Disabling cut-scene finishers

[Ellathar]

No one was complaining about dying DURING a cut scene until the Draugir issue got bought up (and that is most certainly what I'd call a bug). People are complaining about the cut scenes causing them to die straight after it.

Exactly my point, I never, and I mean, NEVER, died just after a cut scene (apart from the Draugir part) even when I was surrounded by a dozen of nekkers cause the game is actually paused during this cutscene and no one can kill you (and I should say I never use Quen when I play cause it makes it too easy, so it can't even be that who protects me).
So its exactly my point, I understand your opinion, but I don't agree there is any need of that. And I'll definitely not agree with something that would cripple my experience.

 

[saintmagician]

I don't think "I've died a quite a few times after a cut scene" is an opinion. It's called a fact. And from the sounds of it, it's a fact for more than a few other people too.

If it hasn't happened to you, it's because you either haven't played on hard or you aren't using a arden+stun build.

*Wanting* it changed, however, is an opinion; one which I accept that some people will disagree with. Although of course, when someone disagrees because they obviously do not understand it, it's a little 'funny'. And you are obviously failing to understand because what I am advocating is to make them optional. This will in no way "cripple your experience" unless your experience happens to rely on the lack of customization / choices.

 

[Garrison72]

First of all, I'm calling for a toggle not permanent change. Secondly, Geralt already executes finishers without the cut-scene. It's already in the game.

Is it game breaking? No. Does it force the player to compensate during battle? Hell yes. I don't like to roll, but because of the cutscene finishers, I'm obligated to roll after each scene to avoid any unfair back stabs. This completely disrupts my placement within a group of enemies (which is crucial if you want to avoid rolling and instead rely on ranged weapons, blocking, and countering) So basically the result is the developers have created a skill tree that encourages a wide variety of builds and tactical approaches, then they included one silly stylistic element that forces you to pigeonhole your approach. And it's entire purpose is just eye candy.

Two games that do finishers right are Arkham Asylum and DA:O. In both cases finishers are rare, and take place AFTER a major battle, when the rest of your foes are already down, and you can enjoy a bit of flash. This is how a stylistic element should be implemented. I don't need to be reminded 5-7 times during each battle how badass Geralt is, especially at the cost of me fully exploring the game's mechanic. After 10 hrs of play and nearly a hundred cutscenes of Geralt being flashy, I wanted to say "I get it. You're badass. Now can I just play the damn game?"

Unless they want Geralt to be doing his best impression of derp Hawke, I suggest they go back to implying what a bad mofo Geralt is instead of beating us over the head with it.

 

[Ellathar]

If it hasn't happened to you, it's because you either haven't played on hard or you aren't using a arden+stun build.

Once again, assumptions. I do play on Hard and I always improve Aard (which is one of the only spell I use). However, as someone tells it, the only problems it generates is that it "forces" you to roll. It has never been considered as a problem for me.

However, if this is an option we can deactivate or not, then I'm fine. But as I told it already, it's completely pointless to expect that on TW2. On TW3, why not, but on TW2, I doubt it. Sometimes it's good to just play a game like it is, ask for bugs to be solved (the problem with the draugir IS a bug, the rest is not really) but ask for complete mechanics revamp cause you don't like something is another issue, and will get you somewhere disappointed as you have very low chance to see that.

However, this is my last post on the subject, cause "everyone is entitled to his opinion as long as it's the same than yours".

 

[saintmagician]

I fail to see the problem with *asking* for things changed simply because I don't like them.

If that seems fruitless to you, then maybe you should just avoid these kinds of threads.

 

[Kindo.824]

That's the wonderful thing of the term optional; with a simple addition to the game menu, the players can choose, themselves, if they want these finisher moves or not. The fact that the whole system needs to be tweaked, fixed, or otherwise corrected or altered in some minor ways, is another issue. Until that happens, I am hoping it wouldn't take too much effort to add in the option to switch them off.

 

[Ellathar]

That's the wonderful thing of the term optional; with a simple addition to the game menu, the players can choose, themselves, if they want these finisher moves or not.

Yes, I truly believe a company you spent time, money, and energy to make the finishers move (no matter how you like them or not) will spend money and energy to make them optional, 5 months after the game has gone live and has been sold.
Patch 2.0 will most likely be the last big patch before an, hypothetic, expansion, and even though I truly understand, and agree, than an optional behavior may be wanted, I also truly believe it will never come out before, at best, TW3.

CDPR however is quite good at doing what no other companies on the market does, so, I also think if one can make me wrong, it's them.

 

[whiplash27]

Just fix the bugs where finishers remove you from the mist and where you can die while performing finishers and I'll be happy.

 

[saintmagician]

So in other words, Nolenthar, on the official forums where players are encouraged to make suggestions and comment/discuss aspects of the game, you decide to jump into such a discussion, either purposefully or carelessly misunderstand the proposition that people are discussion (optional cut scenes), and when proven so you backpedal and decide to imply that such a discussion is pointless because you really believe the company will do X and not Y.

I can't speak for anyone else, but when I find other people on forums discussion a suggestion that I think is not worth discussion, I just *refrain* from joining the said discussion.

Meanwhile I'd prefer to hear "we will do this" or "we're really not likely to do this" from people who are actually likely to have a clue. i.e. not another random player.

 

[fchopin]

I really hate it when the fight is interrupted and then before i have time to react someone stubs me and i die, it takes the fun out of combat.

I do something good and i pay by dying or lose halve my life.

 

[Garrison72]

I was just playing the prologue on hard, at the section where we fight the group of soldiers at the gate. Everything was going as planned: I threw a Yyrden, trapped one. Threw Samum and weakened two more. I was blocking, countering - it was glorious. Then I used Aard and made the mistake of attacking the stunned enemy. During the cut-scene, every soldier had re-positioned themselves so now they surrounded me. I tried blocking, but of course the two behind me finished me off. 200% backstab damage. Completely unfair.

However, an obvious solution just struck me. I will never strike a stunned enemy with my sword anymore. Instead, I'll just use a ranged attack, or simply leave him be and go on to other enemies. This way Aard will still be useful.

 

[reaper004]

And I suppose, you as the dev expert here knows this?

1. You are *assuming* that it'll take a lot of resources to make finishers in 3rd person, which is not necessarily true. Redoing animations to make 3rd person finishers look the same as the current 1st person finishers may take some time, although it's debatable how much resources it'll actually take. There are alternate ways of making the cut scenes which may not require completely new animations to be created from scratch (actually, I don't see why you'd need to do this, even if you wanted to make them like the 1st person animations). You could for example, simply make the 3rd person cut scenes be simply a recording of a bird's eye camera view (but a fairly close up one) of geralt fighting. All the necessary fighting animations are there, and even if a top-down camera doesn't already exist, that kind of thing is trivial to add.

2. Most people are not asking for 3rd party cut scenes instead of a 1st person cutscene. If you look closely at the complaints, there are mostly about the entire animated cut scene breaking the flow of battle, Geralt being placed wierdly after cut scenes, the animation being distracting, etc. Disabling is a viable option:
- You assume that losing the opportunity of one-hit kills will break the combat system. How so? If you don't have a build with a high crit rate, you don't have many one-hit kills either. I would appreciate the option of turning off animations even if it means losing out one hit kills. Although I may only do this for some parts of the game.
- You seem to assume that disabling them will mean we lose the opportunity of one-hit kills. How so? In order for a one-hit kill to happen and the animation to be triggered, the enemy must be in some stun state. Then you must actually hit, the hitting causes the animation to be set off. Why can it not be, that when you actually hit, instead of the animation being set off, the enemy just loses all HP (damage = remaining HP) and drops dead (like every other enemy)? Even for group finishers, a possibility is that when the finisher is triggered, the enemies that would have died in the animation simply lose all HP and die. Admittedly this solution is not very elegant for the group finisher, but I see no problems with it for the ordinary finisher animation.


Maybe we should stick to player suggestions (I want this and not that), and let the people who actually know about the dev process decide what is possible and what is not.

Wow, hostile much? You're e-raging all over this thread, its a game, calm down, lol

Back On Topic: I have played twice now through the entire game on Normal Difficulty and I have never ONCE died because of a Single or Group Finisher Move, all I can say is to try and react and roll out of fray the moment the finisher ends to regain a foothold in the battle, in some ways its very realistic and in others its unrealistic. Enemies arnt just going to stand there and wait for you to finish off their buddy, they're going to get into a better and more tactical position to strike, which the AI does efficiently, however it is kind of unrealistic that they dont attack you while you do these elaborate (and VERY bad-ass and entertaining, in my opinion) finisher moves.

 

[saintmagician]

Well the moves are supposed to happen quickly. The problem here isn't really Geralt and the enemies. The problem is the human brain that's sitting in front of the computer screen. This is a mostly a user interaction problem.

As for you, I suggest playing on hard with any build that (tries) to take advantage of finishers. Aard stun build, crit sword build, etc.

As for e-raging, not really. Or maybe I am. This is ultimately a debate about usability, it's annoying when people make arguments based on technical limitations, when they either obviously don't understand what goes on in engineering a game, or don't bother to justify their assumptions. Call it a pet peeve, but on gaming forums I dare say there's a disproportional number of techy types, so I probably won't be the only one you run into =P

 

[blakeocity]

Can someone explain where and why "cinematic finisher moves and quick time events belong in an RPG.
After just finishing first Witcher and only being a few hours into the sequal some warning lights of a generic action game are flashing brightly. Despite overall what has been an interesting introduction.

1. Finisher moves.

Why do they need to take camera control away from the player?
Why does the animation teleport the fight to an open area Final Fantay style just to show off an animation you've already seen 20 times an hour into the game.
Why disrupt the flow of combat with these awkward scenes that sabotage the immersion and intensity of a fight.

Sure, some of them are great to look at originally, they're visceral and brutal to the animators credit. Much like the stun finishers in the first game, but that has none of the annoyances that I've mentioned simply by incorporating these animations into combat seamlessly. Taking control from the player and shoving camera angles down my throat doesn't make your game more cinematic. Flow, for me is far more important.

2. Quick time events.

Nothing to say about QTE that hasn't already been said, a fad that should of died a decade ago.

Why do I need to click mouse 1 a lot to turn a wheel?
Why do I need to pay more attention to impending quick time events than the genuine cinematic set pieces?
How is pressing W A S and D when a prompt comes up a better way to handle fist fighting than the way it was done in the original Witcher?

Everything else about the Witcher 2 so far, I'm actually really enjoying, please don't misunderstand me I'm not hating because it's not the same game. However the reasoning for including generic staples of modern action games just don't make any sense.

Don't think Zero Punctuation could of summed it up better.
'There's quick time events and pre baked finishing moves, two inoperable cancers of the modern action game.'

I've enjoy hearing some points from people that support these cliches and explain how they add anything to a game, especially a fantasy RPG.

Looking forward to replaying the original game, and continuing on with this one, minor nags aside.

 

[username_3236168]

QTE i got no issue with. Running away from the dragon and trying to see which button to press kept my on my toes.

The finisher moves were quite iffy with me, even though they looked super cool, it kinda broke the flow, because after the cut scene geralt was left standing there for few seconds to be poked with swords.

And there aren't many QTE at all only in prologue and few boss battles so it's not an issue at all, and if you want you can disable it:

 

[electrocide]

I haaaaaaaaaaate finisher moves. They killed me many times in the arena!! It's even worse now then before, game is paused. So i stuned someone close to the other guys, cinematic starts, and as soon it is over, the other enemies start swinging, and i need time to react. Got hit like that many times. Finishers should be in the game like TW1 was.

 

[Garrison72]

I don't like either. I wish the finishers would take place in the same camera view instead of a cut-away scene.

I've started threads myself lobbying against these mechanics. I had hoped a mod would eventually come along that would allow us to disable the cut-away finishers. The fact is, sometimes they don't trigger, and the final blow is by the player.

If CDPR released a patch that allowed us to disable them, I'd be eternally grateful.

 

[mrowakus]

I don't like either. I wish the finishers would take place in the same camera view instead of a cut-away scene.

I've started threads myself lobbying against these mechanics.

100% agreed. Finishers and QTEs need to die. The former takes away part of gameplay (Hey! I should be doing all the wacky stuff, not the game itself!), the latter is simplistic gameplay (pushing buttons in succession - how exciting).

Btw, has anyone, ever not deliberately lost a boxing match?

 

[MarcAuron]

100% agreed. Finishers and QTEs need to die. The former takes away part of gameplay (Hey! I should be doing all the wacky stuff, not the game itself!), the latter is simplistic gameplay (pushing buttons in succession - how exciting).

Btw, has anyone, ever not deliberately lost a boxing match?

I failed one vs the Executioner in Flotsam, where Z and D are.
And the final vs the Steroid guy in Loc Muinne for having a -100 on reading comprehension and basic logic.
I laughed so much about my self for days, it probably a uncool thing to admit, but it can be failed.

 

[Garrison72]

Way before the game was released, and they showed the first footage that included the cut-away finishers, there was quite a bit of nerd rage on the forums...mostly mine, lol.

I actually think the boxing is better than in TW1, but it could be developed into a more complex system for TW3. As for the finishers, I wish they'd die from modern gaming.