What’s Your Opinion of Thronebreaker? [Spoilers]

[nlghtcrawIer]

Hi there,

I want to give you guys some feedback on Thronebreaker. I just finished playing the campaign in 28 hours and I have to say I really enjoyed it. Story, world, characters, graphics (for this type of game), deck system and the puzzle battles were really great. Nevertheless, I have a few things to criticize:

I am an experienced deck and RPG player and also knew Gwent before, so I picked the hardest difficulty and I have say, that it was far too easy. I basically never had to change my deck except for the final fight in Rivia and won all other fights in 2 rounds. I wouldn't like that every fight would be on this level but 1-2 per map would be nice (the other fights should still be harder).

Also, it is hard to sell though morale decisions when the only negative outcome is -1 morale on all cards. I think morale should effect the cards more, so that you have think twice when facing a decision. (My idea would for example be that low morale would cancel all order or deploy skills of bronze units and double them for high morale)

Similarly, the story always warns you of tough battles that bear heavy losses, but I have never seen any consequences of that. Why would I think about attacking when I am at disadvantage when it does not have any consequences like losing cards or getting negative effect on cards?

The resource and crafting system worked well until mid/end Aedirn (map 4). Then I had finished improving all cards and had barley any use for cold or wood anymore. That resulted in me having 50k gold and 15k wood at the end of the game. It would be nice if there would be some more improvements we could built in Rivia (map 5). That would also increase the number of cards that are available. I am sure I haven't seen all of them but it felt like there could be more card diversity to support creative deck building.

In Rivia (map 5) the battles were all pretty similar. The Nilfgardians should get a few more cards and leaders to make it more interesting.

There were a few bugs like missing voiceover and a card that didn't work correctly (strays of spalla) but nothing serious.

I would really like to see some slides at the end about all the companions I had, to see what they are doing even if they are not with me anymore (kind of dragon age style).

And lastly: I did not like the golden chests. I feel when I open a chest it should contain something that will support my current game and not a different one.

It sounds like a lot but I think most of the things I mentioned are either details or adding more cards. If you don't want to change the current game modes you could also just add a hardcore mode.

Anyway, the important parts are all working out and with a few patches this will be an even better game .

So long...

 

[BILBO.BAGGINS]

I admit that after the HC huge letdown, i did no longer have high expectations for TB. So, in the end, TB exceeded my expectations by a mile. I loved it!

Good story ( the twist at the end of the Lyria act, well, it totally caught me by surprise ), good art style, great music.
The puzzles, i loved them, that's my jam! Though some of them were very easy ( even in the later stages of the game and even playing in the hardest difficulty ) they were still very fun, others were properly difficult and had me stumped for a while. Overall, very enjoyable.

Gameplay/battles. Given my opinion of the new "Gwent", i actually enjoyed the battles more than i thought i would, because the cards and synergies were much more fun than the actual standalone game.
Though i'm very unfamiliar with the new version of Gwent ( still haven't played a single HC game ), i found the battles rather easy. And then, in the last fight, here comes that NG a**hole with a 100 card deck, and he keeps throwing 5 units on the board and a million points each turn! It was the first time that, after a couple of failed attempts and seeing what i was up against, i had to reload and seriously rethink and modify my deck. Not that i mind the difficulty level, i was playing in hard mode after all, but in contrast to all the previous battles, the last one was ridiculous. Conclusion for hard mode:
- up the difficulty of the battles, at least the mandatory ones.
- add the rope. ( fun fact: in the beginning, while i was still getting used to the gameplay, there were a couple of times that the opponent was taking forever to play and i actually thought the AI was rope-BMing me. Turns out i had forgotten to click "end turn" ! )

A few gripes here and there ( for example, what nightcrawler said about the golden chests ) and some minor bugs, but a very fun and enjoyable game overall. I wish there will be more Witcher Tales games in the future, as soon as possible.

Anyway, all is well that ends well and NG has been thoroughly crushed. Gascon MVP:

( i still barely won, because of the ridiculous opponent's ability to gain a 5 CA on me )

 

[Que-Hegan]

Everything is perfect until the last map, Twiling of The Golden Sun, finish the game with 4 chest missing and no clue why is unacceptable

Post automatically merged: Oct 29, 2018

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The last battle was kinda crazy, i have to change my strategy from killing everything (the more i kill the stronger he grow) to hit them all down to 7 or so, and when he summon full board with so little point (18 units with 7 or so power) i just sit there and watch him burn his own hand
P/s: Some time killing is not the best way. About the card draw you can use the one card that let you draw 1 after 3 turn Lyrian Pathfinder, and Meve: Angreni Blade combine with marching orders and Lyrian Blacksmith to draw even more card than Aep Dahy since he can draw 3 cards for 2 times.

 

[Aditya]

Same experience as the op, last time I milked on Gwent was on TW3, otherwise TB is the first real card game I spent any real time on let alone ten straight hours sessions.

Everything is perfect until the last map, Twiling of The Golden Sun, finish the game with 4 chest missing and no clue why is unacceptable

That is a common bug for all, I guess they got the total no. of chests count in the end wrong since the last small map practically clicked on it everywhere. Another of three elusive achievements thus far seems to be bugged (the easter egg one, found a plenty but nothing pops)

 

[Khreygond]

I absolutely loved Angren. That chapter alone warrants a second playthrough, and maybe even a third all things considered!

Now onto Rivia Still enjoying the game tremendously.

 

[isnadtochiev]

Well, its good, like, real good. If it was a full priced game, id probably buy it.
Havent finished it yet, i guess ive got like 2-3 more hours of gameplay there. Loved the story, as expected.
Puzzles are great, exploration is engaging. And it doesnt really controvert the story progression, wich reminds me how good CD project are with open world design. Characters are memorable if somewhat shallow, the two big ones aside. Encountered at least one quest going real south due to ally setup, wich is a nice touch. Its odd that those interactions even just by added dialogues appear to stop at certain point. Then again, might be due to my choices. Gonna give it a second go and try to be a do-gooder)
Only downside ive found is how easy battles get even on hardest difficulty. Then again, its SP, so balance is not too big of an issue. Just like with TW2/3, backwards difficulty curve doesnt bother too much, since story is the main focus.
Some nitpicking here) Would be nice if we had different defeat screens in puzzle battles. It doesnt make much sense telling that Meves army retreated when Gascon loses drinking contest)
Some tech difficulties, like black screen issue, or music getting junky after prolonged alt+tab, some bugs. Still, loved it.

 

[Khreygond]

Some tech difficulties, like black screen issue

I thought I was the only one who had that!

It sometimes works and at others, randomly doesn't. If anyone has a fix, it'd be appreciated

 

[BILBO.BAGGINS]

P/s: Some time killing is not the best way. About the card draw you can use the one card that let you draw 1 after 3 turn Lyrian Pathfinder, and Meve: Angreni Blade combine with marching orders and Lyrian Blacksmith to draw even more card than Aep Dahy since he can draw 3 cards for 2 times.

Sounds like a good plan, but i personally enjoyed killing NG units too much! I used 5 Slingers ( with reinforcements ) and Reynard to reactivate them in the first round. I used Angreni Blade as well, first time i changed weapon since i got the Broadsword. In the second round i relied heavily on super buffed Gascon and Infiltrators.
I don't even remember that such a card as Lyrian Pathfinder existed.

 

[Que-Hegan]

Sounds like a good plan, but i personally enjoyed killing NG units too much! [...].

Me too, but when i do so Aep Dahy just replace them with a bunch of immune NG knight with 75 or more power (bad RNG for me) which lead me to kill more units to bring them down and again just bring more of them to the field. So i switch strategy i like i said in the first part, and the match seem kinda easy, when his board is full of 7 power unit all he can do is burn his own card from hand
And about Lyrian Pathfinder, i only use them in the last battle with Aep Dahy just to draw more than Aep Dahy. Shuffle them back to deck with Meve and play them again and again, and end up 3 cards more than Aep Dahy in round 2 (after he draw 6 card just to burn them because his board is full).

 

[BILBO.BAGGINS]

Me too, but when i do so Aep Dahy just replace them with a bunch of immune NG knight with 75 or more power (bad RNG for me) which lead me to kill more units to bring them down and again just bring more of them to the field. So i switch strategy i like i said in the first part, and the match seem kinda easy, when his board is full of 7 power unit all he can do is burn his own card from hand
And about Lyrian Pathfinder, i only use them in the last battle with Aep Dahy just to draw more than Aep Dahy. Shuffle them back to deck with Meve and play them again and again, and end up 3 cards more than Aep Dahy in round 2 (after he draw 6 card just to burn them because his board is full).

Sounds fun! When i replay the battle, i'm going to try to curb my bloodthirstiness ( after all, in my epilogue, my Meve became known as "Bloodthirsty", if i remember correctly ) and try this strategy.

Sorry for going kind of off topic.

Oh, i almost forgot. There should be an option, after the first playthrough, to be able to manually save the game. I'm going to replay the whole game at some point, but not anytime soon, and i'm really curious about some decisions, like, for example, what happens if you agree with Villem and what his card does, but i don't want to replay a whole area or big chunks of the game just to check the different outcomes.

 

[Riven-Twain]

There should be an option, after the first playthrough, to be able to manually save the game.

I agree: Thronebreaker Suggestion: Option to Save Without Exiting/Save Manually?

 

[partci]

My opinion is - it's OK. Maybe it's because of the fact that it killed Gwent for me, but I was not engulfed by it.

Loved the tie up with the books though. Perhaps the only thing I marked out for.

 

[Que-Hegan]

Looking forward to the next single player DLC: the story about how Emhyr var Emreis reclaiming his heritage.
P/s: just have a quick look at Emhyr var Emreis's biography and that's quite a story if i might say

 

[Dawerick]

Thronebreaker was longer and had much more depth to it than I was expecting. So in that regard and as a lore nerd I'm really loving it.

All that makes it so much harder to say, though, that I was disappointed. The game becomes ridiculously boring because the gameplay itself is too easy. My Thronebreaker effort is solely based on the need to hear the story but ironically the game would be more interesting with the easiest difficulty because at least then you could skip the meaningless card battles which you cannot lose.

The only challenging fight is the one with the she-troll. Other than that there has been 1 or 2 other puzzles that have needed several attempts. All the non-puzzle fights are a joke. Anybody who is more intelligent than a juvenile sea cucumber will steamroll through the game. Every standard battle will be 2-0 and you don't even have to look what the so-called-opponent is doing on their side of the board. To make matters even worse is that you don't even have to create more cards. I've played the whole game without crafting a single card even though I'd love to build decks but I don't want the game to break even more.

TL;DR the difficulty name "Bonebreaker" stands for the ribs you'll crack while laughing so much at the "difficulty" of the game. I'd want to have a real challenge where I should actually optimize my deck and where every battle could result in a stunning defeat. Not this point slam fest.

 

[Gadzooky]

I'm loving TB, I've just completed Mahakam (you were a great character Gabor Zigrin, but did you really think I'd let you get away with slaughtering an entire clan)? One thing that really annoys me is the save game, on the Aidern map I accidentally hit continue with one chest unopened. I suspect it was an TB card for Gwent, now to get it I'll have to go back to the start of the game and replay the first two maps. I'm slightly OCD about these things, so I'll not be satisfied until I do it.

Also, why is Knickers not a playable Gwent card?

 

[L4nt4r]

I finished the campaign. I really enjoyed the Lore. However battles were too easy (I played on a highest difficulty) Too many resources (I finished with 50k gold 20k wood and 300 soldiers and there was nothing i could spend those on). Also some fights were bugged , cards were getting their boost in the deck and ones not for example. The engine also incorrectly counted my golden chest i found. However the lore was so exiting that when CDPR fix bugs and balance the gameplay, i will play it again.

 

[Tirius]

I love this game - much more than I expected. The story is gripping, the main characters wonderfully detailed and voice acted and there are so many options! I am not a hardcore Gwent player, so I cannot really comment on the difficulty of the matches (it was fine for me, and I really liked the puzzles) but the whole atmosphere of the game is great. I also loved the little bits of humor scattered about, such as Barnabas' [redacted] comments relating to his final artwork.

A final bit of praise should go to the soundtrack - both for its quality and that it comes as a separate download included in the purchase.

 

[Khreygond]

I'm loving TB, I've just completed Mahakam (you were a great character Gabor Zigrin, but did you really think I'd let you get away with slaughtering an entire clan)? One thing that really annoys me is the save game, on the Aidern map I accidentally hit continue with one chest unopened. I suspect it was an TB card for Gwent, now to get it I'll have to go back to the start of the game and replay the first two maps. I'm slightly OCD about these things, so I'll not be satisfied until I do it.

Also, why is Knickers not a playable Gwent card?

If you choose "Load game" instead of "Continue" at the main menu there is an option to return and replay a specific map. I personally replayed Mahakam because I lost 3 companions in that map

 

[Gadzooky]

If you choose "Load game" instead of "Continue" at the main menu there is an option to return and replay a specific map. I personally replayed Mahakam because I lost 3 companions in that map

Excellent! Have a RED point.

 

[Scaldar_von_Ascalon]

If you choose "Load game" instead of "Continue" at the main menu there is an option to return and replay a specific map. I personally replayed Mahakam because I lost 3 companions in that map

Btw how could you lose 3 companion? Barrel, Dragon, ST or start?

Post automatically merged: Oct 31, 2018

Storyline options are tough. If anyone has finished it, or at least been past the 3rd chapter, is there a way to keep all your companions? I am asked to boot one, by 2 others, and I am worried that if I don't, one of the 2 asking for that will go instead

I'm not finished the game yet, but I think you can manage it. Probably the ST side quest in mahakam the key.