stuff that made the game less fun.
I just finished the main storyline. Really enjoyed playing Wild Hunt--everything about the landscape was so wonderful, the changing light and the ambient comments and the way that even the grandest locations, castles and fortresses, had a weathered, dilapidated air.
But I had a few issues & I wanted to do a quick recap.
(1) Covered elsewhere, but: the save bug & the disappearing alchemy recipes were a bother. I tried the alchemy workaround, dropping the bombs I'd made to get the recipes back & starting from scratch, but while it works it's a very expensive solution. The white gull alone is a pain to make.
(2) Inventory. Every time I wanted to use a potion other than the two I could keep in the quickbar--fairly often! fiddling with potions is part of the game!--this is what I had to do:
1. Open up the menu. (button click)
2. Select inventory. (button click)
3. Wait for the armor section of the inventory to load (couple seconds)
4. Select the usable items section of the inventory (button click)
5. Wait for the section to load (couple seconds)
6. Scroll down to the potions (couple seconds)
7. Hope I recognize the potion (I probably didn't)
8. Mouse along all the potions, reading each title, then either consume the potion immediately or add it to my quickbar (several seconds, half-dozen clicks)
That's eight steps & it took long enough to noticeably break up the gameplay.
It was worse when picking up a QUEST that required me to read a letter. I'd loot the letter & get an instruction that the quest wouldn't progress until I read the letter. Okay, that's cool. I like reading flavor text! But by the time I'd navigated my way to the letter--only recognizable by the asterisk marking it as new, so if I didn't read it immediately I'd really be in trouble--I was generally so frustrated I didn't care anymore.
The inventory interface is a real problem.
(3) The in-combat mode always had me crouched and facing the nearest enemy, which made some fights really, really difficult. There was one fight in particular with an enemy that teleports back and forth across the field of battle. Because I could not move at a run, and because Geralt would not face the direction where I wanted him to go, the only way I could reach the teleporting enemy was by combat rolling. It was ridiculous. I had to somersault my way around the field.
(4) Calling Roach & having him show up behind some obstacle that prevented him from reaching me. I'm a packrat so I spent a fair bit of time overburdened, so when this happened I'd have to slow-walk to the nearest unobstructed area & call the horse again.
I just finished the main storyline. Really enjoyed playing Wild Hunt--everything about the landscape was so wonderful, the changing light and the ambient comments and the way that even the grandest locations, castles and fortresses, had a weathered, dilapidated air.
But I had a few issues & I wanted to do a quick recap.
(1) Covered elsewhere, but: the save bug & the disappearing alchemy recipes were a bother. I tried the alchemy workaround, dropping the bombs I'd made to get the recipes back & starting from scratch, but while it works it's a very expensive solution. The white gull alone is a pain to make.
(2) Inventory. Every time I wanted to use a potion other than the two I could keep in the quickbar--fairly often! fiddling with potions is part of the game!--this is what I had to do:
1. Open up the menu. (button click)
2. Select inventory. (button click)
3. Wait for the armor section of the inventory to load (couple seconds)
4. Select the usable items section of the inventory (button click)
5. Wait for the section to load (couple seconds)
6. Scroll down to the potions (couple seconds)
7. Hope I recognize the potion (I probably didn't)
8. Mouse along all the potions, reading each title, then either consume the potion immediately or add it to my quickbar (several seconds, half-dozen clicks)
That's eight steps & it took long enough to noticeably break up the gameplay.
It was worse when picking up a QUEST that required me to read a letter. I'd loot the letter & get an instruction that the quest wouldn't progress until I read the letter. Okay, that's cool. I like reading flavor text! But by the time I'd navigated my way to the letter--only recognizable by the asterisk marking it as new, so if I didn't read it immediately I'd really be in trouble--I was generally so frustrated I didn't care anymore.
The inventory interface is a real problem.
(3) The in-combat mode always had me crouched and facing the nearest enemy, which made some fights really, really difficult. There was one fight in particular with an enemy that teleports back and forth across the field of battle. Because I could not move at a run, and because Geralt would not face the direction where I wanted him to go, the only way I could reach the teleporting enemy was by combat rolling. It was ridiculous. I had to somersault my way around the field.
(4) Calling Roach & having him show up behind some obstacle that prevented him from reaching me. I'm a packrat so I spent a fair bit of time overburdened, so when this happened I'd have to slow-walk to the nearest unobstructed area & call the horse again.