Release time? Are you serious?
Blade of Darkness is released in 2001. We have had this combat and animations in 2001:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Egad_InYl6I
Blade of Darkness is released in 2001. We have had this combat and animations in 2001:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Egad_InYl6I
True, that's actually one of my biggest issues with Dark Souls. It is just simply functional( at least when it comes to animations and player control )...and little else. And this video, really doesn't do Severance justice...Tukaram's ( that awesome shark sword) and Amazon's high level move sets were way better than this.
Adding runes is one thing but 'fixing' an already established mechanic that encompasses 60% of the game is another. I don't believe they'll do anything about the lacklustre combat, while they are renowned and celebrated for listening to the fans, it's simply too much to ask of them to do anything with the combat mechanics. Especially considering it's like 40/60 for people who want anything changed.
Blood & Wine is suppose to add things people had feedback on but I bet you 386 Zloty that adding depth to the combat isn't one of them.
there is a plenty of hidden potential behind W3 combat.. for example, how many players mastered the riposte? and i dont mean the standard parry block that removes 1HP from enemy health, but actual riposte that if delivered properly can even kill the monster attacking? (not the standard one with the shoulder block,kick, attack) Yes, actual options are relatively limited, but truth to be told, actual swordsmanship is all about perfecting the base forms - you need to master the parry, counter-attacks, and combine them with light and heavy attack into a fluid cohesive form, not just holding one button and hitting other like a crazy person.
i think the negativity is heavily exaggerated, its ok, it works well and can be enjoyable at times, but of course it has issues, and curiously some of them are minor but when you pile them together they make combats feel worse than what it is in reality, will try to break them down, but before anything, i really enjoyed it, it has a small Japanese action/beat them-all feel to it that i absolutely love ( especially the parry is sooo damn satisfying ! ) am gonna be very specific so please dont take it wrong if any devs will read this :
Difficulty :
this is probably the biggest one, because of this alone, am not obligated/forced to explore all the depth of the combat system and the meta along with alchemy, if i can face roll my way pressing X from start to finish ( with the starting armor set mind you ) then i have no reasons to look for the " depth " of the combat system, some of the boss were fairly difficult and i enjoyed finding strategies on how to beat them, but they were very few and only near the end, everything else is spamm X
then why wouldnt i play in a harder difficulty setting ? well the only thing harder difficulty achieve is higher healthpool and harder hitting enemies wich can all be mitigated by gear and therefore it render the difficulty useless, maybe am wrong and it does other thing but thats what i noticed, i havnt done a full playthrough with higher difficulty than normal
the AI is also very limited, no use of environment, repetitive patern across different monsters, ect .. some of these things are tweakable, and at the end i wonder if it wasnt a deliberate choice, who the hell did seriously look into the combat indepth considering how GOOD the questing/story is ? i was more hooked by the story than the combat personally, so i dont know, thats it for difficulty
Camera lock bug ? :
ok this is probably the worst thing, lock a target, press x, camera lock a target wich is 20 metter away from you, and last time i checked it still buggy on last patch, correct me if am wrong
Past footage :
1-Geralt controls/animations :
yeah i know, downgrade blablablabla, whatever, its on their official youtube channel ! and am talking about gameplay not graphic anyways, watch this first at 8:43 :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx8kQ4s5hCY
outside the fact the its very well scripted ( maybe not who knows ? ) the combat looks absolutely phenomenal in that footage, geralt is SO MUCH DAMN FASTER, in the final game ? he feel like a freaking snails, its absolutely ridiculous the difference that a faster dodge can make, just that alone make the combat so much more enjoyable, what the hell crossed the mind of the combat designer is out of my comprehensive capabilities ( am not game designer !)
it made the game feel way more nervous and faster than vanilla, one can argue that making geralt move faster would make the game too easy, well its already extremely easy, why even bother and ruin the combat at that point ? did they discover dark souls suddenly and wanted to copy it ? was it a technical limitation ? ther's a mod that make geralt doge faster and it work totally fine so it can only be a design decision, wich was wrong, sorry to say that, i never disagree with someone who knows his shit better than me, but that was a bad decision, maybe there were other reasons and am just whining, wich i would love to hear !
the easiest way to fix that would have been to require a talent investment to make geralt faster, or scale his overall combat speed with armor weight ..
2-Sound design :
sound is extremely important to express how hard your character is hitting, what he's hitting, do you know how i feel in vanilla ? i feel like am hitting a pillow filled with wood, thats how i feel, and i cannot blame the sound designer ( the sound design in the rest of the game is mind blowingly good ), because it sounded better in the trailers, but for some reasons someone though that it sounded way too good apparently
3-Camera lock angle :
again in that same footage and the fight at 21:44 ther's a specific cameral angle used when geralt lock his last target, it look so freaking cool, vanilla camera lock is no were near as good
4-Blood and dismemberment :
it looked better, i think anyone can agree with that without a doubt, that alone can express so much of the combat brutality and nervousness, but well vanilla is like a pillow fight compared to the demo, it lack ... blood .. yeah .. BLOOD PISSING MORE BLOOD PISSING PLEASE ITS SO SATISFYING !!!! .. cough, cough, sorry .
thats it i think, at the end, its not as bad as am making it sound, its ok with some issues that described, and am not worried for the future since they made that trailers they know exactly how to make good combats, so yeah, its not that bad !
Difficulty :
this is probably the biggest one, because of this alone, am not obligated/forced to explore all the depth of the combat system and the meta along with alchemy, if i can face roll my way pressing X from start to finish ( with the starting armor set mind you ) then i have no reasons to look for the " depth " of the combat system, some of the boss were fairly difficult and i enjoyed finding strategies on how to beat them, but they were very few and only near the end, everything else is spamm X
then why wouldnt i play in a harder difficulty setting ? well the only thing harder difficulty achieve is higher healthpool and harder hitting enemies wich can all be mitigated by gear and therefore it render the difficulty useless, maybe am wrong and it does other thing but thats what i noticed, i havnt done a full playthrough with higher difficulty than normal
the AI is also very limited, no use of environment, repetitive patern across different monsters, ect .. some of these things are tweakable, and at the end i wonder if it wasnt a deliberate choice, who the hell did seriously look into the combat indepth considering how GOOD the questing/story is ? i was more hooked by the story than the combat personally, so i dont know, thats it for difficulty
Camera lock bug ? :
ok this is probably the worst thing, lock a target, press x, camera lock a target wich is 20 metter away from you, and last time i checked it still buggy on last patch, correct me if am wrong
Past footage :
1-Geralt controls/animations :
yeah i know, downgrade blablablabla, whatever, its on their official youtube channel ! and am talking about gameplay not graphic anyways, watch this first at 8:43 :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx8kQ4s5hCY
outside the fact the its very well scripted ( maybe not who knows ? ) the combat looks absolutely phenomenal in that footage, geralt is SO MUCH DAMN FASTER, in the final game ? he feel like a freaking snails, its absolutely ridiculous the difference that a faster dodge can make, just that alone make the combat so much more enjoyable, what the hell crossed the mind of the combat designer is out of my comprehensive capabilities ( am not game designer !)
it made the game feel way more nervous and faster than vanilla, one can argue that making geralt move faster would make the game too easy, well its already extremely easy, why even bother and ruin the combat at that point ? did they discover dark souls suddenly and wanted to copy it ? was it a technical limitation ? ther's a mod that make geralt doge faster and it work totally fine so it can only be a design decision, wich was wrong, sorry to say that, i never disagree with someone who knows his shit better than me, but that was a bad decision, maybe there were other reasons and am just whining, wich i would love to hear !
the easiest way to fix that would have been to require a talent investment to make geralt faster, or scale his overall combat speed with armor weight ..
2-Sound design :
sound is extremely important to express how hard your character is hitting, what he's hitting, do you know how i feel in vanilla ? i feel like am hitting a pillow filled with wood, thats how i feel, and i cannot blame the sound designer ( the sound design in the rest of the game is mind blowingly good ), because it sounded better in the trailers, but for some reasons someone though that it sounded way too good apparently
3-Camera lock angle :
again in that same footage and the fight at 21:44 ther's a specific cameral angle used when geralt lock his last target, it look so freaking cool, vanilla camera lock is no were near as good
4-Blood and dismemberment :
it looked better, i think anyone can agree with that without a doubt, that alone can express so much of the combat brutality and nervousness, but well vanilla is like a pillow fight compared to the demo, it lack ... blood .. yeah .. BLOOD PISSING MORE BLOOD PISSING PLEASE ITS SO SATISFYING !!!! .. cough, cough, sorry .
thats it i think, at the end, its not as bad as am making it sound, its ok with some issues that described, and am not worried for the future since they made that trailers they know exactly how to make good combats, so yeah, its not that bad !
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EXACTLY! Just adding more speed would make him more agressive and cool fighting. Giving a really better felling on combat.
I made some gifs showing off one of the reason's I like TW2's combat more. No Quen, No Fear.
Combat finisher's! Also, icy Aard was great. A pity you couldn't get it in TW3.
https://gfycat.com/ThornyThunderousBlacklab
https://gfycat.com/BruisedWhiteEagle
https://gfycat.com/GrouchyFancyFruitbat
https://gfycat.com/ExhaustedChillyGnat
Except during the Kayran fight. 
Combat finisher's! Also, icy Aard was great. A pity you couldn't get it in TW3.
https://gfycat.com/ThornyThunderousBlacklab
https://gfycat.com/BruisedWhiteEagle
https://gfycat.com/GrouchyFancyFruitbat
https://gfycat.com/ExhaustedChillyGnat
Actually, I find him to be just a little too fast to be realistic as is.
I'd like to see a mechanic that allows you to spend adrenaline on a period of unblockable, timed attacks. It would cost you adrenaline, but would allow you to time strikes while simultaneously dodging or parrying all attacks for 5 seconds or so. Something that still requires player skill, instead of simply swinging faster and landing more hits before the enemy gets a turn.
Plus, that could open up a world of cool animations.
---------- Updated at 11:44 PM ----------
TW2 had its moments! I think I like the overall feel of combat in TW3 the best, but I liked the overall concept of combat in TW1 the best. I was hoping fighting styles would make a return.I made some gifs showing off one of the reason's I like TW2's combat more. No Quen, No Fear.
Except during the Kayran fight.
Combat finisher's! Also, icy Aard was great. A pity you couldn't get it in TW3.
https://gfycat.com/ThornyThunderousBlacklab
https://gfycat.com/BruisedWhiteEagle
https://gfycat.com/GrouchyFancyFruitbat
https://gfycat.com/ExhaustedChillyGnat
Man, the last part of this gif is freakin sick. This is what i don't find in the combat of TW3, especially with that slooooow roll we have now.
I think, ironically, it's time for RPGs to start looking at how devs design skill trees in action games. Rudimentary though they may be, the philosophy is usually based on how to make the gameplay fresh or fun, and less on a mathematical accumulation of power through stats. Sleeping Dogs, Arkham and Shadow Warrior are good examples. Dragon's Dogma is the only RPG I can think of off hand that embraces an action style skill tree, and it make the combat much more dynamic than a passive leveling up of damage or crit effects.
Damn..., as I already say I just loove the combat of The Witcher 2 - of course it is not perfect but, is really amazing.
Even games like Resident Evil 4, which I played more than 20 times - no kidding. As I always start playing on easy, then on bigger difficulty. And that was a game where I needed start looking for all possibilities of combat (grenades, flash grenades, knife, explosive barrels, kicks...), not just more damage from the weapons. Got to a point where even some bosses I was fighting just with the knife.haha Definitely is a thing rpg's need to use more often.
True. Is always fun when you can get different types os skills, and just use them to turn the gameplay something more on your personal style. Even I having to confess that, when I first started playing games, I did always went to "more power" only - a lot of Final Fantasy experience on that. It was through the years that I started to like more of different tactics.
Even games like Resident Evil 4, which I played more than 20 times - no kidding. As I always start playing on easy, then on bigger difficulty. And that was a game where I needed start looking for all possibilities of combat (grenades, flash grenades, knife, explosive barrels, kicks...), not just more damage from the weapons. Got to a point where even some bosses I was fighting just with the knife.haha Definitely is a thing rpg's need to use more often.
That's precisely why Japanese( and almost every other) action game are so poor at movement..everything is fast, every action is fluid, everything carries the same momentum. It is flashy and easier to control, but not better....imagine driving a weightless car, that instantly accelerates/breaks. Where would real actual skill then come from?... Everyone would be driving like Schumacher.
For people who approach this game tactically, they will easily see there is logic and purpose behind every Geralt's movement action.
A roll, that has quick momentum, but slow recovery...change of tempo from offensive to defensive, forces the player to take into account that it's higher maneuverability comes with a price of slowed offensive action and brief period of vulnerability...instead it would be roll, roll, roll.
Back dodge is exactly the opposite and has to be planned ahead with player anticipating enemy attack... in return for slower momentum and shorter range, it has much quicker recovery.
Sidestep is fastest/most useful and works precisely in line with proper positioning... you have to be conscious of direction behind every Geralt's step to really make the most out of it. If the player ice skated like in so many action games, it would be cheap and meaningless. It works well, precisely because Geralt moves slowly.
You can even sidestep between several enemies, which requires right timing and precise reading of entire group movement.
And all of Geralt's movement actions are far more immersive and realistic.
I-frames, Fast Horizontal/Backward movement, as well as fast momentum/quick recovery from every single action would turn this into movement tactics for morons...some basic skill at timing and little thinking required, which is something that most people it seems, prefer.
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Not better uh? A thing that is easier to control is not better? Really? Should we really follow the example of Lords of the Fallen? Uhh... NO. Especially because, don't know if anyone still has said that, but we are playing as a goddamn mutated enhanced superuberskilled swordman freak. So i demand to be flashy. And i don't give a damn if it's more Japanese style and not tactical, dynamic, clean, estatic and all the other fancy words you people like to say about this combat.
So, you're basically saying that these games are easy, no? Games like TW2 and TW1 where the animations are all frenetics and flashy? Shame that they're much harder and complex than the combat of TW3.
I have. And it's not fun. And not because i don't like tactical combat systems or hard games. It's because it's not simply fun, no matter how you try to make appear this combat "tactical", it's not. I don't only have my personal experience, i watched lots of youtubers and streamers playing this game, and i can safely say that this combat, so deep as you say, it's not fun. It's passively entertaining, and it has even many flaws. But hey, if you find it fun and awesome good for you. But it's a fact that this direction of tactical slowness doesn't work as it should and it doesn't even make sense for a witcher.
Oh god... sorry i have shivers everytime i hear the words "realistic" and "immersive" about a videogame. Just curious,did you enjoyed the more "realistic" and "immersive" movement system before it was patched with the 1.07 update?
Realistic ≠ Fun
Are you kidding？ Realistic logic, those thing sometimes useless to gameplay， if you like those thing you shouldn't play witcher, because witcher is a fantasy game it's never realistic , Geralt can user sign that's impossible in real world, Geralt can use Alchemy that's impossible in real world， Geralt has Witcher sense hat's impossible in real world，Geralt is not like a human that's impossible in real world， but why those thing still in the game， because reality is never the most important thing to a game. Game itself never will be real life otherwise we just need live in real world there's full of Realistic. There is no doubt that easier to control and sense of control as smooth as possible are far more important than Realistic, if some action design Conflict with reality but easier and smooth to player control then fuXX off reality.
All in all Gameplay over Reality.
All in all Gameplay over Reality.
I like how this word is used a little too much, by both sides, in an argument that is all too subjective.
I for one do enjoy realistic movements more than more "showy" actions. That's why I seldom use shields in Souls games, because it feels ridiculous to be able to block some of those blows without flying several kilometers backwards
Also, I definitely do not find any Witcher game difficult. One and two were also incredibly easy if you knew what you were doing. I concede that the combat in Witcher 3 could have been more complex. But I make it enjoyable by myself, by pushing myself to use every aspect of the game and trying to dodge/attack/riposte at the correct times to make the moves "look" badass (I don't know if I was able to explain what I meant clearly but, oh well).Anyway, my whole point here is that it's a little funny to speak like our own "opinions" about this combat is scientific fact, and apply to everyone. People will have differing ideas about these things. And the game designers will have to choose for which people they would design the systems. While thinking that they could have made it harder in higher difficulties and added more moves, I still am glad that they went with more realistic and physical movesets. Yes, it takes from the depth of the combat, if you play it as it is, with minimal variety. But at least there is the possibility of making it fun by yourself, setting rules on how you play it. If it weren't physically realistic, however, I would have enjoyed it less.
Edit: @yyb0568 of course it is a fantasy game, but let's not compare fictitious aspects with the realistic tones underneath it. Even though there is magic and alchemy in the Witcher world, the rules of physics (either its own or ours) still do apply. So if a giant swings a club with so many Newtons of force towards me and if I am able to "parry" that, that takes all the immersion I feel with the game. In every fantasy universe, there are stars, planets, day/night, gravity, so on. We can't just act like there is no physics, in my opinion
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Now we can all go home, but I have to admit, it's fun reading arguments like these and all the "facts" behind them. I'll always stand fast by this: "trying to change someone's opinion on a videogame is like trying to persuade a highly religious person that there is no God or vice versa". The experiences we have with games are all too personal.
Have to say that I disagree. TW3 is the most polished, but I don't think it's the most fun.
Instead of taking elements from TW2, and giving them polish and improvement, the team went and tried to overhaul the basic elements, like signs, swordplay and alchemy. Alchemy just isn't as fun in TW3. It's too streamlined. I don't think the swordplay has the weight of TW2's either. Sometimes it feels good, other times It doesn't. I'm whacking away, but there's little feedback. I'm not sure if that's because of what's going on behind the scenes with the animations, or something else. Aard is also a bit disappointing. It's become a boring instant kill stab. The way it worked in TW2 was great.
Whirl is also a bit strange in TW3. How can the guards block 20 consecutive hits?
TW1 and TW2 had a bunch of interesting combat ideas, much more than TW3. The previous two games just struggled with implementation of those ideas. TW2 specifically because after Rise of the White Wolf got cancelled, the company had no more cash and had to release TW2 or go bankrupt. TW2 could have had the best combat of the series, if it had more time. I don't think the ideas from TW1 and TW2 needed to get scrapped all together.
Looking at the earlier 35 minute demo, the movement style was much more similar to TW2's. I'm not sure why it was changed, or why at launch, Geralt moved like a tank. Dude couldn't even move in a circle properly until the alt. movement option was added in the settings.
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"Fun" is an impression and it can entirely depend on subjective factors. Personally I found Souls series atrocius when it comes to movement, positioning and outmaneuvering. Not because it sucks!, because it's not fun "argument", but because :
- player moves too fast in horizontal/back direction (like some type of crab) and I can "outmaneuver" majority of opponents by doing nothing but holding direction opposite of their attacks( who even attack blindly at air, when I'm not even near them)
- enemies have very cheap movement tricks, spinning in place like statues standing on a spinning record
- I-frames completely nullify the importance of forward thinking and right positioning...only some basic timing is required and allows for cheap backstabs
- excessively long and unrealistic backstab/parry animations which ruin the flow of combat, because of poor camera are janky as hell, take control away from the player( funny how for exactly the same reason, most people despise QTE's), while making the player invulnerable...again no thinking required about isolating one opponent from the group
Give me actual arguments, just as I explained to you why there is far more to Witcher's movement tactics then in other action games.
A precise example of any kind of depth or thinking required when it comes to outmaneuvering your opponents in games like Dogma or Souls series.
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The fun reason is not enough? Sure, i'll explain then. But could you please stop talking and critizing Dark souls? I wasn't even talking about Dark souls, don't use it's flaws to make appear the combat of TW3 better. Now here's what i see as wrong/notfun/nottactical with this combat:
- Geralt has very few options of attack, only 2 long-winded attacks for both strong and fast, the rest is the same and they're even badly randomized, in many situations i saw Geralt performing the same 2 attacks for many times, very awkward. This limits any kind of tactics when using a certain type of attack instead of another.
- The parry system, while being good, it's just as the shield in dark souls. No, even worse. Because you don't consume stamina and you block basically everything for eternity.
- The counterattack system doesn't require any skill. Enemies attacks are so predictable and not varied.
- The roll has a too long animation, covers too much distance and it's not even directable like in TW2. It ruins the rhythm and flow of the combat. It even has a delay at the end when Geralt is getting up from the ground. E.g. a bandit is charging at me, i roll, another bandit in the meantime already started charging and he reaches me. Sadly i have to wait that half "tactical" second and i get hit, every single time. Lame.
- The general feeling of the combat is sloppy. Geralt walks so slowly that i feel very limited. Can't understand why CDPR didn't allow us to decide when to walk or run in combat by simply using the stick, instead of the A button with that horrible input delay.
- You were whining about backstabs in dark souls but we have that cancer of autokill, which is even worse.
- Enemies have cheap movement and very few attack patterns, you can easily and always outflank them without all that overthinking you keep doing with your posts.
- Pretty much all the boss fights don't require any skill/strategy, both for positioning and actual offensive skills.
- There's no feel of hit when fighting enemies. Like someone here said, it's like hitting a pillow full of wood.
- Don't like the dodge animation. Too repetitive and there are not even pirouettes. Meh.
Automatic Finishers. Just saying.
Again, why? Was i talking about other games?
Funny how you quoted and focused only those 3 words and not what i wrote after, and it's even funnier that you haven't told me that i'm talking nonsense. This combat don't work as it should and witchers fight in a flashy way and not slowly. These two are subjective things now?
Geralt is a witcher. To be realistic he should be at least that fast as he was in demo. I dont know why devs forgot about such essential thing.
Remember that trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sr-DKyAVU34 ?