TW2: awesome rpg, worst gameplay

[username_2093396]

I have refrained from saying the next bit for months, because it could be interpreted as offensive. I don't mean it that way and so I'm gonna try to explain it now.

Different brains interpret things differently. My guess is that some people don't even notice that Geralt has no fluidity anymore (nevermind witcher reflexes). They don't notice that he stands there two full seconds, before he moves a muscle. I don't know why, may it be hand-eye-coordination, perception of time or movement, but there has got to be some reason that roughly half the players feel that the fun has been killed out of combat, while the other half just goes "Huh?". "Letho's moves are fluent, Geralts are jerky" - "Huh?". And the ones who have programmed the moves (not only fighting, ALL moves are affected by that), they belong to the latter category of people. They probably also don't notice the infamous 2-step-hiccup - which is pretty well documented by RageGT.

I admit that most of the time I'm looking at the environment or the enemies while playing, so it's possible I might have missed some problems with Geralt. However I didn't notice too much input lag. Occasionally I did have to press the button twice to cast a sign before it registered, or Geralt didn't parry even though I knew I clicked and had plenty of vigor left, but it didn't happen often enough to become a real aggravation for me.

For the most part Geralt did what I meant to do during combat so overall I liked the combat system (was playing on hard mode with keyboard and mouse, and this was before the most recent patches so for all I know my few response issues were fixed already).

It might also have to do with playing style. It kind of sounds like people with input issues are playing differently than I did, so maybe the issues are more common during certain types of moves. My fighting style consisted mainly of getting right in someone's face and whaling on him with the sword (or blocking and doing riposte if he had a shield) and then rolling away to let my vigor regenerate or to cast a sign from a distance. I didn't move too much with WASD during combat (I mainly picked my target with the mouse and Geralt did his leaping attack right up to the target, and when I wanted to dodge or run I rolled away).

@bowman

On multiple occasions during fights I would suddenly be unable to swing a sword, throw bombs or use signs, just move around and dodge, and only after getting hit by an enemy would I regain all controls back.

Also in Act 3, few times I couldn't sheath my sword after the fight, think it was Zerrikanterment steel sword. I had to swing once to make the command work.

Such things didn't happen very often but they sound like broken game mechanics.

Yeah, that definitely sounds like a bug. I don't think it ever happened to me, but in any case I've seen other people mention it too and I hope it will be fixed in a patch

 

[dragonbird]

Different brains interpret things differently. My guess is that some people don't even notice that Geralt has no fluidity anymore (nevermind witcher reflexes). They don't notice that he stands there two full seconds, before he moves a muscle. I don't know why, may it be hand-eye-coordination, perception of time or movement, but there has got to be some reason that roughly half the players feel that the fun has been killed out of combat, while the other half just goes "Huh?". "Letho's moves are fluent, Geralts are jerky" - "Huh?". And the ones who have programmed the moves (not only fighting, ALL moves are affected by that), they belong to the latter category of people. They probably also don't notice the infamous 2-step-hiccup - which is pretty well documented by RageGT.

Unlikely. The number of players visiting the forums and raising this issue is presumably only a small subset of the total number of sales.

Ockam's Razor: Between "Thousands and thousands of players, including the reviewers and the testers, don't notice a two second lag" and "This lag only affects certain PC setups", doesn't the second sound more feasible?

This is clearly not linked to low-performance PC's, and, on the assumption that the majority of those complaining are competent PC gamers and have already experimented with the settings, there's no easy fix.

Maybe the devs already know what's causing on it and are working to fix it, maybe they're still trying to find the pattern - the particular configs or settings that cause this to happen. It would be good to know this, but as we don't, the most useful thing people could do is probably to submit the support request with details of your own PC config and settings, and anything you've tried to do to fix it. But don't expect an immediate solution, as this would just be providing data for them to find that pattern.

They've been good at coming out with patches to solve other problems that have been within their control. Help them to solve this one.

----------------

Slight change of subject, but how many of those of you with problems are using Firefox, and have you turned off hardware acceleration in Firefox? I noticed a significant performance degradation in games last month when I did a Firefox upgrade and this got turned on. And a quick glance at forums on that topic seems to show that it's worse for AMD users.

 

[DelighfulMcCoy]

Unlikely. The number of players visiting the forums and raising this issue is presumably only a small subset of the total number of sales.

Wrong equation. Calculating not the number of sales, but the number of people discussing here (and no, not only the ones speak up, that do notice, but also the others).

Ockam's Razor: Between "Thousands and thousands of players, including the reviewers and the testers, don't notice a two second lag" and "This lag only affects certain PC setups", doesn't the second sound more feasible?

No. Because Occkam's Razor doesn't account for a plain misunderstanding (also, some reviewers did mention it).
I am sorry, English is not my first language and I do struggle with explaining things. But some also struggle with understanding. Because I meant the biological brains, not the binary ones. You are not talking about the same thing I am. Which might just reinforce my theory. PC specs have nothing to do with it. I don't think I can explain it better than I already tried to lots of times - because only the ones, who experience it themselves seem to get it.

 

[dragonbird]

Wrong equation. Calculating not the number of sales, but the number of people discussing here (and no, not only the ones speak up, that do notice, but also the others).



No. Because Occkam's Razor doesn't account for a plain misunderstanding (also, some reviewers did mention it).
I am sorry, English is not my first language and I do struggle with explaining things. But some also struggle with understanding. Because I meant the biological brains, not the binary ones. You are not talking about the same thing I am. Which might just reinforce my theory. PC specs have nothing to do with it. I don't think I can explain it better than I already tried to lots of times - because only the ones, who experience it themselves seem to get it.

OK. Empathy and Sympathy modes now fully turned off. This is so far-fetched that it's ludicrous. I think that you're trying to claim that, at the very least, those people who are posting in this forum that they do NOT experience lag are incapable of seeing a two second delay in their own games even when it's pointed out to them. And you think that this is a more rational explanation for the problem than "some PC's have lag".

Wrong equation. Calculating not the number of sales, but the number of people discussing here (and no, not only the ones speak up, that do notice, but also the others).

Right equation. Marketing and Customer Service 101. People are more likely to feedback if they have a complaint than if they think something is good. There will be a percentage of players who did experience the lag and simply stopped playing, or put up with it, but the sample represented on the forums is still going to be biased towards people with the problem, not people without it.

 

[yupper]

I played the game with a gamepad (for some reason i could not adjust to using the keyboard & mouse, unlike the first game) but overall the combat system was good, I thought. My only small complaint was that the responsiveness was lacking, and that was something I had to work around...no huge deal for me, although I can see why people would find the lack of respnsiveness annoying.

I also found the mouse/keyboard awkward for TW2, and played with a gamepad. However, I am not particularly impressed by the combat system in TW2. Contrary to what some have suggested, I pretty much got through every battle by 'button-mashing.' It wasn't difficult at all--not that I think learning a new 'arcady' combat control should be a staple of every CRPG and their sequels, since I play RPGs for the stories, exploration, and character development. Mount & Blade, now that game has an actual combat system. At least they got rid of the instant monster respawns that plagued TW1, and replaced them with enough unique combat encounters that it made combat feel less like a 'chore' than it was in TW1. Combat should enhance a CRPG, not be its primary focus, and certainly not feel like a chore and get in the way of the game.

 

[DelighfulMcCoy]

OK. Empathy and Sympathy modes now fully turned off. This is so far-fetched that it's ludicrous. I think that you're trying to claim that, at the very least, those people who are posting in this forum that they do NOT experience lag are incapable of seeing a two second delay in their own games even when it's pointed out to them. And you think that this is a more rational explanation for the problem than "some PC's have lag".

No, I claim that you are speaking of something completely different. And your not understanding is not a good reason to be rude.

Right equation. Marketing and Customer Service 101. People are more likely to feedback if they have a complaint than if they think something is good. There will be a percentage of players who did experience the lag and simply stopped playing, or put up with it, but the sample represented on the forums is still going to be biased towards people with the problem, not people without it.

If you don't want to understand, I can't help you. I pointed out that I am speaking of BOTH sorts of feedback here.

 

[hypron]

I also found the mouse/keyboard awkward for TW2, and played with a gamepad. However, I am not particularly impressed by the combat system in TW2. Contrary to what some have suggested, I pretty much got through every battle by 'button-mashing.' It wasn't difficult at all--

Same here. I tried not mashing buttons but in the end it doesn't really make any difference whether you do or not (my brother got through the game really easily by clicking around 5x per second during combats...). You don't do more damage or longer combos by hitting the buttons with the right timing (unlike beat'em all games like Batman Arkham Asylum, which actually rewards you for hitting with the right timing, contrary to what bowman is saying about it).

Even though I actually enjoyed the gameplay, I must admit that there actually is a slight delay between you pressing the button and Geralt going for the action, which doesn't exactly feel natural... It could definitely use some tweaking.

This reminds me a bit of discussions around Killzone 2 (which had insane input lag/very low sensitivity for a first person shooter game). Lots of people just couldn't admit something was wrong with it, going for explanations such as "it makes you character feel heavier... It's more realistic" (yeah right, I don't know about you but I can turn around in half a second even with 40kgs on my back...).

 

[yupper]

Even though I actually enjoyed the gameplay, I must admit that there actually is a slight delay between you pressing the button and Geralt going for the action, which doesn't exactly feel natural... It could definitely use some tweaking.

Maybe there is a difference between using the mouse and keyboard vs. gamepad. I didn't really experience a delay with gamepad, but then again, I don't play enough action games to be able to really gauge what a half-second delay might feel like.

 

[dragonbird]

On the "objectivity" of lag.

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEEWLqLYL6M&feature=player_embedded[/media]

Fraps drops my framerate from around 55fps to 30fps, but I don't think that made any significant different to gameplay.

Recorded at 30fps.

First fight: Standing start, sword sheathed. I hit the "2" to unsheathe the sword when I saw the medallion switch to red. Total lag (hitting the key to start of sword-unsheathing) - around 12 frames, i.e. slightly under half a second including my own response time. Obviously, not a good technique for fighting and a nekker behind me killed me while I was faffing around with my sword.

Second fight: Standing start, sword already unsheathed. This time I double-clicked the "A" to roll sideways when I saw the medallion turn red. Again, around 15 frames (half a second) between me clicking the key and starting to move, including my own response time.

Third fight: Standing start, sword sheathed. Natural play - i.e. just run towards the drowner. AI unsheathed the sword as I went. Smooth and lag-free switch to the roll when I told it to. No lag experienced.

------------

There are certain battles where you're "surprised" by the attack, have a sheathed sword, and/or need to roll quickly. This is particularly common on fights immediately after a cutscene. On these fights, there is a lag, but on my PC this is still an awful lot less than the 2 seconds that people have been quoting, and it isn't usually game-breaking as the monster usually politely waits for a short time before he attacks.

They don't notice that he stands there two full seconds, before he moves a muscle

Either hyperbole or your PC. Not mine. Yes, I can read. I can also count frames.

 

[vindik8or]

Personally I like TW2 combat like it is but they could implement "strifing" idea for those that needs it for some reason for example maybe by holding middle mouse button or left Shift but dodging has to stay as priority! It makes sense when you are fighting one monster but when you are facing Letho or 3-4 Wraiths in small room.. good luck going left and right then!

Here are more examples from the game when fighting few Endrega's in Flatsom forest on HARD (btw which is true NORMAL) and being rushed always by one or two monsters when fighting one of them simply strifing left and right or locking on one opponent would be useless and just lead to your death! Also another example from Flatsom is quest where you have to destroy Nekkers Nests, imagine using strifing when you are surrounded and being jump on by 10 Nekkers!

Holy crap, will you stop calling it 'strifing'? It's strafing

 

[Ellathar]

Wrong equation. Calculating not the number of sales, but the number of people discussing here (and no, not only the ones speak up, that do notice, but also the others).



No. Because Occkam's Razor doesn't account for a plain misunderstanding (also, some reviewers did mention it).
I am sorry, English is not my first language and I do struggle with explaining things. But some also struggle with understanding. Because I meant the biological brains, not the binary ones. You are not talking about the same thing I am. Which might just reinforce my theory. PC specs have nothing to do with it. I don't think I can explain it better than I already tried to lots of times - because only the ones, who experience it themselves seem to get it.

I truly love your explanation. Some people does not notice the problem because they have 2 seconds delay in their own brain ? I hope they don't play sport or drive a car then !

On a more serious note, there is a lag in some actions, but what you call lag is a cool down on certain abilities, such as throwing bombs or a sign. However, it makes a bit of sense for me and it has never been a game breaking issue.
In movements, and sword hit, I never noticed any noticeable delay which made me not able to fight correctly.

However, it will be improved if there is an issue, but that doesn't make TW2 combat system bad. TW2 combat system is imo like democracy : it's not a perfect system but it's still the best one we found.
It's my personal opinion, but when some people claims that they went through the game by button mashing, I'm really sceptic. If they call button mashing mindlessly bashing left click, then I know they are lying. If what they call button mashing is just pressing keyboard/mouse in the right moment, then I can agree, but I don't exactly call it button mashing.

 

[gregski]

Hm, ok, I'm starting to see a pattern in all this game controls discussion:

Player 1: "Combat is broken, controls are unresponsive, input lag ruins the experience with the game, majority of people playing the game reported this so it's there for sure"

Player 2: "Same here, TW1 was better!"

Player 3: "Same here, they should fix it ASAP so I can play the game I paid for"

Player 4: "Yeah, same here, and it's not the PC issue, it's the game"

Player 5: "Hey guys, sorry to hear you're having problems, but the game works just fine for me, combat is fluid and I don't see any input lag or anything, so no problems here, may be it's PC related or you should adapt to the game's combat system better?"

1,2,3,4 @ player 5: "OMG, dude, how can you claim that there is no problem with the game if we see that there is a problem; you're not paying enough attention to notice it or your brain works in a different way; don't say that the game is fine if so many people already reported that it is not, our PCs and skills are fine, it's the game that is broken"

I hope CDPR addresses this issue soon, so it doesn't generate this type of pointless discussion.

 

[andr01d]

On the "objectivity" of lag.

Fraps drops my framerate from around 55fps to 30fps, but I don't think that made any significant different to gameplay.

Recorded at 30fps.

First fight: Standing start, sword sheathed. I hit the "2" to unsheathe the sword when I saw the medallion switch to red. Total lag (hitting the key to start of sword-unsheathing) - around 12 frames, i.e. slightly under half a second including my own response time. Obviously, not a good technique for fighting and a nekker behind me killed me while I was faffing around with my sword.

Second fight: Standing start, sword already unsheathed. This time I double-clicked the "A" to roll sideways when I saw the medallion turn red. Again, around 15 frames (half a second) between me clicking the key and starting to move, including my own response time.

Third fight: Standing start, sword sheathed. Natural play - i.e. just run towards the drowner. AI unsheathed the sword as I went. Smooth and lag-free switch to the roll when I told it to. No lag experienced.

------------

There are certain battles where you're "surprised" by the attack, have a sheathed sword, and/or need to roll quickly. This is particularly common on fights immediately after a cutscene. On these fights, there is a lag, but on my PC this is still an awful lot less than the 2 seconds that people have been quoting, and it isn't usually game-breaking as the monster usually politely waits for a short time before he attacks.

So maybe it is a system (computer system) related issue. I mean, I experience a slightly drop in framerates before, during and after cutscenes and before fights (especially before large ones with many enemies) quite often. And my system isn´t low-end either (Core i7, 2 Gig RAM and GTX 560 Ti).
But let´s have a look at what I mean:
Todays OS are running many task in the background to begin with, then you have to add the processes you add in the mix (maybe steam, anti-virus software [big at eating away resources and by default the one who get´s them first], messenger [most of them have a browser built in, mostly the ie engine], system monitoring tools)
So all those little programs and bits of code, that we came to like so much, are silently and without us noticing eating away little chunks of our systems resources. Though most medium to high-end computers have really good processing units (cpu) that are able to handle a lot of tasks at a time (multicore, hyperthreading), the systems resources are still limited.
And a game like the Witcher 2 isn´t just one piece of code running and doing all the work for us to enjoy the game. - No, for example cutscenes are loaded into the game´s main process and are then rendered in real time by the game engine. This means a lot of more work to do for the process handling the game.
And what if the anti-virus suite jumps in now. If it is told to oversee any process running and scan for malware, viruses, trojans and whatnot. (Most modern security suites do that to some degree.)
And then the game maybe does an auto save. Autosaves are written and placed in C:\Users\USER\Documents\ by default. But all of C:\ is a specially save area for windows since Win Vista, so again the anti virus software kicks in, scanning the new savegame for threats. Then maybe steam joins the lot, checking the savegame ore the games status for achievements, maybe even to a complete scan for upgrades for all of your steam games in the mean time. And your messenger just updates your status, the status of your friend or simply checks for any updates anyway...
You get the picture?

To find out if this really is an issue with the games engine, you would have to use a new and clean install of windows with no other programs installed (not even anti-virus software) and try if there is any lagging.
And if there isn´t, well, you got too much things running in the background hindering your game to run smoothly...

And since games are mostly tested on such clean systems by the developer in the first place, well, I think that´s why nobody from the developers has bothered that much with the problem or let´s say the just can´t reproduce the issues you all describe.

Plus, your personal experience may add to the problem. I am well aware of framerate slowdowns but am not bothered by them.
This may be due to the fact that I played games on the Nintendo GameCube for a long time. There was not a single game for that console, that hadn´t any framerate drops. (If you ever played any Need for Speed on the NGC, you know what I mean.)

Just a guess on my side...
There are just so many factors when it comes to a game´s speed, that you can´t simply say which hardware combination is better. You have to consider: HDD (or SSD) speeds, RAM speeds, caches, buffers, mainboard speeds and data handling, CPU speeds, CPU architecture, GPU speeds, temperatures of all the pieces, power supply and constancy of voltages, BIOS settings, OS configuration, DirectX, drivers, driver configurations, background tasks, internet connection (mostly for those background tasks checking the internet), game and savegame paths...
I am not saying, that there is so much, that nothing should be done, but it simply is such much to have in mind, that there may be no easy sollution. Especially since this is a problem that only some seem to experience.

My advice is, again, try lowering game settings. And find any programs you don´t really need for the time playing your game running in the background and shut them down.
If the lagging still continues, well, then come back and do a full report about your system´s specs and your game settings to the CDPR staff, because then it´s really a game engine issue. Maybe they can solve this problem...

~minor typos edited and some minor things added (just some more examples)~

 

[pomor]

Stepping back, instead of turning away. I bet there would be quite a few people complaining "Why Geralt is going backwards?"
I dont know, it could be nice in one-to-one fight. If surrounded, I just know that Geralt would insist on facing the wrong opponent, while slowly going backwards towards the guy I am trying to rush...

 

[wader2k]

Face it, a large number of people do NOT care for the action style combat W2 was created around.

The developers seem to have weighed in that the combat design and delays were "by design" and work as intended. For some it is a struggle to put up with the combat long enough to get to the good parts.

I am one of them. If W3 isn't completely revamped I doubt I will be interested. A shame, because I LOVED the first one.

 

[Bowmangr]

Face it, a large number of people do NOT care for the action style combat W2 was created around.

The developers seem to have weighed in that the combat design and delays were "by design" and work as intended. For some it is a struggle to put up with the combat long enough to get to the good parts.

I am one of them. If W3 isn't completely revamped I doubt I will be interested. A shame, because I LOVED the first one.

Completely revamped = making it like the first Witcher?
If yes, you can forget about it. The only reason that they did the combat system in TW1 that way was because the BioWare engine didn't support proper action sequences. They tried their best to make an essentially turn-based game engine into a real-time engine as best as they could. And with the tools provided they actually did a damn good job.

Now they made their own engine. Why should they limit themselves again? They made it full real-time action because that's what they wanted to do in the first place.

P.S. Oh and you don't have to "put up" with the combat, you have to learn a new combat system that none of us have played before. If you don't want to do that, then OK, stop playing Witcher, which I doubt because TW is a game with many more elements than combat.


P.S. 2 There is also Easy mode which has a description like "combat is adjusted so that the story can move forward". Maybe this mode is perfect for you if you don't like hack & slash.

 

[CostinRaz]

Face it, a large number of people do NOT care for the action style combat W2 was created around.

That there are issues in the game with the combat is a fact, but God help me if the fact that SOME people don't like the STYLE of combat makes it shit/buggy/imbalanced or whatever you wanna call it.

Just because YOU and others don't like it does NOT mean it is a bad system. I personally don't fancy the gameplay of Hearts of Iron series, but perhaps I should call it shit because it's not to my personal liking...right.

 

[Garrison72]

CDPR hasn't mentioned anything about lag to my knowledge.

I think the system has tremendous potential. It allows for a wide variety of approaches in encounters and as is, it's still way better than anything TW1 offered. It's more realistic, the animations are better, and it's more challenging.

 

[Keloo]

That there are issues in the game with the combat is a fact, but God help me if the fact that SOME people don't like the STYLE of combat makes it shit/buggy/imbalanced or whatever you wanna call it.

Just because YOU and others don't like it does NOT mean it is a bad system. I personally don't fancy the gameplay of Hearts of Iron series, but perhaps I should call it shit because it's not to my personal liking...right.

Totally agree with you, but some people think that if they don't like a thing in a game they say it's bad, broken, rubbish, and THAT's A FACT, and people are dumb because they "can't see" the same problems as that particular player. But since gaming is a subjective thing, everyone is right, after all. If I like the combat system, the gamepaly in a game, I say it's good, because I enjoyed it, others that didn't enjoy that gameplay, and can't get used to it say it's bad, broken. So it's a matter of opinions, nothing else.

No wonder games like The Witcher 1 & 2 got such marks, from 6 to 9. Some enjoyed it: gameplay, inventory, UI(or at least weren't bothered by it so much as others), story, graphics, characters, and gave it a 9, other hated the combat, the UI, and disliked many aspects of it, and gave it a 5 or 6. Simple as that, it's all a matter of taste, expectations, opinions. If some liked the first game more : the interface, the story, the combat system come here and say that IT WAS WAY BETTER, fine by me, but, don't come here and tell us like that's a FACT, that's "the truth", cause it's not, it's just your "truth".

I laugh when some consider themselves "objective" gamers, and they act like they "own the absolute truth". That's a paradox. Why ? Because as I said, everyone has different expectations from a game, want different things, and if that game matches their expectations, their taste, they say it's amazing, wonderful, if not, and on the contrary they get what they didn't want, they say it's crap.
And everyone can write a review of 2000 words why they didn't like the game, or why they liked it. Who should we trust then, when we want to make a choice ? No one, but ourselves.

 

[dragnadh]

I actually loved the combat system...;p