Game difficulty - what do YOU think?

[KnightofPhoenix]

I am not that great of a gamer, and I played on hard on my first (and subsequent) playthrough and I didn't find it that difficult. It was refreshingly challenging and it's one of the few games that has me being happy when I got my ass kicked (because of my mistakes). But all in all, I didn't find it that difficult, as in annoyingly so.

 

[RageGT]

The more I play, the better I get, at least that's what I'd like to think. My first playthrough on Normal was a real PITA! But I knew it was me, not the game. Melitele's Heart Wraiths, OMG, I thought I would never be able to do it. (have a vid of that in Hard diff when I would still have a hard time with then)

Now, after a few playthroughs, mostly in Insane (many completed too! ) those Wraiths are done in less than 5 minutes, counting from the potion timer, whichever class I choose to play. The ones in the Hospital? Yeah, they used to give me a hard time too but now, if I'm blinded with an arm tighed behind my back they are still a piece of cake.

As much as I used to say about Dragon Age Origins, Nightmare diff, (my favorite game ever together with The Witcher series and the Gothics/Risen), Experience with the game is one of the best weapons available.

 

[Rovlad]

Hard difficulty, 1.3:
- Get 2nd Quen sign upgrade as soon as possible.
- Get all low-tier "+1 Vigor" skills.
- You're pretty much unbeatable for the rest of the game.
You can even forfeit bombs/traps/daggers, they aren't really needed with this setup.

>Experience with the game is one of the best weapons available
Yes, I also gotta agree with that. As you yourself get better the game becomes much easier.

 

[Anarki_Hunter]

-Empty-

 

[frenchie38]

The game is hard just because the controls are sloppy and Geralt reacts as a turttle to your commands. I played Batman Arkham Asylum and the combat in that game is how it should have been. In that game you feel like a badass but in the Witcher 2 you feel like a beginner. But after act 1 everything becomes very easy except an optional fight in Act 3 that you can access within the sewers(don't wanna spoil things). But otherwise great game.

 

[vindik8or]

It was very, very, VERY poorly balanced. First play through on Normal I just about gave up the game entirely in the prologue. I stuck with it, and by chapter 2 everything was reversed. Second play through I went with Hard, and by that stage most was a cake walk, but there were still ridiculous instances where everything fell apart, controls became unresponsive and you just died because.

 

[guywithknife]

I've only completed the game twice so far.

The first time I played on normal (patch 1.1) and found it extremely hard - almost, but not quite, frustratingly hard. Over all, there was one or two parts I was pulling my hair out (the two wraiths; the second part of the dragon), but ultimately enjoyed the difficulty.

Then for my second play through, I played on hard (patch 1.2 until the end of chapter 1, patch 1.3 after) and I found it much, much easier than the first play through. I don't think I got that much better, so either patch 1.2 made it a lot easier, or hard is somehow easier than normal. When I chose to play in hard, I was hoping it would be more difficult than the already difficult normal, so I'm a little disappointed.

For new players who don't like too much of a challenge, my first play through would have been too hard. But thats what the easy option is for. Even if normal was made a little easier to appeal to more people, I think hard should be just that: hard. Again, I don't know if I just got to grips with the game (ie making better use of skills, potions, oils etc) or if the patch made it easier, but I can't see that I would have improved thaaat much.

 

[Charza]

The Kayran is all about strategy.
It clearly has strong but slow attacks, and it if you don't pay attention it could easily kick your butt.
I liked this boss in general, made me remember the good old days, where bossbattles like this were far more common.

 

[CalinTM]

The difficulty is fine for me. You need to prepare for battles, almost every time, not just jump into battle like a noob.

 

[VikingStudios]

The game is hard just because the controls are sloppy and Geralt reacts as a turttle to your commands.

I totally agree, this is one of the biggest points of criticism for me. A witcher is fast and agile in his nature but controlling Geralt in TW2 is sometimes really frustrating especially using signs after hitting an enemy with the sword or after rolling away.
I often hit the sign-shortcut 2 or 3 times to get Geralt to using a sign. And that 's sometimes a crucial factor for the outcome of an fight.

 

[Anarki_Hunter]

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[RageGT]

Geralt* is fast in the game, comparatively against all the other human opponents or human NPC's one gets to play!.

Apart from the bomb throwing glitch, apart from the item interaction issues during combat. I find that the rest of the controls behavior is fine, citing other issues to be extremely minor and in no way hampering my fun factor in the game.

When one is playing with a car in any racing game, I don't find people(almost all) complaining that the car doesn't turn enough when you tap..it won't because it was designed to have such a type of control behavior in the game. Its more or less, similar with Witcher 2..tapping clicks, dodges or signs in a button mashing technique isn't going to have any effect in the game.

-Edit-

I personally am not finding any issues with the combat behavior (except the two glitches I mentioned above), different games have difference in approaches in gameplay..combat in Witcher 2 is what the developers wanted(if they haven't changed it from past 3 patches).

My dear fellow gamer. This is a bug:

http://www.gog.com/en/forum/the_witcher_2/about_responsiveness/page1

The Witcher 2 - The 2 Steps Hicup (Responsiveness)

And the very same thing happens with other stuff like sign casting, sheathing sword, etc:

Just finished yet another run with TW2, this time with a pure Magic Path Witcher. I would really hate if I'd tried it on Insane i/o hard, which I did because I had no experience with the class. Countless deaths on account of casting signs not responding at all.

Again, I know how to deal with it. A sword swing or a roll usually unlocks the unresponsive command and it works again but it is so annoying that sometimes I just kept trying it FFS!

One thing easily perceptible is that we don't need to keep hitting the sign #key or the use sign key. We can press it and hold it until Geralt decides to cast the sign. Anyone will notice that it will work... after some 15-20 seconds!!!! Now do that in front of a bunch of angry Nilfgaardians and see how well it goes!

 

[chopy]

Quite easy game imo.I would really like "Very Hard" difficulty setting.

 

[RageGT]

Quite easy game imo.I would really like "Very Hard" difficulty setting.

Tried Insane yet?

 

[thevaikesh]

I am an experienced gamer of medium ability. I have reasonable skill, and have played many games over many years, usually on Normal setting; I am not the grand master that some gamers claim to be (and some actually ARE).

For me, the Normal setting for Witcher2 is at times too difficult (e.g. for some bosses), and the easiest setting is way too easy.

Examples:

• The two wraiths in the small room of the hospital were impossible to defeat. They hit very hard; there is insufficient room to run around to buy time to heal. I tried for hours, gave in and read hints online, and eventually progressed only by switching to the easiest setting, the only one easier than Normal, which was entirely too easy.
• The Kayran was also too difficult. I managed to lop off two tentacles, but never the third. On several tries I found that getting hit once took 80% of my total vitality. I found a place to hide and heal, but they don't work after lopping the second tentacle. After about four hours of trying over three days, I read hints, discovered a Kayran trap, but found it only slightly better compared than the Yrden sign, because it only works for one tentacle. I doubt I would have found the Kayran trap without reading hints online, but again, I don't find it very useful. Eventually I gave up and switched back to the easiest mode, killed it, and went back to Normal. Again, it was much too easy on the easiest mode.

Everything else I have encountered seems about right, although the original Dragon sequence at the beginning (before a patch made it easier) seemed like a tough thing to throw at people new to the game.

I'd like to hear other opinions about the playing difficulty, politely if possible, thanks.

I completely agree with you. Is almost impossible to fight in normal. I miss a possibility to import a saved game from TW2 as Mass Effect2 allow me. I would like build a full skilled character, in all paths, but developers had not a taste for please gamers with this. Shame...

 

[Anarki_Hunter]

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[RageGT]

Spent considerable amount of time playing Witcher 2 (more than 200 hours totally + 10 hours past week on patch 1.3), I gotta say I never found it to be very very very obvious while playing or never understood as to escalate the above behavoir; Acknowledging it as the* major crippling effect in the gameplay for all the players who mentioned about controls being slow, laggy, unresponsive or a fail.

I Must be missing something!.

Totally Agree its a set/batch of minor glitches which appears (from the video) to be cascading to the combat pool during gameplay, but..still.

Note: I do not have a good smooth video capture(free version) with correct timestamp logging to check the issue along with the keylogger, else i would have done it to confirm the *gameplayness* crippling controls.

Take my word for it. It is not a matter of key input, button mashing or maniac clicking the mouse. We can deal with the problem easily by doing some other action like rolling, then repeating the command, when the game fails to respond to our command.

But when a sign casting fails, for instance, you can simply press and hold the key and the command will respond after some 10-15 seconds, like I said. Unfortunately, in most situations it will result in death and Insane players can't afford that. I just finished my 15th run through the game, full 1.3 run, and I'm about to start another run for my 16th ending. Plus some interrupted by death runs, I most certainly have over 500 hrs with the game. Despite being a problem that we can overcome, this bug is most certainly an annoying one.

You mentioned a racing game. There is no button tap in a racing game. You press and hold the key for a turn or throttle or brake (with a few exceptions depending on the situation). I have mentioned it too:

I also play F1 2010 with the KB against Legendary AI drivers and I beat them all! =) Well, if that game had the same delay in my KB control responsiveness, I am sure I wouldn't be able to do a flying lap in any circuit without eating dirt, grass or kissing the wall in 100% of the attempts.



@The Vaikesh: I would love a +game too but that means level scaling, like ME2 has. And it doesn't allow to spend any more points in our skills than we already have in the first run.

 

[VikingStudios]

Geralt* is fast in the game, comparatively against all the other human opponents or human NPC's one gets to play!.

Apart from the bomb throwing glitch, apart from the item interaction issues during combat. I find that the rest of the controls behavior is fine, citing other issues to be extremely minor and in no way hampering my fun factor in the game.

When one is playing with a car in any racing game, I don't find people(almost all) complaining that the car doesn't turn enough when you tap..it won't because it was designed to have such a type of control behavior in the game. Its more or less, similar with Witcher 2..tapping clicks, dodges or signs in a button mashing technique isn't going to have any effect in the game.

-Edit-

I personally am not finding any issues with the combat behavior (except the two glitches I mentioned above), different games have difference in approaches in gameplay..combat in Witcher 2 is what the developers wanted(if they haven't changed it from past 3 patches).

This is your feeling of playing the game, what i mentioned above is my feeling of the game, it 's my oppinion and it 's not wrong. For me, the controlling behavior is a point of critisism, but i didn't say that this is a reason why i wouldn't play TW2 or i don't like it.

 

[Anarki_Hunter]

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[RageGT]

Does the glitch get overridden or work if I am constantly moving with the directional keys?.

like I cast a sign while constantly holding a directional button (let say sign doesn't work) and I am still moving, then I cast sign again. Does it work then!..(if it does, may be its one of the reason I missed it)

Yes, that's exactly what I need to do to skip the bug. Any other command like a roll or a movement key will allow then whatever command had failed (bomb throwing, sign casting, sword sheathing, chaining attack) - except the heavy attack on some rotfiends of act 2. That still isn't fixed and when it hits, nothing can make my Geralt use heavy attack on that target.