The original Witcher was an excellent game, but it did not handle difficulty in the best possible way. In the original Witcher, the game had one setting that controlled character leveling, monster scaling and feedback. Character leveling is how the main character gains abilities and powers through out the game. In The Witcher, Geralt gains powers and abilities more slowly if you play on a harder difficulty setting. Obviously, this makes the game more difficult.Monster scaling is how monsters are more or less powerful according to the character's power level. If monsters spawn with more health, then the game will be more difficult.Feedback is how the game tells you what's going on. In the Witcher, the cursor may or may not give information about whether it is time to chain an attack; this is a kind of feedback. Less feedback can make the game more difficult.However combining all these different ways to make the game more difficult is not the best idea! Character leveling is what makes a game fun. In part, you play the game because getting new and better powers makes it fun. It is an achievement and reward for your hard work when Geralt gains a level. Less leveling typically means less fun. To me, this says that difficultly should not be controlled with character leveling. Why would ever want the game to be less fun? As a player, you want the game to be the most fun possible; less character leveling means less fun. So, if there is another way to increase the difficulty of the game, that is how it should happen. Challenge is fun, but you want to make the challenge the most fun possible.Feedback is another way to make the game more or less difficult. However, there is no need to tie feedback to other difficulty settings. Feedback and Monster Scaling should be independent of one another so that a player can increase or decrease feedback without increasing or decreasing Monster Scaling. I'm sure many players of the original Witcher agree with me that after you have played the game awhile, the feedback is no longer necessary to effectively chain attacks, and the flashing cursor even takes away for your enjoyment of playing sometimes. Feedback and Monster Scaling should not be connected.Monster Scaling is the best way to make the game harder or easier. To make the game Medium, monster can spawn with 25% more health than easy. To make it Hard, with 50% more health and 10% more resistance to effects like knock down and stun, and so forth. Maybe 25% and 50% are not the exact right numbers, but you see the basic idea. I like playing the Witcher on difficult because it gives me more challenge (which is fun) and less feedback (which I find a little annoying) but it is sad that I will never have all the Witcher powers because it makes character leveling slower.I hope the developers have a chance to keep this in mind as they create The Witcher 2.
