The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings

[Mazakiel]

Just to save anyone from wasting their gold at the beginning of Act II if you end up in the army camp, the recipe for the Robust Kaedwanian Sword is bugged, if you craft it, you get a crappy shortsword instead.  The robust silver sword recipes, or at least the yellow meteorite one, work fine. 

Also, if you're still in Act I and foresee yourself wanting to craft lots of sword runes, buy the recipes for them before you close out the Act.  Now that I'm upgrading my swords, I can't find the runes or recipes anywhere in Act II, so I'm a bit hosed. 

[FatuousTwat]

Also, if you're still in Act I and foresee yourself wanting to craft lots of sword runes, buy the recipes for them before you close out the Act.  Now that I'm upgrading my swords, I can't find the runes or recipes anywhere in Act II, so I'm a bit hosed. 

Ah, thanks for the tip. I wasn't going to bother, but now I will.

[Minvaren]

Enjoying it so far.  Working my way through the prologue for the second time to get a better hang on the combat.

Thanks all for the advice on Quen.   

[kildorn]

Quen is the cheese of this game. I've simple stopped taking damage unless I screw up now.

Though fuck, in order:

QTEs in the middle of dialog scenes. In the order of "listen listen listen CLICK NOW OR IMMEDIATELY DIE"

Ending dialog with you in the middle of five dudes who already have blades drawn. Yeah, screw you for making me reload a save to at least have Quen up for the conversation, because I'm going to get hit IMMEDIATELY

[Minvaren]

Oh yeah, Quen is good stuff.   

And I was thinking the same thing about "Surprise! Click to not die!" and the sword loss myself.

[PalmTrees]

Combat is seriously pissing me off. The way the target just changes so easily, you wind up doing some dumbass lunge into the guy at the other end of the pack of enemies, then die after getting chain hit in the back three times. For a superhuman mutant killing machine, Geralt is pretty damn slow and awkward.

Is there storage anywhere? There was in the inns in the first game, but not finding any in the Flotsam inn.

The manual, accessed from the launcher, has a list of abilities and their upgrades which I'd wish I'd read before spending the few points I've done so far.

Having to drink potions from the meditation screen is just dumb. Also, Geralt is a litterbug. The huge gaint list of recipes could have done with potion, bomb, oil tabs.

How I wish for the ability to put markers on the map.

The mouse is laggy, while the camera swings wildly at the slightest movement, even with sensitivity turned down.

Pretty disappointed so far. Hard to get into the story when most of what I'm doing is raging at the completely awful combat.





 

[Tebonas]

That sounds so perfectly European RPG. I'm pulled back into the days of Gothic. 

[Lakov_Sanite]

to lock on a target just hit ALT and youll stop switching.

[kildorn]

Switching on the fly is a pretty big part of combat. My issue with it and the controls in general are that it seems like there is some input lag of some form, and sometimes when you move the camera and highlight a new dude and hit swing, the game still thinks the last dude is the target.

[Minvaren]

It's almost like the dev team idolized the Assassin's Creed 1 combat system.  Minus parry being worth anything, which all but breaks the playability until you start spamming Quen or tumbling around like Jackie Chan.

Hopefully a patch for the combat issues is released before we all blow through the game.  Though with how many times I'm retrying several of the combat sequences on normal...

[tmp]

Combat is seriously pissing me off. The way the target just changes so easily, you wind up doing some dumbass lunge into the guy at the other end of the pack of enemies, then die after getting chain hit in the back three times. For a superhuman mutant killing machine, Geralt is pretty damn slow and awkward.

You can hit Alt to toggle lock on the currently selected target.

Regarding parry being useless, as far as i can tell it gets significantly more useful when you buy a talent which makes it stop 100% of the damage instead of part of it, and gives you 50% chance of instant kill on the riposte. Didn't get to try it yet, though.

[kildorn]

Riposte is awful. The opening is tiny and before the swing, and most attacks can be parried but give no replete opening.

[nurtsi]

Damn the game is hard 

[Ingmar]

Game is kind of a mess, frankly. Much like the first one in terms of plot incoherency and laughable (or maybe just laughably translated) dialogue. Game is prettier but a number of the interfaces actually got worse (hi2u poker dice).

Kind of regret the preorder, was hoping they would take more strides forward in their 2nd game than I've seen so far. More of a $20 steam sale game than something I'd recommend buying at full price.

[Rasix]

Game is kind of a mess, frankly. Much like the first one in terms of plot incoherency and laughable (or maybe just laughably translated) dialogue. Game is prettier but a number of the interfaces actually got worse (hi2u poker dice).

Kind of regret the preorder, was hoping they would take more strides forward in their 2nd game than I've seen so far. More of a $20 steam sale game than something I'd recommend buying at full price.

I haven't even started yet due to an upcoming vacation out of town.  I didn't want to get into it and then have to just put it down for a week. 

Sounds like I'll just let it sit and wait for a patch or two.     Disappointed that it sounds like the game is as much of a mess as the first was at release.  Seems like they didn't learn much as a company and just cashed in as soon as they could on the goodwill fixing up Witcher 1 generated.

[Ingmar]

Game is kind of a mess, frankly. Much like the first one in terms of plot incoherency and laughable (or maybe just laughably translated) dialogue. Game is prettier but a number of the interfaces actually got worse (hi2u poker dice).

Kind of regret the preorder, was hoping they would take more strides forward in their 2nd game than I've seen so far. More of a $20 steam sale game than something I'd recommend buying at full price.

I haven't even started yet due to an upcoming vacation out of town.  I didn't want to get into it and then have to just put it down for a week. 

Sounds like I'll just let it sit and wait for a patch or two.     Disappointed that it sounds like the game is as much of a mess as the first was at release.  Seems like they didn't learn much as a company and just cashed in as soon as they could on the goodwill fixing up Witcher 1 generated.

Well, if I recall correctly you loved the first one much more than I did so it may be the case that you'd like this right off the bat, I'm not sure.

[Zetor]

Something about the dialogue makes me think of "trying too hard", can't really pin down why. Inventory management's kind of annoying [and mmo-style crafting? no ty], but in a different way than the original game. The game sure is pretty, though...

I managed to solve the nausea problem by turning off all blurs (motion blur and bloom were already off before, didn't help), so that one may be worth trying.

[Ingmar]

Turning off motion blur solved most of my problem except for during the boxing minigame, that still makes me feel a bit uneasy.

[Lantyssa]

Over-the-shoulder watching has been far more entertaining than DA2.  Having to make difficult decisions rather than whether you want to pet the kitten and save the orphans or burn the lot of 'em down is nice, too.

YMMV

[kildorn]

I like the story and gameplay a LOT more. But the combat suffers from a punishing learning curve and no real tutorial. I loathed the game until halfway through act 1, when I "got" how combat worked and restarted.

I kind of dislike the choices for the plot quests, because I think both sides are total fucking dicks. I honestly don't want to help either of them.

And yeah, somehow inventory management got Worse. I especially like that there are tabs for everything except "junk" sale items. So if you want to sell the loot whose only purpose is sale, you need to slowly scroll through every item in your inventory.

Also: keyring, and crafting journal for the love of fucking god. Those should not be inventory items you keep forever.

[PalmTrees]

Just browsing their forums and there is no storage. So they added a whole new system of collecting blueprints and gathering of materials to craft weapons, armor, etc. but they removed storage. 

[rk47]

That's going to be added on the winter DLC, dubbed 'The Witcher's Stash.' 
But honestly, how's the dialogue? In preparation for the save game import, I decided to replay The Witcher 1, and my god. The dialog is terrible. Almost irredeemable in the first 3 chapters I endured.

[Ingmar]

That's going to be added on the winter DLC, dubbed 'The Witcher's Stash.' 
But honestly, how's the dialogue? In preparation for the save game import, I decided to replay The Witcher 1, and my god. The dialog is terrible. Almost irredeemable in the first 3 chapters I endured.

Dialogue is essentially the same quality. I am planning to switch it to German with English subtitles to see if that makes it feel better.

[Trouble]

A bit under 4 minutes in to full rear and frontal nudity. Not bad, not bad.

[caladein]

A couple of modded files that change weights:

Zero Weight for Everything (GOG Forums Thread)
Reduces Weight of Crafting Materials (GOG Forums Thread)

(If Mediafire doesn't agree with you, I put them up here.)

Both of these are just a def_weights.xml file that goes into \CookedPC\items\ in your install directory.  You'll probably have to create the items directory.

[Tarami]

As pants-on-head silly the combat is, the exploration itself is pretty damn neat. Running around the forest outside Flotsam feels old school.

[Minvaren]

I loathed the game until halfway through act 1, when I "got" how combat worked and restarted.

A few quests into Act 1 and I just "got" how combat works as well.  And why everyone's turning off motion blur, heh.

[Gunzwei]

Had too much free time and beat it twice. Pretty interesting how different the game plays out depending on act 1's finale.

For anyone struggling with combat get used to using Quen, Axii, and Yrden(trap sign). Regular Axii might seem lackluster but it upgrades well and it's very handy to be able to charm 3 things in a fight against 6-8. Also for multi-mob fights bombs + the alchemy bonus damage talent are extremely helpful.

[Tarami]

Did they just quote the ring verse in-character?

[tmp]

Does the regular Axii work at all, btw? I've used it a few times on various opponents, but it only seemed to stop them from fighting for a second, quite different from supposed charming things to fight on my side.

[Khaldun]

Guess I'd better finish Witcher 1. Though jebus, as everyone's saying, the dialogue is sometimes so fucking awful (in translation, maybe) and also sometimes the questing sequences are so screwed up. Last week I did the noonwraith thing with the bride and all sorts of stuff was coming out of sequence, or characters would be talking about things that had happened as if they hadn't happened, etc. Definitely kills the storytelling.

[Riggswolfe]

Guess I'd better finish Witcher 1. Though jebus, as everyone's saying, the dialogue is sometimes so fucking awful (in translation, maybe) and also sometimes the questing sequences are so screwed up. Last week I did the noonwraith thing with the bride and all sorts of stuff was coming out of sequence, or characters would be talking about things that had happened as if they hadn't happened, etc. Definitely kills the storytelling.

I'd like to replay it again but there registration is down and without that I can't upgrade to enhanced edition so fuck that. *sigh*

[Lakov_Sanite]

Just beat it, solid game I thought though they probably could have fleshed out the third act a bit more.

also...


 

[Gunzwei]

Does the regular Axii work at all, btw? I've used it a few times on various opponents, but it only seemed to stop them from fighting for a second, quite different from supposed charming things to fight on my side.

You have to hold the key down to charge it up. Don't think this is ever explained in-game.

[tmp]

Oh, geez. No i don't believe i've seen a mention of that anywhere. Thanks a ton, i don't think i'd figure it out myself unless by some freaky accident.

... and man, that would've been so handy to know in that damn nekker cave