, it has a great story and while it hasn't aged that well in some areas, if you can get past that it is still a great experience.
 
now that i'm just replaying HOTS on Newgame+ waiting for Blood and Wine, i am seriously thinking about playing witcher 2 for the first time.

what turns me off initially is the graphical difference-- for instance, looking at triss in witcher 2 is painful now that i see what witcher 3 is capable of.

but what about the rest? how's the story, how's the character development, and gameplay? you guys recommend it? any mods you guys recommend to make it a more beautiful game?

i know there's a mod out there that replaces witcher 2 triss with witcher 3 yen, how about a more ambitious replacement of all existing characters in the witcher 2 world if there's an existing witcher 3 counterpart with a graphical improvement?

My advise: play it. It's probably the best RPG that I've played. It's pretty better than TW3. The only bad point are the graphics but, despite this, TW2 has better graphics than many actual games (like Fallout 3, for example).


Believe me: TW2 is superior in almost every aspect to TW3 and you will enjoy it. Have fun!!
 
good to hear.

i'll see if i can find some decent mods on NexusMods, but it seems most of the graphics improvement have more to do with the world textures vice facial textures, which is what i really want. the "W3 Yen instead of Triss" mod is great in terms of graphics, i hope whomever did that can do it for Triss.

either way i'll probably pause my NG+ game about where i'm at right now (Final Preparations), and then when I get bored of doing the side quests/contracts I'll fire up W2 to occupy my time until Blood and Wine comes out.

the sadness of the empty world syndrome post-game...:(
 
-Use an xbox controller, it’s supported.

- Use an xbox controller, it’s supported.

-I agree this makes potions a lot less usefull put think about it, it makes more sense then quickly chugging a poisonous potion in the midst of battle…
-That’s your opinion and we all have different taste, I for one like to spam X on my xbox controller for QTE’s like that.
-Haven’t played inquisition but I am also a person that likes to do everything perfect and reloads saves, however having listened to the story and having not so bad aim I didn’t reload the save as it was obvious you were gonna have a duel with the man, the purpose of looking through the spyglass is SEEING your target not actually marking the place where you aim. He ducked so it’s basically fairly logically, they want to give you the feeling of actually doing it yourself instead of watching a movie which I highly support

It occurs to me that a lot of your problems could be solved by purchasing a wireless receiver:

*CANNOT POST LINK BECAUSE NEW USER*

And even if you don’t have an xbox I recommend the xbox 360 controller and the wireless receiver because they are just amazing for a lot of games on steam like dark souls 1 & 2, the witcher 2, bioshock, AvP, Chivarly: medieval warfare, farcry 3, and many more!

If you’re not convinced yet:
*CANNOT POST LINK BECAUSE NEW USER*

great game.

I understand if you won’t play it though since I bought the pack with the witcher 1 & 2 and I thought the witcher 1’s combat system was utter shit. It felt like each fight was a minigame where you have to press a key while a line is in the correct part of the circle… I felt like playing a Meet’n’Fuck minigame and not fighting with swords.
 
I know this is king of late but. What you said about the graphics in witcher 2 is not true. It arguably looks much better in many areas. You just need to know what to do and more over, it even runs amazing on mediocre systems. Follow the below steps to make it look 10X better than the stock ultra preset.
-Download the mod called Witcher 2 tweaker. It's a tool that let's you change the ini settings in a graphics menu. Change the following parameters to what I suggest.
-Texturememory budget=(60% of your VRAM) ;Tex. res.= something reasonably big like 4096*4096
-Do the same with shadow resolutions.
-allow sharpen, Disable the DOF effects except for the DOF gameplay(of course it is a preference). I recommend this because the DOF effects are not very well optimized in this game and can make your game run poorly in cut scenes and meditation.
-Generally disable Ubersampling unless you have a crazy machine.
After this take a screenshot of any good view in Flotsam and compare it to Witcher 3 and try to tell yourself the same thing.
 
well, having played through it already...yeah, it's -still- not close to the same.

environment is pretty enough, the faces are terrible now that i'm used to the W3 look. frankly the only character that's not painful to look at in comparison is Roche, of all people...probably because it makes sense for his face to always be glowering! :)

the story is a lot of fun, though. i do like the more political aspect of W2.
 
@Dostojevskij Besides the absurdly well written political plot and ramifications, there is an entire different Act 2 depending on the path you choose in act 1. And they are so good that it would be really a shame to quit the game after 1 playthrough without experiencing the other side. All I can say is that I have replayed it so many times and everytime I got better at it. I did finish two runs on Insane difficulty, CDPR version of Diablo 2 or 3 Hardcore mode.

And it is so much more punishing than Diablo because Death in TW2 is much easier to happen despite the player's skills. Of course, it is called Insane because players must be kind Insane to play it. I've restarted it quite a few times due to QTE and stupid unavoidable Dragon fire at the start. Then we got EE and Dark Mode and at least we could save the game. It's harder than Insane but not hardcore. Those stupid nekkers gang became quite easy after I developed better combat skills.

Yeah, remapping keys and using all my 5 mouse buttons were a must for me. Every now and then I do a full The Witcher Marathon, games 1, 2 and 3 all the way. TW2 has so many unique qualities that it is a very special game to me. And there are mods, if you're on the PC that might fix some gameplay issues you may have like meditating to drink/brew potions for instance. I got used to it.

Now, a game with this kind of Easter Egg must be treasured forever! And there are much more stuff like this. =)

 
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