Witcher senses and your opinion, possible down(up)grade of them

[BroccoliSouP]

Witcher senses and your opinion, possible down(up)grade of them

So there is a mechanic in TW3 which is called Witcher senses. It pretty much highlights tracks, blood and sounds. The thing is that it makes tracking way too simple. It shows even spots where to climb up. On the other hand it feels like important gameplay mechanic and without using it players will have tough time finding things.

I had idea on two solutions.

A ) Option to reduce them or even turn off. Instead big red highlights show just slight small highlights like small spark or make them slightly more visible when using witcher senses and instead showing source of sound just make important sounds louder when using senses.

B )Reduce witcher senses depending on difficulty. Basicly higher difficulty is witcher senses show you less.

What is your opinion on this? What would you use to change it or do you like it as it is? Personally I will not use them if they will work just like they do now but at the same time I will probably get lost very often.

 

[DonSwingKing]

On higher difficulties they should be reduced, as you said. But also on normal difficulty they should be made optional in the settings.

But the best solution would be a custom difficulty editor, where you can decide which aids shall be active and which not when starting a new game.

 

[1337Smithy]

To be fair, I noticed that you could see blood trails without it. I'll probably try to play without it as much as possible if I can.

 

[BroccoliSouP]

But the best solution would be a custom difficulty editor, where you can decide which aids shall be active and which not when starting a new game.

Custom difficulty editor. That is some next level idea.

To be fair, I noticed that you could see blood trails without it. I'll probably try to play without it as much as possible if I can.

Of course but if you take those footsteps that is pretty much impossible to find.

 

[B_l_a_d_y]

So there is a mechanic in TW3 which is called Witcher senses. It pretty much highlights tracks, blood and sounds. The thing is that it makes tracking way too simple. It shows even spots where to climb up. On the other hand it feels like important gameplay mechanic and without using it players will have tough time finding things.

I had idea on two solutions.

A ) Option to reduce them or even turn off. Instead big red highlights show just slight small highlights like small spark or make them slightly more visible when using witcher senses and instead showing source of sound just make important sounds louder when using senses.

B )Reduce witcher senses depending on difficulty. Basicly higher difficulty is witcher senses show you less.

What is your opinion on this? What would you use to change it or do you like it as it is? Personally I will not use them if they will work just like they do now but at the same time I will probably get lost very often.

This detective mode is to gamey, witcher world is too immersive, and realistic to constantly remind player that is game.
There is no need to highlight sounds direction. blur and desaturate whole screen only to show red glowing line to follow.

Griffon flays so naturaly if you smart or atl least not retarded you wolud look his nest on the top of mountain, leshen you track in forest and drowners on marsh.
There is no need for this senses

 

[BroccoliSouP]

This detective mode is to gamey, witcher world is too immersive, and realistic to constantly remind player that is game.
There is no need to highlight sounds direction. blur and desaturate whole screen only to show red glowing line to follow.

Griffon flays so naturaly if you smart or atl least not retarded you wolud look his nest on the top of mountain, leshen you track in forest and drowners on marsh.
There is no need for this senses

Okey but Imagine there is huge forest behind some village and someone gives you quest: "there is bear in forest.... bring me his head". Now you are supposed to find his footsteps with witcher senses but you don´t use them. Now if the game is as big as they say it will take ages to find him. This is what I´m afraid of. Same about crossbow. I don´t plan to use it but I might make some gameparts very hard to complete if they are desinged for crossbow usage.

 

[IsengrimR]

I can understand them for enchanced hearing and clues like footsteps or blood in the forest, ( yeah, it's visible, but I have difficulty finding them... finding Cedric without cat was a pain in the arse, then I've just learned the location on the map... cause 12 playthroughs ), stuff like corpes.

Other clues, marks on the trees, shards of metal, metal rings from the mail - should be highlighted only when you approach them closely ( aka most likely noticed something yourself ), rewarding thoroughness of the search.

However, there should be a price for using them. Maybe costs an endurance point, or sth.
Let's be frank here, they are more or less "rechargable find-'em-all medalion version 2.0 enchanced".

Also, we didn't see much of use of them in combat, I'd say that, in combat, they should give you a attack/sign combo instruction for hitting a 1-off ciritcal hit on a vital organ of the enemy ( like: Kidney - "Aard+backstab ( light attack )" )[ with having limited time on the Witcher senses, of course] only if you came to know said monster by reading a book about them, gathering clues, etc.

And for the love of god, get rid of the blurr. I can't fucking stand blur, motion or otherwise.

 

[TacticalAce42]

Im glad you made this topic, I feel that the senses as of right now is too saturated. For instance the blood effect bleeds out too much no pun intended. I would like a more subtle but noticeable look to it. As of right now the tracks look a bit too cartoon like.

Overall what I'm trying to say is that the tracks look too exposed. I think if they tone down the effect a little it would be great.

 

[spacehamsterZH]

Aren't we assuming a bit too much here? I won't deny that what I saw in the E3 demo footage reminded me of "detective mode" in the Arkham games, and that definitely felt like a cheat option (in the first two anyway, I've never played the third) - it revealed too much, it was unlimited, and it had no drawbacks, so there was really no reason not to have it on constantly. But all of these things have to do with how the mode is implemented, and how it fits into the quests it's used for, and we don't know any of that. I'd say as long as it makes sense lore-wise (which it seems to me it does) and there are some limitations to its use, it's fine. It also doesn't strike me as being vastly different from other features the previous games had to reveal environment clues, so it's not like this is some completely new thing that totally changes the game.

 

[Jupiter_on_Mars]

So there is a mechanic in TW3 which is called Witcher senses. It pretty much highlights tracks, blood and sounds. The thing is that it makes tracking way too simple. It shows even spots where to climb up. On the other hand it feels like important gameplay mechanic and without using it players will have tough time finding things.

I had idea on two solutions.

A ) Option to reduce them or even turn off. Instead big red highlights show just slight small highlights like small spark or make them slightly more visible when using witcher senses and instead showing source of sound just make important sounds louder when using senses.

B )Reduce witcher senses depending on difficulty. Basicly higher difficulty is witcher senses show you less.

What is your opinion on this? What would you use to change it or do you like it as it is? Personally I will not use them if they will work just like they do now but at the same time I will probably get lost very often.

I think they're too deep into the development for such a feature to be either down or upgraded. I also don't quite get how your suggestions mitigate the problem most seem to have with the feature, that it's handholding under another name. In this regard I think Witcher senses should come at a price. That is, the benefits it brings must be balanced with a few drawbacks. I've already proposed a few:

- Reduced buffs, decreased resistances and slower regeneration when in Wither Senses mode.
- Witcher Senses deplete one of the attributes.
- Using Witcher senses might attract certain wild animals and magical foes.
- Witcher senses do not work as well or at all when using certain types of heavy armour.

 

[BroccoliSouP]

I think they're too deep into the development for such a feature to be either down or upgraded. I also don't quite get how your suggestions mitigate the problem most seem to have with the feature, that it's handholding under another name. In this regard I think Witcher senses should come at a price. That is, the benefits it brings must be balanced with a few drawbacks. I've already proposed a few:

- Reduced buffs, decreased resistances and slower regeneration when in Wither Senses mode.
- Witcher Senses deplete one of the attributes.
- Using Witcher senses might attract certain wild animals and magical foes.
- Witcher senses do not work as well or at all when using certain types of heavy armour.

If the clues are barely visible you still have to search for them. At the same time if you find them you won´t miss them. That is my solution. Also they are just polishing game. They can change particles maybe adjust mechanics behind it but I don´t believe they will totally rework it at this stage. Intresting ideas but they still doesn´t change anything with that handholding.

EDIT: Also if the sound clues are just highleted sounds of interest you will be like "oh...he is somewhere around" and you will know. No need to show where exactly point of interest is.

 

[OptoNick]

I'm totally agree that customisation is a right decision about almost every option in the game, but that's essentially impossible.

Complete disabling of the senses is unreasonable, 'cause Geralt really should have them. Although, reducing of brightness of BIG SHINY RED trails would be a nice option.

 

[ONLY_ONCE]

I think it is great for new people and for us if we get lost from time to time, but the climbing highlight is a no-brainer.
I think it's fine if stuff is only highlighted in that mode alone. I don't want to see clues, hints, prompts, arrow signs pointing or anything telling me what to look at or pick up etc.. I love this much MUCH better than TW2 because I don't have to see glowing herbs and loot bags all over the pace
The new HUD system in general looks a lot better too, I am really happy with what I'm seeing

 

[Vigilance.492]

I like the effect. As in I'm happy that it isn't changing my entire screen colour to something completely obnoxious (Tomb Raider, AssCreed) but although the 'Red' effect on stuff is fine, it does seem a little too pronounced, it should be a little more subtle.

The implementation is the only thing that scares me. If it's completely optional (And the Griffin Hunt seemed like you could have completely avoided using it), then that's fine, I'm totally on-board. However I worry that certain sequences will become impossible or far more difficult/annoying without it, as it seems to be a "key feature" of the game that's being shown off.

Like for example in the Swamp Sequence, they obviously started already like 15 seconds walk from Johnny's Cave. What happens though if the Swamp starts 5 minutes on foot back in the other direction? How do I find Johnny? Dijkstra didn't make the location very clear, he just says, "He's in a burrow in the swamp"... So it leads me to assume that there's either going to be a big Exclamation Mark on my map, or the game is going to require Witcher Senses to track his location from the edge of the swamp to his cave.
Naturally it's all speculation & there could be something that makes his location much more obvious & Witcher Senses is unnecessary, but it just strikes me as a possibility & I cringe at the thought of it. Who knows how vast the swamps are & as much as I love a bit of exploration (And would want to ignore the witcher senses), I don't want to be going round in circles for an Hour until I finally stumble upon his little burrow.

I just worry is all.

 

[eLeF1]

I like the idea of a game helping you as much as it can, but all this hand holding is just ridiculous (not to mention immersion breaking). They should be more subtle about it. For example Id like to read through my journal for once in a while and gather all the clues from there, I would get more involved and immersed in the game. That way when a quest is finnished Id have a feeling that I actually achieved something and not that the game did most of the work for me.

 

[blackgriffin]

- Using Witcher senses might attract certain wild animals and magical foes.
- Witcher senses do not work as well or at all when using certain types of heavy armour.

i'd realy like to understand what wearing armour and animals being attracted to you have to do with you useing the senses?

However I worry that certain sequences will become impossible or far more difficult/annoying without it, as it seems to be a "key feature" of the game that's being shown off. How do I find Johnny? Dijkstra didn't make the location very clear, he just says, "He's in a burrow in the swamp"... So it leads me to assume that there's either going to be a big Exclamation Mark on my map, or the game is going to require Witcher Senses to track his location from the edge of the swamp to his cave.
Naturally it's all speculation & there could be something that makes his location much more obvious & Witcher Senses is unnecessary, but it just strikes me as a possibility & I cringe at the thought of it. Who knows how vast the swamps are & as much as I love a bit of exploration (And would want to ignore the witcher senses), I don't want to be going round in circles for an Hour until I finally stumble upon his little burrow.

since they took the time to invent the senses mech. they obviously made is usefull. And i might get this wrong but didn't you want realisim, no handholding and a chalege but now you want a quest marker over his location?

 

[huber1989.365]

Personally I'd love to be able to customize as many support features as possible (senses, minimap, recommended potion, quest markers ... stuff like that). As far as I remember that was pretty well done in the recent Thief iteration (although it had a lot of other issues).

I'm no programmer whatsoever, but I can't imagine why it should be difficult to implement these customization options.

 

[Jupiter_on_Mars]

i'd realy like to understand what wearing armour and animals being attracted to you have to do with you useing the senses?

Benefits should come at a cost, great benefits at a greater cost. Therefore, to level and balance things out, using such an advantageous feature as the Witcher Senses should further expose you to danger. It might put breaks on abuse. It would also open up gameplay opportunities. What about the idea don't you fancy?

 

[Vigilance.492]

@blackgriffin
I was implying that I DON'T want a Quest Marker on the map. The whole "Quest Market or Witcher Senses" in the same line meant that I didn't want either.

Obviously this stuff isn't exactly new, there was quest markers in TW2 & on very rare occasions I did follow them. However because The Witcher 1 & 2 are both not open worlds, you have these restricted areas & there's only so many places you can go, eventually you will find what you're trying to find even if the description from the Quest/NPC is not very good. They need a different solution in an Open World but I just don't think it should be focus mode or blatant quest markers (Like Red Dead Redemption did where it would often highlight an area but you still had to find who you were looking for in that area, you weren't just directed straight to em or saw them in some focus mode).

For me I would much prefer Dijkstra to say, "Johnny is in the Swamp. Enter it from the south, head north until you pass a destroyed carriage & his burrow is in that area" (Or have a Journal which states that after you talk to him). That gives me a much better idea of where to go but without just activating a sense mode & following the 'Red' or putting a GPS marker where the Exclamation Mark is. Of course that's just simply not going to happen & I'm not asking for TW3 to do that. I just hope that we don't end up with situations where the dialogue or quest doesn't give us enough information & we end up completely lost without following an exclamation mark or being forced to activate Witcher Senses.

Optional continues to be the key word.

 

[Jupiter_on_Mars]

@blackgriffin
For me I would much prefer Dijkstra to say, "Johnny is in the Swamp. Enter it from the south, head north until you pass a destroyed carriage & his burrow is in that area" (Or have a Journal which states that after you talk to him) .

I would much prefer that over highlighted footprints. Much prefer.

But surely that can't always be the case. Say you're tracking down a monster which everyone fears and whose exact whereabouts are unknown. You have to rely on vestiges. You'd screen the ground for them. Realistically speaking though, how would the player do it, how would he close pup and examine the ground without something akin to the Watcher senses? I just think it'd be close to an impossible technical feat. I see the Witcher senses as a compromise. That's why I am calling for penalties. By all means, let's have the feature . Let's also play a heavy price for it.