TW3 General Feedback [SPOILERS]

[Gvynblade]

Ended Witcher3 both happy and sad

First of all very happy to see open world is magnificent many thanks to developers for made that magic works and a dream came through.
Unfortunately sad part was story ,why story lost the trade mark of series; gray characters and situations give player hard time about what to decide or choose? in W3 most turns out quite black and white, there are pure evil characters and obvious that who you gonna have to kill..which never builds up enough tension or sense of urgency.
I hope series can continue in near future and wish to see closer contribution of Sapkowski as father of Geralt.

 

[Rawls]

@Gvynblade - merged into the Witcher 3 Feedback thread.

 

[Cerberusx32]

Wish that you could get Wild Hunt armor and weapons for Geralt. The weapons you can get from the Hunt are rubbish. And the armor would be so cool too.

 

[Eliwan]

waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9m8kp-_gOkI

 

[Orpheal]

It is finally done!

After all this time, and several playthrough tries full of bugs, glitches worthy to call this game Glitcher 3

I have finally done it - today - the way I want with the ending I want

I played the game through for my first time with a 99,9% perfect save file with Ciri becoming a cute Witcheress, Temeria being free again, Geralt living in peace and in love with Yennefer and everyone that annoyed me over the course of the story being dead xD

Ive done all quests that are possible, except of stupidly 2 exceptions that make absolutely no sense when you look at the rest of the 99,9% of the game design that allow for no fail mark competions....
Achieving this was a pain in the ass, costed me now over a year, wherem ost of the time was waiting for patchesto get some bugged quests done without fail marks...

Even then I hitted on several bugs and glitches, which are until today not fixed and wouldn't i have been able to somehow unglitch the game for me (sound fx bug currently) or trick the game's quest design through a little jump over a wall, then I'd hangign until today still in Act 1 of the game and wouldnt have played through this great game today (aside from the many bugs and glitches, the rest is simply superb)

However, the game hasn't made by far usage of all of tis potential, most likely due to the typical reasons as always:

- Not enough general budget for the game
- Not enough time
- Limited Space on the Disk/ Too much costs if the Game would have to be made on more Disks than 1)
- Missing Creativity to come up with something for certain character, or simply forgetting them *cough* (Saskia/Iorveth) - A few lesser meaningless side quests surely wouldn#t have ben missed by anyone, when therefore these 2 Characters would have had a few own Main/Side Quests or would have at least played somehow a bit a role in the game to be shown at least with their own entries in the glossary
and the list goes on

But however, regardless of the many flaws of the game - what they have made out of the ressources they had, they have created one of the very best games, which I have played in my whole life so far based on the story telling, the vast explorative world, the love in the details everywhere...
Can't wait to play now the expansion content after being doen with the main story now and beign able to to begin anytime with NG+ when I want.


I seriously hope, that by the time <i am done with my NG+ game and have completed with it again also all the expansion content, that CDPR has released by this time then their current new game in development and that they continue after that point then with support and new content for Witcher 3

this game seriously has still so much unused potential for alot of improvements and new content, that I could see CDPR easily making for the game like 2-3 more expansions after they are done with releasing Cyberpunk 2077.

The map is still so empty ..so many possible new regions exist that CDPR could use as playground for further expansions like for example

- Kovir
- Aedirn
- Wyzima (the region, not that boring castle only to return to the place, where everythign has begun to give the game also a chance to implement the decisions that we have made in the first game somehow into our world state there (with simulations for consoles, like we have that for W2)

Alone these 3 regions would be worth it already for further expansions and im pretty sure, people would buy them in an instant who have bought already also the other expansions.
---

However, for now I'm just happy, that ive finally played through this game's main story...we'll see, what the future will bring.
After like 3 tries full of game breaking bugs that forced me to start over always again from new

Would be even more happy, if these two silly red fail marks wouldn't be from these two contract quests - Oxenfurt Drunk and Heart of the Woods, especially because alot of the end game main quests have moments of extremely similar game design ,where you are confronted with choices to make, and there whyever the game makes for you everythign green, even when decidign again somethign, that point that you have decided agaisnt becomes green, where in Heart of the Woods, the only quest this kind of quest forces a red fail mark on you, even when the situation of choosing a over B was exactly the same, but in the end it was just an optionality just like in the main quests...

Then on the other hand you get for exenfurt drunk a silyl red cross for not instantly killing a stupid katakan, fpursuign it and kill it a few moments later and in the main quests of act 3 you have exactly the same thign again, theres a fight, which you don't can't end directly, enemy flees, you pursue it and kill it late,r everythign green there....

This are really moment,s where you ask yourself as a player, what the hell where they thinking when designign these two contract quests to make there these dumb marks pre programmed to always fail, regardless what you do, when they then contradict themself in their own game design a few main quests later where they don#t do the exact same there....


I know i know.. too much thinking over such minor thigns, but that are really thigns, that piss me personalyl off as a completionist when a game designer say, quest A is so like intended and then a few quests later on the main story, the same stuff repeats itself and there everythign is made, just like it should have been made for the silly contract quests to to enable players to get a 100% perfect playthrough with no fail marks, if they just do the right thing

Something, that I simply can't get out of my head, despite being happy to have the game completed now, but I just wanted to mention, how incongruent the game design is here in this case simply and contradicts itself, where for nearly all quests in the whole game is made a ncie grey zone to eable players to complete them perfectly, and then there are these two silyl contract quest where the devs go hard on the borderline and force upon our throats this kind of black & white decisions in one quests and a total obsolete fail mark on the other that simply should exist, because the fate of that dumb katakan is so or so alway the same, we kill it. SO theres no sense for having the same mark twice in the quest, once failed, once solved, as long there exist main quests in this game with very similar content, where there is then no black and white, but a comfortable grey zone for the player, where the game simply changes all optional stuff of the quest into green marks, or simply removes marks out of the list that play no role for you anymore after you have done somethign specific in the quest, what is in return exactly again what I suggested how the game shoudl handle that silly heart of the woods quest by removing the fail makr of the optional path of the quest after you have solved the other way and completed the quest.
---

So, rant over ,but I had to let some steam off after seeing all these differences when it could have been handled everywhere the same to ensure, that completionists like me can get their 100% perfect playthroughs if they want and are dedicated enough like me to try everything out to get that also, even if that means to completely start over with the game like I did multiple times due to having made mistakes and not having saved often enough ect.

Now I feel myself empty and ready for the expansion content to suck it in like a fresh new sponge

Here I come yay

 

[GObonzo]

On my first New Game+ with the expansions almost a year after my initial playthrough. Finished main questline and Hearts of Stone. Just crafting Grandmaster gear in Touissant.

Cannot craft a working Grandmaster Steel Griffin sword. The diagram claims it requires a Master Silver Griffin Sword. When trying to use this diagram the Grandmaster attributes for the Steel Griffin sword do not count towards my total Grandmaster gear count.

Fixed the bug with it needeing a Feline sword and replaced it with another bug?

 

[Thepudge34]

So I jumped on the hype to see the Witcher 3 since a lot of people were claiming it to be GOTY for 2015 beating out Bloodborne which was fantastic and I got to say I am very disappointed in how bad this game turned out to be. Seriously I really wanted to enjoy this game but it was just soo awful.


- Controls

For starters the controls are soo sluggish, unresponsive and shitty to control. Its even more unresponsive than Mass effect 1 or Red Dead Redemption which had some pretty bad controls themselves. Also to make matters worse it doesn't even look or feel realistic(which I think you were going for since you wanted weight in the controls I guess??). Geralt looks awkward robot and controls like a elephant its atrocious.

- Story

So many people claim this game has a great story and great storytelling what?? The story in this game is contrived, filled with holes(the third act has some atrocious writing felt like Mass effect 3 ending, cliche, boring for large portions(Novigrad, White orchard and Final act), had poor antagonists(the Wild Hunt were barley seen in the game and were such generic evil elves they sucked ass) and poor pacing(spents too much time on Mary Sue Ciri and useless fetch quests). The characters are pretty solid Geralts a decent protagonist even though his voice can get annoying because he sounds medieval batman rather than tough English accent which would make more sense in this medieval world. The story was mediocre and had some poorly written parts so I dont see were the acclaim came from in terms of the storytelling. The Last of Us, Red Dead Redemption, Mass Effect 1, Mass Effect 2, GTA 4, Portal 2, Bioshock and Fallout New Vegas all have better stories than this game.


- Graphics

The Graphics are a great one of the best looking games out today.


- Audio

The voice acting for the most part is pretty good(Triss and Lambert sound awful however). The music is great it has a tribal eastern european feel to it suits the game well.


- Open World

Pretty bland and boring. The world looked nice but the way it was designed reminded me of Ubisofts open world structure. So many useless weapon and armour placed around the world. Repetitive enemy placement so many usless bandits and enemies. No form of environmental storytelling like how Bethesda does there worlds. You should learn how to do open worlds like how Rockstar and Bethesda do it not Ubisofts open worlds which are mediocre.


- Gameplay

The biggest problem in this game is the gameplay is soo atrocious. The combat is awful, the leveling is shit, the quest design is extremely boring and repetitive(insane over use of Witcher senses shows the lack of creativity. Also the Arhkam games did detective work far better than the Witcher 3) and poor enemy AI. The combat is so poorly designed and clumsy its baffling. The game is marketed as tactical action rpg?? Do you people play an good action rpgs or any good third person action games?? This combat system is soo brain dead, extremely repetitive, clunky and floaty. The game decides when your in combat, it decides which enemy to target(even though it has the worst most imprecise targeting system I've ever experienced), no control over attacks, poor hitboxes, inconsistent dodging and lack of feed back when hit an enemy. The crap controls makes stuff even worse. The leveling sucks balls no scaling allows makes you either under or over leveled. The skill tree is boring, confusing and useless since any build is overpowered past level 15.

In conclusion this game is awful and I really dont see why it won any awards. Bloodborne and other games deserved more acclaim than this pile of crap.

 

[GObonzo]

someone(ThePudgy34) claims that since this game doesn't follow the cookie-cutter generic 3rd person acton profile that it is "sooo awful". and that "the controls are soo sluggish, unresponsive and shitty to control". sounds more like this person never got the hang of timed attacks and the flow of combat and/or just sucks at anything other than generic button mashing. one of the great things about the Witcher games is the new approaches to combat, the only game I can think of that does it similarly was Vagrant Story.

they also claim that it has generic cliche characters? but they offer no comparison to actually mention what has made this any more cliche than the other hundreds of games/movies/stories involving elves, dwarves, or even humans. i would say Witcher's characters are even less "cliche" than Bioware and EA's use of the same species.
they state how the open world has "No form of environmental storytelling like how Bethesda does THERE worlds". but in the same way you manually travel to areas, find people, places, dungeons, enemies, and items set up in the same manner with new quests tied to these new places and people. with new decorum, new styles of clothes, new accents, new lore i'd have to say CDProjectRed had actually done a better job at THEIR open world than the majority of games out there.

i would even guess this person never played but watched a couple videos of the game and just got the urge to try arguing against the majority of gamers that claim this is one of the best games available, definitely one of the best in the last few years.

 

[sv3672]

For starters the controls are soo sluggish, unresponsive and shitty to control. Its even more unresponsive than Mass effect 1 or Red Dead Redemption which had some pretty bad controls themselves. Also to make matters worse it doesn't even look or feel realistic(which I think you were going for since you wanted weight in the controls I guess??). Geralt looks awkward robot and controls like a elephant its atrocious.

Have you tried the alternative movement response mode (in Options/Gameplay) ? That should be more responsive than the default.

The voice acting for the most part is pretty good(Triss and Lambert sound awful however).

I do not recall awful voice acting in the game (some of the lines could have been acted better of course, but most of the time it is fine), did you play in a language other than English ?

 

[Merc616]

So I jumped on the hype to see the Witcher 3 since a lot of people were claiming it to be GOTY for 2015 beating out Bloodborne which was fantastic and I got to say I am very disappointed in how bad this game turned out to be. Seriously I really wanted to enjoy this game but it was just soo awful.


- Controls

For starters the controls are soo sluggish, unresponsive and shitty to control. Its even more unresponsive than Mass effect 1 or Red Dead Redemption which had some pretty bad controls themselves. Also to make matters worse it doesn't even look or feel realistic(which I think you were going for since you wanted weight in the controls I guess??). Geralt looks awkward robot and controls like a elephant its atrocious.

- Story

So many people claim this game has a great story and great storytelling what?? The story in this game is contrived, filled with holes(the third act has some atrocious writing felt like Mass effect 3 ending, cliche, boring for large portions(Novigrad, White orchard and Final act), had poor antagonists(the Wild Hunt were barley seen in the game and were such generic evil elves they sucked ass) and poor pacing(spents too much time on Mary Sue Ciri and useless fetch quests). The characters are pretty solid Geralts a decent protagonist even though his voice can get annoying because he sounds medieval batman rather than tough English accent which would make more sense in this medieval world. The story was mediocre and had some poorly written parts so I dont see were the acclaim came from in terms of the storytelling. The Last of Us, Red Dead Redemption, Mass Effect 1, Mass Effect 2, GTA 4, Portal 2, Bioshock and Fallout New Vegas all have better stories than this game.


- Graphics

The Graphics are a great one of the best looking games out today.


- Audio

The voice acting for the most part is pretty good(Triss and Lambert sound awful however). The music is great it has a tribal eastern european feel to it suits the game well.


- Open World

Pretty bland and boring. The world looked nice but the way it was designed reminded me of Ubisofts open world structure. So many useless weapon and armour placed around the world. Repetitive enemy placement so many usless bandits and enemies. No form of environmental storytelling like how Bethesda does there worlds. You should learn how to do open worlds like how Rockstar and Bethesda do it not Ubisofts open worlds which are mediocre.


- Gameplay

The biggest problem in this game is the gameplay is soo atrocious. The combat is awful, the leveling is shit, the quest design is extremely boring and repetitive(insane over use of Witcher senses shows the lack of creativity. Also the Arhkam games did detective work far better than the Witcher 3) and poor enemy AI. The combat is so poorly designed and clumsy its baffling. The game is marketed as tactical action rpg?? Do you people play an good action rpgs or any good third person action games?? This combat system is soo brain dead, extremely repetitive, clunky and floaty. The game decides when your in combat, it decides which enemy to target(even though it has the worst most imprecise targeting system I've ever experienced), no control over attacks, poor hitboxes, inconsistent dodging and lack of feed back when hit an enemy. The crap controls makes stuff even worse. The leveling sucks balls no scaling allows makes you either under or over leveled. The skill tree is boring, confusing and useless since any build is overpowered past level 15.

In conclusion this game is awful and I really dont see why it won any awards. Bloodborne and other games deserved more acclaim than this pile of crap.

I don't see how you could have played through a long game (around a 100 hour investment of your free time) if you actually thought it was "soo awful". If I don't like a game, I stop playing and cut my losses within 2 hours at most.

 

[Ganterman]

TLTR you have been warned


Complain Summary:
I personally find The Wicher 3 is a rancid pile of garbage for multiple reasons when it comes to its game design. If you are a offended fandrone, move along.
The game feels like a piss poor alibi MMO that simply doesn't work. To have a leveling system and leveled items and the same mobs just with different levels is the biggest crime in this game.
Progression should only be possible by Items, Mutagens, Temporary Potions and Skills/Perks/Traits. Unless they are just for show.

When the Legendary lvl 5 DragonCastrate Sword is actually 92% weaker than a lvl 20 blunt stick. Something is fundamentally wrong with your game and world design!

It only creates a massive disbelieve of the games immersion and inconsistency in the Lore of the World. Yet you can at very low levels, easily kill the lvl 21 King Wyvern and clear that Quest. It just take a while. It would not take 30 F*cking minutes if there would not be a rancid leveling system in the first place!

And a Isometric view would much improve this incompetent auto aim forced combat system, also group combat in Witcher 1 was more fun.
Where is the Isometric view, and where are Geralts awesome moves from the first game? The W3 got bigger, but also dumbed down way too much in return.



In-depth Complain:
You start as Geralt a pre-established character who got all his Mental Abilities back, and you end the Game as Geralt. An already well trained and strong Witcher.
A needle through the Heart would kill him, just like any other Human in the game. Thats how the Lore of this World works.
Yet he becomes so strong, he smacks Dragons over the equator with one hit.

How often got the game now rebalanced? That would not be necessary if game designers would stop jerking off behind the withe board, and start thinking.


Humans are Humans, and Humans are physically weaker than a Witcher. There are a few exceptions to the rule, as always.
Their equipment, number of combatants and the Game Difficulty should determine how much of a threat they are. A Human wearing Platemale should always be more dangerous and harder to kill, because Damage Reduction/Damage Threshold. If the designers even heard those terms before, that is.

Same goes for all the other Monsters and Creatures. A naked braindead Drowner or Nekker should only be so strong, it always should be a danger to you, because you won't level up. But alone, it will never outclass you in return, because its just a Drowner or Nekker etc.

Remember that bad ass looking Sword you found or Crafted 40 levels ago? Yeah that looked really amazing. Too bad, the blunt stick up your anus is more powerful than anything else atm. Without leveling, you could keep that amazing looking sword and armor. Simple as that.
A sword can only be so sharp and durable. A Meteorite forge one for example, is higher tier than Steel, so make it deal more damage. More durable or vise-versa. More Damage Reduction, Amor piercing etc.
Easy thinking, easily executable. Its basically just number crunching, and easily adjustable even for the players itself. If they so desire.


With that, you take a butt load of balancing work off your shoulders. Because Humans are Humans, and can only be so strong, plus minus some exeptions. Again, the rest are just armor and damage reduction multipliers on those Human enemies. And RNGesus can still be applied to those instant kill abilities.
And the additional Enemy Upscaling Option would have been unnecessary, saving the developers work time for more important stuff.


Are Potions, Mutagens and Skills still not enough to increase Geralts strength, and change how his body works in terms of physical and magic aptitude? This would give weapon sharpening and especially Potions in general a much higher importance. Thats why Mutagens and Potions exist in the first place or am I wrong!?
The Game Designers over complicated the entire game, to a state of disbelieve. Its simply bad design.



Imbalance:
When I run across two lvl 3 mobs and suddenly the same mob at lvl 13 appears right next to them, in a "low" level area, that is bad design.
If I run along the beach, smacking hundred of low lvl Drowners into the ground, and some where along the line is a nest of lvl 16 Drowners, that one shots the player. That is bad design.
When some one below lvl 10 kills two normal and a lvl 21 King Wyvern that one shots Geralt, while He is dealing little to no damage in return, but can still kill it with perma Quen as protection and enough time. Your combat system is piss poor in design!

All this could easily be avoided, by not using a stupid leveling system. Just because you call your game an RPG, doesn't mean you need level ups. In this case, it simply doesn't fit into this game world and its lore at all. The strong disbelieve of the world and lore happens, and kills every immersion. Its not about realism, its about making sense, and Lore consistency!



Combat no-System:
The auto aim is pure garbage, and it traps you in the environment. Because you can't jump/climb over obstacles anymore. You also can't disengage combat, unless you reach a certain distance. The camera is sometimes a mess. And a Iso Perspective would have been a damn good Idea, especially while attacking groups of enemies in combination with THIS combat system. Again, bad bad design decisions.

Enough hammering upon the fast attack button, leads you to victory. The combat depth is almost non existent. Its always the same. Pirouette-dodge, attack, repeat, won. Really bad designed. The Witcher 1 has a better and more fun combat system.
And again, a Isometric view would not only help and improve the gameplay. If you could play the entire game that way, it would additionally appeal to another demographic of Players as well. And since when is that a bad thing, without giving up anything in return? Benefit to the game + more variety for more people.

The biggest and most important part of your game, is messed up. No matter how good your story, side quests and characters are. What do you do the most in this game? I would guess, you battle! And what is absolute unenjoyable and made me quit this game in the end? The shoddy Combat System.


Did anyone ever play Severance - Blade of Darkness? Old, bad graphics, short, interesting trashy story and bloody as hell? Basically not comparable to the Witcher 3. Yet its combat system alone holds this game above modern triple A titles. I still play this game. I will not continue the Witcher 3 on the other hand.
A game that brims with over 9000% more content, than the previous mentioned game.



Interface:
Also the Inventory and the Map takes forever to load. This stuff is just an overlay, is it not? Press start, bam here it is. Thats how it should be. But no, you have to wait for the screen to do some transitioning. Make it instant, and transitionless god dammit. Same goes for the item info boxes. Who has the time and the patience to wait so long until these info boxes appear? Seriously, this game is full of time wasting designs.

The Radial Menu is not only badly implemented, and very, very limited in its function. It forces you to go constantly into the inventory screen if you are either a potion Juggler, or Unabomber. Bad design overall !!!!

Looting in this game is utterly bad. There are so much places where you have to climb at the crate for it too loot, even if you stand right next to it. You can't even auto loot 1x item from herbs. dafug? Even Bugthesda managed to do that. And they are one of the worst Trash Developers in History.

Why do modders get it, and the Devs do NOT? They made a auto loot Mod, and something I demand for years. A Area loot option! Take away the annoyances in video games. This has nothing to do with dumbing down, its comfort, next gen game mechanics! Make it optional, and you win the internet.
If this is too much to ask, then devs should stop making video games. Modders can, what Devs can't. Something is going in the wrong direction!
Hone your game mechanics, even if it means lowering the scale of the world.



Simply traversing the world sucks major Dragon Balls Rant:
From simple navigation of the character and traversing the overall world is just ridiculously bad. There was a reason the "Alternative Controls" were implemented. Because people have a problem with it. It still doesn't help.

Why was there suddenly a need for jumping in this game anyway? Jumping is one of the most overrated features, for a god damn eternity.
Zelda manages to auto jump on ledges, since the beginning. Always worked, still works. Did Assassins Creed and Shadow of Mordor etc. not show, how to run and climb over obstacles the right way?
Remove the manual jumping, and implement auto traversing the terrain, thats why you have one single run/climb/traverse button.
And Geralt's jumping just looks like horse piss on top. Another reason to remove it.
Its god damn 2016 and we still jump around like crack heads on the loo!

The moment enemies are there, you automatically engage into combat. And you can't abort it, and that is utterly stupid!
Should it happen that you are in a small hole or gap, you're stuck. Unable to climb out until combat ends.
Outside of combat, Geralt just walks slow sometimes. Mostly after fast traveling, or because of stupid reasons, near a certain person, inside a building or "no run" areas. That is bad and mega annoying, pissing me off to no end. Always run, never walk unless the player gives the command!!

Especially the swimming is absolute piss! Alone the massive annoying slow down in knee deep water. But WHY do I have to press a button for him to swim faster? Are you F. serious Mr/Mrs Designers? Isn't swimming not slow enough already?
And whats with those utterly annoying rolling animations Geralt does under water? Why, why why is it necessary to take the controls away from me, so I have to watch something I don't want him to do, or see in the first place? Stop wasting peoples time with such garbage! Im seriously getting angry here.


Whats even worse is this facking disgusting Horse! This is maybe the worst implementation of a Horse Mechanic I ever laid My hands on!
Not only is the stupid horse always in the way of combat. It comes running towards the combat zone even when jumped off far way, while circling around the opponents, effectively blocking attacks and the camera view. Again, wheres the old Witcher 1 Isometric view? Bad, bad design decision.

The Horse also gets stuck in the terrain constantly for no apparent reason. And Im not exaggerating, this happens so often, that I have to question the QA department of this Company!
There is basically nothing on the ground, and the stamina bar is still good, yet the horse instantly stops the riding. As if there are random invisible walls. This happens constantly while riding through the world, aside from the roads.
If I could kill the Horse, I would have done so a thousandfold!!
The Horse also takes for ever to start galloping. And when enemies are in sight, it takes even longer. Leading to a 80% chance of getting thrown off. Get on the F. horse and just ride you piece of S.! Stop wasting my time! And the Fear Bar is simply put, facking shit! Beyond awful design! Its just stupid shit. It adds nothing to the game aside from additional frustration and anger.


Look at Metal Gear 5, and how well all the game mechanics and animations work. The Witcher 3 is Bantha piss compared to MG 5's designed and fine tuned gameplay mechanics. They almost work flawlessly, I can simply not complain. Im not talking about story or graphics here. Its all about gameplay mechanics, how they handle and play.

!!The fundamentals of The Witcher 3 are broken!!​

 

[Fateless0001]

Just finished blood and wine and would like to give a big THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! to whichever dev decided to give us that half a second pause before jumping in to help Regis. It was crucial for not going crazy during the final fight against Dettlaff, man that was hard! But totally worth it in the end

 

[Martinvls]

I don't see how you could have played through a long game (around a 100 hour investment of your free time) if you actually thought it was "soo awful". If I don't like a game, I stop playing and cut my losses within 2 hours at most.

I only start to like this game after 100 hours, all previous time I had mixed experience - there are interesting parts (Velen, Skellige quests), and there are boring (Novigrad quests). But when you start to gather allies to Kaer Morhen you see that all that quests made before were not in vain and it is a feeling of elation, it's definitely worth time and money spent on this game.

Nevertheless, there are some flaws in a game which could be easily avoided if Witcher 3 had game producers, that are not afraid to cut unnecessary parts:

1. There are bewilderingly annoying parts like unexpected fist battles or horse races. If you really don't like horse races in Witcher 3 and especially hate fist fights, and you are forced to participate in them you will want to throw away your computer in a window in this moments. In my opinion developers shouldn't spend time on this "gameplay variety" and instead made better role-playing or battle system which are core gameplay of any RPG.
2. "Smuggler cashes" in Skellige are pure fail, I was forced to start using fast travel to avoid them and for me fast travel hurts immersion badly. Remove them (together with excessive sirens) and made slightly shorter distances between islands (or speed up boat) and Skellige will become perfect.
3. Useless loot. There is enormous amount of loot objects and still you need to loot all you see in a fear to miss something necessary. In current age where games try to minimize routine game mechanics, we in witcher have ten objects for looting in every peasant house and in one of those 10 there will be a runestone and in one of 50 there will be diamond dust, and alcohest and dwarfen spirit in every second, so you need to use senses constantly and loot all the time. And then you'll have 50k of gold which you don't know where to spend. Reduce number of "loot objects" in 3-4 times and both problems will be solved.
4. A lot of stupid quests (mostly in Novigrad). Game is huge, why we need all this I don't understand. Ha, you also will receive no notable experience and gold from those side quests so they are completely useless.

So, when I'll decide to go for second playthrough I will follow this rules:

- no championships in fist fighting or horse racing
- only fast travel between island in Skellige
- no looting in cities and villages
- no side quests with exception of monster contracts and quests of story NPCs

With this approach I'll have 100-150 hours of high quality gameplay, though it will not solve problems with crippled leveling system of skills and items, which prevents Witcher 3 to became a truly great GAME like Baldur's Gate 2, Mass Effect 2 or Skyrim. And this is a pity, because title of "great" was just question of some content editing and rebalance of numbers.

Still it is great INTERACTIVE STORY, for which I wish to give my thanks to developers.

 

[sblantipodi]

I finished all the games and all the DLCs, I need more the witcher.
please shut up and get my money for more the witcher.

 

[Sunsibar]

2. "Smuggler cashes" in Skellige are pure fail

I think everyone agrees with that I haven't heard that anyone would have said otherwise. Oh, it was pure pain to collect all those ? marks... There should have been even a trophy for that

And welcome to the forums

 

[Martinvls]

I think everyone agrees with that I haven't heard that anyone would have said otherwise. Oh, it was pure pain to collect all those ? marks... There should have been even a trophy for that

And welcome to the forums

This dozens of "?" in sea are teasing me. When I'll complete game and both DLCs, I can come to Skellige and explore them, they will be sweet in that moment because it will be last part of unexplored world and I'll value this moments and try to kill all that sirens with bare hands... joking of course though it is a good idea to make a trophy for them, it will be a good example of irony of developers for themselves.

Thanks for welcome

 

[Thasithe1952]

TLTR you have been warned


Complain Summary:
I personally find The Wicher 3 is a rancid pile of garbage for multiple reasons when it comes to its game design. If you are a offended fandrone, move along.
The game feels like a piss poor alibi MMO that simply doesn't work. To have a leveling system and leveled items and the same mobs just with different levels is the biggest crime in this game.
Progression should only be possible by Items, Mutagens, Temporary Potions and Skills/Perks/Traits. Unless they are just for show.

When the Legendary lvl 5 DragonCastrate Sword is actually 92% weaker than a lvl 20 blunt stick. Something is fundamentally wrong with your game and world design!

It only creates a massive disbelieve of the games immersion and inconsistency in the Lore of the World. Yet you can at very low levels, easily kill the lvl 21 King Wyvern and clear that Quest. It just take a while. It would not take 30 F*cking minutes if there would not be a rancid leveling system in the first place!

And a Isometric view would much improve this incompetent auto aim forced combat system, also group combat in Witcher 1 was more fun.
Where is the Isometric view, and where are Geralts awesome moves from the first game? The W3 got bigger, but also dumbed down way too much in return.



In-depth Complain:
You start as Geralt a pre-established character who got all his Mental Abilities back, and you end the Game as Geralt. An already well trained and strong Witcher.
A needle through the Heart would kill him, just like any other Human in the game. Thats how the Lore of this World works.
Yet he becomes so strong, he smacks Dragons over the equator with one hit.

How often got the game now rebalanced? That would not be necessary if game designers would stop jerking off behind the withe board, and start thinking.


Humans are Humans, and Humans are physically weaker than a Witcher. There are a few exceptions to the rule, as always.
Their equipment, number of combatants and the Game Difficulty should determine how much of a threat they are. A Human wearing Platemale should always be more dangerous and harder to kill, because Damage Reduction/Damage Threshold. If the designers even heard those terms before, that is.

Same goes for all the other Monsters and Creatures. A naked braindead Drowner or Nekker should only be so strong, it always should be a danger to you, because you won't level up. But alone, it will never outclass you in return, because its just a Drowner or Nekker etc.

Remember that bad ass looking Sword you found or Crafted 40 levels ago? Yeah that looked really amazing. Too bad, the blunt stick up your anus is more powerful than anything else atm. Without leveling, you could keep that amazing looking sword and armor. Simple as that.
A sword can only be so sharp and durable. A Meteorite forge one for example, is higher tier than Steel, so make it deal more damage. More durable or vise-versa. More Damage Reduction, Amor piercing etc.
Easy thinking, easily executable. Its basically just number crunching, and easily adjustable even for the players itself. If they so desire.


With that, you take a butt load of balancing work off your shoulders. Because Humans are Humans, and can only be so strong, plus minus some exeptions. Again, the rest are just armor and damage reduction multipliers on those Human enemies. And RNGesus can still be applied to those instant kill abilities.
And the additional Enemy Upscaling Option would have been unnecessary, saving the developers work time for more important stuff.


Are Potions, Mutagens and Skills still not enough to increase Geralts strength, and change how his body works in terms of physical and magic aptitude? This would give weapon sharpening and especially Potions in general a much higher importance. Thats why Mutagens and Potions exist in the first place or am I wrong!?
The Game Designers over complicated the entire game, to a state of disbelieve. Its simply bad design.



Imbalance:
When I run across two lvl 3 mobs and suddenly the same mob at lvl 13 appears right next to them, in a "low" level area, that is bad design.
If I run along the beach, smacking hundred of low lvl Drowners into the ground, and some where along the line is a nest of lvl 16 Drowners, that one shots the player. That is bad design.
When some one below lvl 10 kills two normal and a lvl 21 King Wyvern that one shots Geralt, while He is dealing little to no damage in return, but can still kill it with perma Quen as protection and enough time. Your combat system is piss poor in design!

All this could easily be avoided, by not using a stupid leveling system. Just because you call your game an RPG, doesn't mean you need level ups. In this case, it simply doesn't fit into this game world and its lore at all. The strong disbelieve of the world and lore happens, and kills every immersion. Its not about realism, its about making sense, and Lore consistency!



Combat no-System:
The auto aim is pure garbage, and it traps you in the environment. Because you can't jump/climb over obstacles anymore. You also can't disengage combat, unless you reach a certain distance. The camera is sometimes a mess. And a Iso Perspective would have been a damn good Idea, especially while attacking groups of enemies in combination with THIS combat system. Again, bad bad design decisions.

Enough hammering upon the fast attack button, leads you to victory. The combat depth is almost non existent. Its always the same. Pirouette-dodge, attack, repeat, won. Really bad designed. The Witcher 1 has a better and more fun combat system.
And again, a Isometric view would not only help and improve the gameplay. If you could play the entire game that way, it would additionally appeal to another demographic of Players as well. And since when is that a bad thing, without giving up anything in return? Benefit to the game + more variety for more people.

The biggest and most important part of your game, is messed up. No matter how good your story, side quests and characters are. What do you do the most in this game? I would guess, you battle! And what is absolute unenjoyable and made me quit this game in the end? The shoddy Combat System.


Did anyone ever play Severance - Blade of Darkness? Old, bad graphics, short, interesting trashy story and bloody as hell? Basically not comparable to the Witcher 3. Yet its combat system alone holds this game above modern triple A titles. I still play this game. I will not continue the Witcher 3 on the other hand.
A game that brims with over 9000% more content, than the previous mentioned game.



Interface:
Also the Inventory and the Map takes forever to load. This stuff is just an overlay, is it not? Press start, bam here it is. Thats how it should be. But no, you have to wait for the screen to do some transitioning. Make it instant, and transitionless god dammit. Same goes for the item info boxes. Who has the time and the patience to wait so long until these info boxes appear? Seriously, this game is full of time wasting designs.

The Radial Menu is not only badly implemented, and very, very limited in its function. It forces you to go constantly into the inventory screen if you are either a potion Juggler, or Unabomber. Bad design overall !!!!

Looting in this game is utterly bad. There are so much places where you have to climb at the crate for it too loot, even if you stand right next to it. You can't even auto loot 1x item from herbs. dafug? Even Bugthesda managed to do that. And they are one of the worst Trash Developers in History.

Why do modders get it, and the Devs do NOT? They made a auto loot Mod, and something I demand for years. A Area loot option! Take away the annoyances in video games. This has nothing to do with dumbing down, its comfort, next gen game mechanics! Make it optional, and you win the internet.
If this is too much to ask, then devs should stop making video games. Modders can, what Devs can't. Something is going in the wrong direction!
Hone your game mechanics, even if it means lowering the scale of the world.



Simply traversing the world sucks major Dragon Balls Rant:
From simple navigation of the character and traversing the overall world is just ridiculously bad. There was a reason the "Alternative Controls" were implemented. Because people have a problem with it. It still doesn't help.

Why was there suddenly a need for jumping in this game anyway? Jumping is one of the most overrated features, for a god damn eternity.
Zelda manages to auto jump on ledges, since the beginning. Always worked, still works. Did Assassins Creed and Shadow of Mordor etc. not show, how to run and climb over obstacles the right way?
Remove the manual jumping, and implement auto traversing the terrain, thats why you have one single run/climb/traverse button.
And Geralt's jumping just looks like horse piss on top. Another reason to remove it.
Its god damn 2016 and we still jump around like crack heads on the loo!

The moment enemies are there, you automatically engage into combat. And you can't abort it, and that is utterly stupid!
Should it happen that you are in a small hole or gap, you're stuck. Unable to climb out until combat ends.
Outside of combat, Geralt just walks slow sometimes. Mostly after fast traveling, or because of stupid reasons, near a certain person, inside a building or "no run" areas. That is bad and mega annoying, pissing me off to no end. Always run, never walk unless the player gives the command!!

Especially the swimming is absolute piss! Alone the massive annoying slow down in knee deep water. But WHY do I have to press a button for him to swim faster? Are you F. serious Mr/Mrs Designers? Isn't swimming not slow enough already?
And whats with those utterly annoying rolling animations Geralt does under water? Why, why why is it necessary to take the controls away from me, so I have to watch something I don't want him to do, or see in the first place? Stop wasting peoples time with such garbage! Im seriously getting angry here.


Whats even worse is this facking disgusting Horse! This is maybe the worst implementation of a Horse Mechanic I ever laid My hands on!
Not only is the stupid horse always in the way of combat. It comes running towards the combat zone even when jumped off far way, while circling around the opponents, effectively blocking attacks and the camera view. Again, wheres the old Witcher 1 Isometric view? Bad, bad design decision.

The Horse also gets stuck in the terrain constantly for no apparent reason. And Im not exaggerating, this happens so often, that I have to question the QA department of this Company!
There is basically nothing on the ground, and the stamina bar is still good, yet the horse instantly stops the riding. As if there are random invisible walls. This happens constantly while riding through the world, aside from the roads.
If I could kill the Horse, I would have done so a thousandfold!!
The Horse also takes for ever to start galloping. And when enemies are in sight, it takes even longer. Leading to a 80% chance of getting thrown off. Get on the F. horse and just ride you piece of S.! Stop wasting my time! And the Fear Bar is simply put, facking shit! Beyond awful design! Its just stupid shit. It adds nothing to the game aside from additional frustration and anger.


Look at Metal Gear 5, and how well all the game mechanics and animations work. The Witcher 3 is Bantha piss compared to MG 5's designed and fine tuned gameplay mechanics. They almost work flawlessly, I can simply not complain. Im not talking about story or graphics here. Its all about gameplay mechanics, how they handle and play.

!!The fundamentals of The Witcher 3 are broken!!​

I yea I agree Witcher 3 has awful gameplay design. I disagree with some of your suggestions. Witcher 3 can been a third person rpg it doesnt need to isometric. Also an easy fix to jumping in combat issue is remove the atrocious auto targeting system and leave the hard lock on system. I would also change how combat mode works. Instead of game choosing combat mode you manually need to hard lock an enemy. This means when you need to jump you can manually leave the lock on and jump than lock back on the enemy. This is how Bloodborne solves a similar issue by having two different moves on one button. I agree its like CDPR doesnt have any gameplay testers that test the game thoroughly.

 

[Rawls]

This dozens of "?" in sea are teasing me. When I'll complete game and both DLCs, I can come to Skellige and explore them, they will be sweet in that moment because it will be last part of unexplored world and I'll value this moments and try to kill all that sirens with bare hands... joking of course though it is a good idea to make a trophy for them, it will be a good example of irony of developers for themselves.

Thanks for welcome

You can come back and explore all the questions marks in Skellige (well finding one is quest specific in "King's Gambit" - but all the water ones are still discoverable). However after awhile it can get a tad tedious.

 

[Cerberusx32]

The only things I can really complain about is that there is not unlimited amount of ng+, no Wild Hunt armor dlc/add on, and no mods for console players. And maybe it would be cool to have tamed a pet, that follows you around. Like a white wolf perhaps.

 

[Martinvls]

You can come back and explore all the questions marks in Skellige (well finding one is quest specific in "King's Gambit" - but all the water ones are still discoverable). However after awhile it can get a tad tedious.

I fighted sirens and ekhindnas in smuggler cashes all evening to get few hundreds of experience to get lvl 34 and Mastercrafted staff for last battle (no other areas were unexplored). If you are standing in boat they try to send you to the water, and when you try to cast Yrden or Quen, Geralt often just make animation of ignition of invisible lantern. If you try to shot them with crossbow from boat, they are flying to high and Geralt for some unknown reason don't have enough "vertical depression" to shot them. If you jump to a water to kill them with crossbow, ekhidnas start flying above and screaming and you must wait for a minute before they dive in to you.. so yes, it is really tedious.