(Next Gen) Why was Swallow Nerfed?

[Milaal]

I understand some of the gameplay adjustments, even if I disagree with them (or at least their severity). But why was Swallow’s regeneration value cut in half, per the wiki? Food and Gourmet changes suggest their own nerfs were done because Swallow and White Raffords were the intended method for healing, so why hurt those methods by themselves?

Doesn’t this almost seem to encourage save scumming for White Rafford at random Diagrams locations, considering how it was oddly buffed (and significantly!) where Swallow was nerfed? Full admission I’m really frustrated with some of these changes, so I’m trying to understand, the better to adapt. I play on Death March all the time, no quen, so I’ve already gotten gud, but that doesn’t change my frustration with some of these changes.

I just saw that Superior Swallow heals only equal to the amount of regular Swallow now!! Do regeneration effects from multiple sources even stack, or is the expectation that we never get hit? Is there someplace where we can complain, or should people just curse them out and shout insults until someone from CDPR pays attention?! I’m really pissed about some (not all) of these changes with the 4.0 and past update.

(*As an aside, doesn’t it seem that Gourmet should have just been removed considering just how savagely nerfed It was?*)

 

[SigilFey]

Well, the easiest answer is that combat was always intended to be very scary in The Witcher games. Unlike other games that would allow you to pop a health potion while dodging someone two feet away swinging a battle-axe at your head, The Witcher games always focused on preparedness. If anything, the combat in the TW3 would start to fall on the easy side relatively early on. Even on B&BB difficulty (my preferred difficulty), it was possible to eat a steak, drink an entire liter of water, and pop a Swallow potion...then be at full health in a matter of seconds. And all of that while dodging, spinning, and flourishing a sword at blinding speeds. (So I largely wouldn't use it. I tended to save it for more dangerous areas to heal up quickly between fights.) It also puts more emphasis on resitstances and exploiting weaknesses, again reinforcing The Witcher's approach to planning ahead instead of reacting.

Death March is made to be punishing, so the most obvious suggestion would be to lower the difficulty and see if that puts the experience more in line with what you're looking for.

Or, you could hit the Nexus and see if there's a mod that makes health restoration closer to what it used to be. I am very sure you're not the only person that's feels this way.

 

[Milaal]

Well, the easiest answer is that combat was always intended to be very scary in The Witcher games. Unlike other games that would allow you to pop a health potion while dodging someone two feet away swinging a battle-axe at your head, The Witcher games always focused on preparedness. If anything, the combat in the TW3 would start to fall on the easy side relatively early on. Even on B&BB difficulty (my preferred difficulty), it was possible to eat a steak, drink an entire liter of water, and pop a Swallow potion...then be at full health in a matter of seconds. And all of that while dodging, spinning, and flourishing a sword at blinding speeds. (So I largely wouldn't use it. I tended to save it for more dangerous areas to heal up quickly between fights.) It also puts more emphasis on resitstances and exploiting weaknesses, again reinforcing The Witcher's approach to planning ahead instead of reacting.

Death March is made to be punishing, so the most obvious suggestion would be to lower the difficulty and see if that puts the experience more in line with what you're looking for.

Or, you could hit the Nexus and see if there's a mod that makes health restoration closer to what it used to be. I am very sure you're not the only person that's feels this way.

I don’t know if you intended it this way or not, but that very much read like “get gud,” or otherwise suggesting Death March was too much for me. I’ve played on Death March through two playthroughs now, and I never felt combat was relatively easy until the mid to late game, which could possibly be explained by simple practice. So far as I am concerned, if combat feels too easy for other players, it’s their jaded experience with the game, or overall desensitization to combat difficulty from playing Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Sekiro, etc. The Witcher 3 was certainly meant to have difficult combat but it was never (from my understanding) intended to be a pure combat model, instead being an actual role playing game. Having Swallow be effectively useless in combat retires it to an out of combat potion, which begs the question of why people don’t just stick with food? Further, Alchemy builds - which were obviously intended to be nerfed with Next Gen - are interestingly the ones least impacted by this, considering their greater access to the Refreshment ability. I actually get a little angry that by mentioning this CDPR may very well go back with a steak knife to further nerf those builds. The game was between 7 and 8 years old, at a point where it should have been completed 5 to 6 years ago. Rather than stick with bug fixes and graphical improvements - shoe horning Ray Tracing on it - CDPR actually thought it a good idea to offer a lite overhaul. The lack of dependability in an established experience, changing a game already purchased X years ago and thus potentially providing me with something I hadn’t purchased, is offensive. I was already irritated at the increase in Recommended Spec Requirements for CP2077 post release. This kind of thing endangers my support of CDPR in future, which is curious since the way the game previously existed wasn’t driving off players. Obviously they don’t care about a single outlier’s frustration, but I can certainly become someone on Reddit that urges others to review their own eagerness. They should hope that these changes drew more gamers than would have been taken in by simple graphical improvements.

 

[SigilFey]

I'm not judging your ability to play the game -- I'm explaining a rationale very much in line with what The Witcher games have always been. Healing in the middle of a fight was never something that was easy to do in any of the games before TW3. It was technically possible, but it was radically less effective in prior games. This is much more in line with what I believe the vision always was.

It's a reflection on CDPR's design departure from the "standard" ARPG model beginning with Diablo 1. I get hit, tap a key, and my health comes back instantly. I get hit again, I heal immediately. That wasn't how a lot of CRPG games worked before that point, and TW1 was definitely a "return to the roots" of old-school games, where healing items were often extremely rare by comparison or just non-existent. It's a totally different design philosophy, and one that has largely been abandoned in modern approaches that make healing items as common as M&Ms. So, I can see where this might throw players for a loop.

Being good at Dark Souls has no bearing on a totally different approach to combat as a whole. Hence, love it or hate it, this is a far more loyal interpretation of the way combat always worked with The Witcher games in the past. It was about researching the creature that Geralt would be facing, discovering its strengths and weaknesses, then using the correct oils / decoctions / bombs / signs to defeat it toe-to-toe. Plus, potions and decoctions would be taken before entering combat...a very unusual and cool approach compared to how potions would work in most other RPGs and ARPGs at the time. "Healing Potions" weren't really ever a regular part of combat. Swallow would increase toxicity by a significant amount, and would largely be used during a fight as a last resort. It was often much more effective to focus on just not being hit at all -- a far cry from the design philosophy of other games in the genre.

So, with TW3, the combat fell perhaps a bit too far into the "norm" for the genre, and now they're seemingly tweaking it back to what made it unique in the past. That's a studio's prerogative. No one is required to support it. If you don't care for it, there will certainly be other options, but I wouldn't expect that the studio will put it back the way it was. Or, who knows, maybe they will make it an option. Healing during combat is meant to be difficult.

You are more than welcome to post on Reddit or anywhere else, as you please, and to criticize however you like. You can feel free to do so here, as well!