(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!

 

[Chronoid]

Nerfing anything in single player games makes about as much sense as putting two wolves and a pig in the same pen together and expecting to wake up the next morning to find all three of them still alive. It's asinine, and does nothing except make the game overtly less fun for the player. The Witcher 3 isn't supposed to be "scary" to play. It was never supposed to be "scary" to play. You play as Geralt for Melitele's sake. Not only is he a witcher with superhuman reflexes, strength, agility, adroit sword skills, and the ability to see in the dark, but he's an extra strong witcher because he underwent extra mutations because he was THAT predisposed to surviving the trial of the grasses/mutations, etc.

I am just now hearing about the Swallow nerfs thanks to the thread creator, and while I am incredibly disappointed, I am not at all surprised. I am still mad that CDPR decided to nerf Fire Stream into unholy levels of uselessness way back in patch 1.07 or whatever, and to this day the only way I can make Fire Stream halfway decent is to have Conductors of Magic equipped on Geralt AT ALL TIMES. Fire Stream went from useful to useless. That isn't a mere nerf. That's a castration. Even if we went by your logic and assumed all of these nerfs were for the greater good because the game was "too easy"...well...I'm afraid it's a moot point, because even on Death March the game is still a walk in the park in the year of our Lord 2024. So nerfs haven't really done anything except piss the playerbase off. And I'm someone who also regularly plays on Blood and Broken Bones.

Basically, there is no reason to nerf anything in a single player game. Ever. Either buff an ability if it's useless or remove something if it's an outright exploit or bug. Period.

 

[SigilFey]

According to that argument, no studio should ever attempt to balance their game's combat system, allowing a small number of skills to dominate combat in most or all scenarios and make all other abilities feel pointless by comparison. No game should ever attempt to create a diverse selection of skills and powers that are more or less useful depending on the enemy, the environment, the number of creatures your facing. Every game should be defined by the one or two things that will always work and the rest is just filler.

I don't think so. And how is fire stream not useful. It still allows players to set enemies alight, creating openings for follow-up attacks that will damage them while they flail about, or use that opening to engage other targets without getting hit in the back. And it still does damage. It just doesn't melt 3-4 enemies at once like it used to.

All signs in The Witcher series were meant to be augments to Geralt's sword work. Witchers are not mages. Signs are not spells. In the literature, Igni would be enough to light a candle, singe a rope, or start a campfire in the rain. It was not a "fire blast spell". Aard was strong enough to knock a person slightly off-balance, not send them flying across the room. Axii was enough to convince a person the false name you just gave them was real even if they thought they recognized you, not take control of their minds and force them to fight against their friends at your side.

If every buff was an exploit, then everyone would always use the same buff for everything. I would call that extremely poor game design. It results in shallow character classes or builds and meaningless progression. Characters should have specific strengths and weaknesses, creating a specific playstyle that requires different tactics based on the role the player has chosen.

 

[Chronoid]

Ah, so we are playing the "book lore" game. If we're going to tango to that tune then I'm afraid your logic is fallacious on two fronts. But we'll get to that later.

"...allowing a small number of skills to dominate combat in most or all scenarios and make all other abilities feel pointless by comparison."

Except, CDPR has already done this by nerfing abilities like Fire Stream. Now, instead of utilizing the gamut of my Signs, my Geralt is opting instead to just spam the vanilla version of Igni along with Quen and Aard. That's right, the first tier of Igni does more damage than Fire Stream. Which doesn't make any sense. Fire Stream is essentially a flamethrower. The vanilla Igni Sign is just a short blast. How do you suppose a chemical reaction like fire does the most damage in real-life situations? A sudden outburst from a stove in a cooking attempt gone awry? Or from an actiual flamethrower on the battlefield? So Fire Stream not scaling properly in modes like New Game+ and doing less damage than the first tier ability doesn't make sense from a mathematical or logical standpoint. But I digress. Back to your point...

You assert that not nerfing abilities would allow certain abilities to dominate. But this couldn't be further from the truth. Now, instead of someone like me having the option of using Fire Stream, the vanilla Igni, or the myriad other Signs and abilities from the other two trees, I have one LESS option. CDPR is giving me LESS options, not more. If a certain ability is arguably "overpowered" I always have the personal choice of simply...not using it. What a concept! But by nefing the ability outright, CDPR has thrown out the baby with the bathwater and has left me with no choice whatsoever.

"Aard was strong enough to knock a person slightly off-balance, not send them flying across the room."

Yes, you are advocating for story (or in this case, the canon of the books) to take precedence over gameplay. Unfortunately, this is probably a cardinal sin that is struck somewhere on some stone tablet in every major video game development studio across the globe. While you may be right as far as the books are concerned, it does not make for riveting combat. Apart from which, there are plenty of cutscenes in which Geralt himself uses Igni to great effect (Imlerith) and even discusses Quen as if it were a powerful mind controll spell. And lest you forget, Geralt even uses Axii in one of the books to make the guards lead him to the king. So clearly, Axii is more than just a "These aren't the droids you're looking for" Force suggestion.

If CDPR was to abide such stringent metrics there would be no bombs in the game either. And speaking of bombs, Alchemy/Combat builds are as broken as ever in 2024. So...when are those nerfs coming? Oh, wait...

 

[SigilFey]

Ah, so we are playing the "book lore" game. If we're going to tango to that tune then I'm afraid your logic is fallacious on two fronts. But we'll get to that later.

"...allowing a small number of skills to dominate combat in most or all scenarios and make all other abilities feel pointless by comparison."

Except, CDPR has already done this by nerfing abilities like Fire Stream. Now, instead of utilizing the gamut of my Signs, my Geralt is opting instead to just spam the vanilla version of Igni along with Quen and Aard. That's right, the first tier of Igni does more damage than Fire Stream. Which doesn't make any sense. Fire Stream is essentially a flamethrower. The vanilla Igni Sign is just a short blast. How do you suppose a chemical reaction like fire does the most damage in real-life situations? A sudden outburst from a stove in a cooking attempt gone awry? Or from an actiual flamethrower on the battlefield? So Fire Stream not scaling properly in modes like New Game+ and doing less damage than the first tier ability doesn't make sense from a mathematical or logical standpoint. But I digress. Back to your point...

You assert that not nerfing abilities would allow certain abilities to dominate. But this couldn't be further from the truth. Now, instead of someone like me having the option of using Fire Stream, the vanilla Igni, or the myriad other Signs and abilities from the other two trees, I have one LESS option. CDPR is giving me LESS options, not more. If a certain ability is arguably "overpowered" I always have the personal choice of simply...not using it. What a concept! But by nefing the ability outright, CDPR has thrown out the baby with the bathwater and has left me with no choice whatsoever.

"Aard was strong enough to knock a person slightly off-balance, not send them flying across the room."

Yes, you are advocating for story (or in this case, the canon of the books) to take precedence over gameplay. Unfortunately, this is probably a cardinal sin that is struck somewhere on some stone tablet in every major video game development studio across the globe. While you may be right as far as the books are concerned, it does not make for riveting combat. Apart from which, there are plenty of cutscenes in which Geralt himself uses Igni to great effect (Imlerith) and even discusses Quen as if it were a powerful mind controll spell. And lest you forget, Geralt even uses Axii in one of the books to make the guards lead him to the king. So clearly, Axii is more than just a "These aren't the droids you're looking for" Force suggestion.

If CDPR was to abide such stringent metrics there would be no bombs in the game either. And speaking of bombs, Alchemy/Combat builds are as broken as ever in 2024. So...when are those nerfs coming? Oh, wait...

I'm basing the argument on both the books (which are where the universe and characters came from, not to mention the inspiration for the games) and the prior games, in which signs were a bit more muted and support focused. It's not until TW3 that we started seeing the ability to use signs as a core combat focus for certain builds. Perhaps, the studio felt they had gone a bit too far with it. I always felt that it was way, way too simple to heal during fights TW3, and I would avoid things like igni, as it seemed to be the answer to pretty much all combat scenarios, especially when coupled with bombs. Very, very far away from who "Geralt" always was (prior games and the literature.)

Players do not have fewer options. They simply are not going to be able to rely on Igni to get them through most scenarios anymore. Now, they'll have to use it where it applies -- specifically against creatures that are weak to fire. Or, it can be used more as a distraction against multiple enemies, a debilitation to s single, strong target, or to set off environmental effects. In other scenarios, you'll need to use other signs.

THAT is The Witcher, the way it always was. Geralt has a whole warehouse of tools. The player needs to know the enemy and figure out the right tools for the job at hand.

I agree that Alchemy is an incredibly powerful tree, and that what sort of the point. I don't mind it too much, since it is a mid-to-late-game unlock, and it offers a needed boost for people doing an NG+ run, especially with enemy scaling on. Besides, if people find it too OP, it's as simple as not using it (...the same way I largely ignored Igni thoughout my runs.)

The core argument you're making is that you liked the way the game worked in prior versions. You can still play Witcher 3 Classic. If you want to play with all the next-gen stuff, then this is the direction they've taken it. Perhaps there are some mods that pump up the damage for Igni. But I doubt they'll put things back to the way they were. The goal was clearly to balance, love it or hate it.