[DISCUSSION] Witcher 3 - Reviews

[MkTama]

@web-head91 Anyway, this is a particular reviewer with his personal taste. He did for example find Inquisition deeper mechanics wise (party, tactical view/pause, etc.) , but he also said that writing in TW3 is superior and seriously breaks a**es. He has his own opinion, someoune else may think different. The repetitive structure of quests was referring to the fact that often it's like "talk with x, go there, kill, talk with y, follow him, kill, talk, follow, kill" etc, but it's not a problem per se. The sidequests were praised instead since, aside from contracts, they really have (even the smallest ones) a small story of their own which sometimes expand thje main story.

EDIT: changed the "streamlined" word in my traduction, could be misleading

 

[MadGeralt]

Gamestar said that one of the game's biggest negatives is the pretty bad balancing, especially if you want to do most quests in a specific region.


Open world, FY...

 

[Scryar]

Gamestar said that one of the game's biggest negatives is the pretty bad balancing, especially if you want to do most quests in a specific region.


Open world, FY...

That's the price for no level-scaling.I'm fine with it.

 

[warbaby2]

Gamestar said that one of the game's biggest negatives is the pretty bad balancing, especially if you want to do most quests in a specific region.


Open world, FY...

True... funny enough, most german reviewers also did bash the, sometimes laggy/fddely controls.

That's the price of no level-scaling.I'm fine with it.

Yes, but it's not only that, they did state the balancing was inconsistent to the point that regular enemies in the same region turned out considerably stronger then bosses.

 

[Xvenger]

Gamestar said that one of the game's biggest negatives is the pretty bad balancing, especially if you want to do most quests in a specific region.


Open world, FY...

lel....guess they haven't gotten the memo of what "no level scaling" means :huh:

 

[web-head91]

As far as I understood it, it greatly depends on the level of difficulty you play one...

What worries me a bit is the fact that gameplay seams to be rather repetitive in the long run... and that there is no infinite chest to store loot in.

you make some rather solid points. repetitive gameplay and the lack of storage could be a problem.

---------- Updated at 07:46 PM ----------

@web-head91 Anyway, this is a particular reviewer with his personal taste. He did for example find Inquisition deeper mechanics wise (party, tactical view/pause, etc.) , but he also said that writing in TW3 is superior and seriously breaks a**es. He has his own opinion, someoune else may think different. The repetitive structure of quests was referring to the fact that often it's like "talk with x, go there, kill, talk with y, follow him, kill, talk, follow, kill" etc, but it's not a problem per se. The sidequests were praised instead since, aside from contracts, they really have (even the smallest ones) a small story of their own which sometimes expand thje main story.

thanks for the reply friend ! ^^
well if he thought that DA:I (aka the blandest most boring singleplayer MMORPG i ever played) to have deeper gameplay mechanics, which is ofcourse nonesense and somewhat funny, then i'll take his opinion of the TW3 with a grain of salt ^^

 

[Xvenger]

you make some rather solid points. repetitive gameplay and the lack of storage could be a problem.

hence why I'm banking it all on my interest on the skill activation leveling system. If it's like what I think it would be, I'm in for quite a few experimentation to never make it feel stale,

 

[Liuhu77]

Atmosphere reminds from a combination of Game of Thrones and movies from Guillermo Del Toro.
This I Like

 

[warbaby2]

hence why I'm banking it all on my interest on the skill activation leveling system. If it's like what I think it would be, I'm in for quite a few experimentation to never make it feel stale,

That's another thing, though... most reviewers stated the skill system has less impact then, say the TW2 system had... except the new sign variants, skill perks are mostly unimpressive.

 

[MadGeralt]

lel....guess they haven't gotten the memo of what "no level scaling" means

No level scaling isn't the only problem here. Too much freedom is the problem and that's coming from the open world design.

Of course that's known but that doesn't mean you have to like it.

 

[Geragio]

I'm guessing the reviewers who mention repetitive combat are spamming igni and ard. There's a whole skill system to explore.

 

[MadGeralt]

I'm guessing the reviewers who mention repetitive combat are spamming igni and ard. There's a whole skill system to explore.

In the end it's casting five signs and swinging the sword all the time. The skill system isn't that interesting neither. The basic combat doesn't change much.

 

[EliHarel]

I don't get this about repetitive combat. Maybe I'm just not familiar enough and I drastically need to expand my gaming horizon, but how many games have gameplay that you can't describe as repetitive after a certain mark? I'm been following Christopher Odd's Let's Play of Bloodborne. He's at chapter 60, and I am not sure how is the combat at that chapter so different than the one at chapter 5, other than a bit more expertise on Odd's behalf. It could be that Odd didn't tap into the full potential of Bloodborne, but the same can be said about others, I suppose. If I want to I can even describe Arkham's system as repetitive.

Then there's the matter of modern games based on guns (and cover) instead of melee, and I don't see how peeking out of cover to fire a weapon or throw a grenade is less repetitive than a combat system with different combos based on what skills you activate, dodging and rolling, parrying and riposting, five different signs and each with a second ability, grenades as well as alchemy... yet I don't hear it as often about shooters. This is an example of those cases where I feel TW3 is just being scrutinized much more deeply than other games.

Maybe I'm just vastly overestimating a game I haven't played yet, but I don't see why TW3 by its combat design is any more repetitive than most other games. But what do I know - I'm one of those who enjoyed TW2's combat, despite half the web telling me it's crap.

I am a tad anxious about enemy attacks and variety, though, ever since seeing the Shrieker from the twitch was seemed like a re-skinned griffin.

Edit: Anyway, I'm not worried about the combat since I enjoyed TW2. The main thing (which is pretty damn main) I'm wondering about are the quests.

 

[warbaby2]

I'm guessing the reviewers who mention repetitive combat are spamming igni and ard. There's a whole skill system to explore.

No, what my impression was (as the guys of PC Games Hardware said) it's the fact that the different types of quest are quite repetitive, if you mix and match them, you can elevate problem, though. It only really get's repetitive when you do, say, all the monster hunting quest in one area, one after the other...

 

[Janesz135]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbNIYBZBVSY 5:40-5:46 Philippa's VA

 

[Arius87]

10/10 means that the overall experience for the reviewer was so amazing that, problems aside, he feels the game deserves the maximum score. A review score is not an addition of positive and negative points, it is supposed to reflect the overall impression of the reviewer.

But as a professional reviewer of a major gaming site you can't let the problems "aside". This is not the means of professional gaming journalism. A journalist has to keep a certain level of neutrality even if he is amazed of the game he/she plays. In fact this makes the difference between journalist and user reviews. And if the review score only reflects the personal impression of an reviewer than it comes down to personal preferences. Which is not a good sign of professional gaming jornalism either.

There will always be things in game which can be improved, storywise, gameplaywise, graphics-wise, character development-wise ( I could go on...) thus there is no such game that can achieve a 10/10. Because this means there is no space to improvement.

 

[Geragio]

No, what my impression was (as the guys of PC Games Hardware said) it's the fact that the different types of quest are quite repetitive, if you mix and match them, you can elevate problem, though. It only really get's repetitive when you do, say, all the monster hunting quest in one area, one after the other...

Ah, that's good, I always mix it up. I've never been the type of gamer to finish all quests in one area at a time. Theres not many rpgs that I actually roleplay, but the witcher is one of them.

 

[MadGeralt]

I don't get this about repetitive combat. Maybe I'm just not familiar enough and I drastically need to expand my gaming horizon, but how many games have gameplay that you can't describe as repetitive after a certain mark?

That's why I began to like shorter games, especially in every genre with actiony combat.

The only gameplay that interests me over a longer amount of time is tactical gameplay or sports gameplay. Everything else sooner or later bores me to death and I sadly began to break up with games on an increasing scale lately because they bore me too much before I've finished the story...

Witcher 3 is carried by its quests and stories obviously and not primarily by its gameplay. Without the narrative the game would be very, very boring after just a few hours imho. So it's not a specific point of criticism of this game but the game's length deepens the boring or repetitive gameplay experience I guess.

 

[DBag]

I don't get this about repetitive combat.

My take from this is that the combat isn't fun enough for reviewers who mention repetitiveness. I've played quite a lot of games with repetitive mechanics, but it was fun, and so repetitiveness wasn't an issue.

 

[warbaby2]

Also, according to GamesRadar: The review copy that was sent out was an older built and CDPR already stated via a letter to them that the final version will be better optimized and bugs will be fixed... good work for other reviewers not telling people that.