The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings

[Ice Cream Emperor]

I have never in my life died so many times in a tutorial. I mean honestly, 30+ deaths easily. And it just got worse after I went back to Normal from Hard difficulty, which makes me wonder what Hard would have looked like.

Yes sure, Eurogames, not holding your hand, blah blah -- but this is really some of the stupidest combat I have ever experienced in my life. The dragon sequence is just retarded. HEY LOOK I'M RANDOMLY ON FIRE AGAIN for 100% of my health in damage, OH WELL.

[lac]

The tutorial chapter is indeed designed very poorly and could have used a lot more work, between the quickly disappearing explanation boxes and the outright dumb mechanics of the two dragon encounters, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have continued hadn't the first game been that good. Luckily the game picks up after that.
The playthroughs on youtube where people get increasingly frustrated with every failed attempt at the tutorial dragon encounters are quite hilarious once you've been through the ordeal yourself.

[tmp]

I have never in my life died so many times in a tutorial. I mean honestly, 30+ deaths easily. And it just got worse after I went back to Normal from Hard difficulty, which makes me wonder what Hard would have looked like.

On Hard i died 30+ times in the dragon part alone. Admittedly, that's the one i clicked on first so got dropped in it with zero experience, and most of these were just attempts i quit mid-way after stepping into the goddamn fire for half of health worth yet. another. time.

In hindsight, i'm thinking the shield sign could've protected me while crossing that area under fire. Maybe. Maybe that was even the intention, to make the player use it there. I sure as heck ain't going back to check, though.

Although to be fair, as i keep playing i repeat the fights way more time than i should just to get them done with losing as little health as possible. It's quite satisfying when everything just flows smoothly.

(the endriag queens did make me drop the game to Normal, though. It made the whole difference between flailing at them helplessly without effect and actually being able to kill them)

[Minvaren]

(the endriag queens did make me drop the game to Normal, though. It made the whole difference between flailing at them helplessly without effect and actually being able to kill them)

I just hit these around level 7 or so.  After 15 tries with no visible health loss on the Queen and constantly getting one-shot, I figure I'll come back to this one later.

[MournelitheCalix]

I just finished the Witcher one (so I can import a save) and am four hours into The Witcher 2.  First off I love the game.  I am playing on the normal difficulty setting and am still getting used to the radically different controls.  Combat has been really tough, unlike the first Witcher multiple mobs have more often than not meant death for me.  What I have figured out so far is that its really bad to focus on one mob.  I have had a lot of luck using swallow and switching targets more or less constantly.  I wish combat was a bit easier truth be told.  

I love the quest system as it stands I have had very few moments where I was thinking WTF (the only moment i can think of came in the begining).  The interface is much harder than before IMHO.  The reason for this is many but my primary frustration has been that the tutorial itself is in so small a script that I can't really read the dialog in the boxes.  It took me forever to figure out how to use potions since I couldn't read the script.  

The story so far has been awesome and I love the new minigames.  The fighting looks fluid and top notch and I am learning that there are definite consequences to even seemingly trivial quests.  Many times things have not went according to my plan.  The witcher in this game feels a bit different especially with the dialog options using "witcher magic."  I think overall its a real improvement.

So far, I am loving the game.  Best of all it doesn't constantly crash.  I can't tell you how frustrating the first one was due to the lack of stability.  

[tmp]

I just hit these around level 7 or so.  After 15 tries with no visible health loss on the Queen and constantly getting one-shot, I figure I'll come back to this one later.

Was level 7 for me, too. Had upgraded silver sword and used damage + health regen potions (also the bleeding increase oil though dunno if that helped) Seems the key is to hit them on the sides/rear rather than on the head, the problem with that on Hard was they react much faster than on Normal and --without the roll range increase trait at least-- i'd never manage to get in a good position fast enough. On normal they became manageable, and between shield sign and the trap sign they went down quite fast, under two minutes each.  There's a power site located very near their spawn points as well, so getting the boost from that right before the fight may be handy, too.

[Minvaren]

I found the power site, and have (a/the?) silver sword upgrade.  It's just getting to their sides/backs to tag them!  Looks like trap sign is the missing component here, will give that a shot.

[Ingmar]

The combat in this one is simultaneously harder, more tedious, and has more interface annoyances than the combat in the first one, which is a pretty remarkable achievement.

[Reg]

The more I read this thread, the more it looks to me like this game is the kind where I should just wait for the five dollar sale of the enhanced edition a year from now.

[Engels]

Seriously, you guys make it sound like the worst kind of Eurojank.

[Ingmar]

Well no, it isn't like that, exactly. I think it is more a case for me of it not showing any real improvement over the first in the areas I actually care about. The first one was really only "OK" from my perspective, but got extra points for being their first effort.

It's still more polished by far than something like Risen.

[Tarami]

It did hold my attention far better than DA2.

[Ingmar]

Must... not... argue...

[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*

So I figured out how to upgrade it but it doesn't work on my Win 7 machine. I go through the intro but get a black screen with the gauntlet cursor without the menu. Has anyone heard of that and do you know a fix? I'd like to go back and replay the witcher just for the hell of it.

[tmp]

The combat in this one is simultaneously harder, more tedious, and has more interface annoyances than the combat in the first one, which is a pretty remarkable achievement.

The Witcher 2: Witch Harder.

[Tarami]

Must... not... argue...

You can't argue with an opinion, hah!

What I mean is that it's a good RPG if you can overcome the lower production values. If you like German-style RPGs you'll probably love it, just a hunch. I get that it isn't for everyone. I have an unusually high tolerance for *jank.

I even like the writing, which probably invalidates my opinion and makes me an idiot. 

[kildorn]

Plot wise, I think it's stronger than the first one. Just because it spends a lot less time doing stupid unrelated shit and actually keeps Geralt focused a bit more. Though it does take a lot of liberties with the plot in the end to basically just go "surprise! we weren't as deep as you thought we might be!"

The combat suffers from not only being harder at the start, but being harder to basic play while still being just as cheeseable as 1 (Quen + sword = dead anything as long as the fight doesn't start you in melee surrounded with no buffs up. Speaking of which: why does dude have to meditate in a quiet field to drink a fucking potion. It's not like he does anything with the time, he just looks like a man about to down a really terrible tasting shot without a chaser.) And it also has a framerate related input freeze issue. As your framerate drops due to shit happening, your inputs start getting dropped, to the point where at some points it completely locks you out of doing anything. During the last two fights of the game I had three points where I could only run around, not even move the camera, because it decided mouse input was lower priority than displaying shit going on. If I went into the menus, my mouse worked fine, but leave the menu and you can't look around, or even do keyboard actions like cast a sign or roll. That lasted until I took a hit, which is pretty much every hit I took. "Fine, I'll stand still do you can beat me because the game has control issues the fanatically faithful scream "l2play!" at for no apparent reason.

Overall? Solid RPG, but should be completely out of the running for any form of awards due to the input lag, the shit tutorial and gameplay until level ~5 or 7, and the inclusion of "click now or DIE" QTEs in a modern game.

[Ingmar]

Must... not... argue...

You can't argue with an opinion, hah!

What I mean is that it's a good RPG if you can overcome the lower production values. If you like German-style RPGs you'll probably love it, just a hunch. I get that it isn't for everyone. I have an unusually high tolerance for *jank.

I even like the writing, which probably invalidates my opinion and makes me an idiot.  

Are you playing it in English? I have to assume that it is better untranslated.

[Ingmar]

nd it also has a framerate related input freeze issue. As your framerate drops due to shit happening, your inputs start getting dropped, to the point where at some points it completely locks you out of doing anything. During the last two fights of the game I had three points where I could only run around, not even move the camera, because it decided mouse input was lower priority than displaying shit going on. If I went into the menus, my mouse worked fine, but leave the menu and you can't look around, or even do keyboard actions like cast a sign or roll. That lasted until I took a hit, which is pretty much every hit I took. "Fine, I'll stand still do you can beat me because the game has control issues the fanatically faithful scream "l2play!" at for no apparent reason.

Hm I wonder if this explains why sometimes I just inexplicably can't parry or throw a bomb. Dude is coming at me, I'm standing still with my sword out, I press E, and Geralt just stands there and takes it.

[kildorn]

Yeah, that happened to me a lot.

Press button, nothing happens, eat sword to the face. Press attack, Geralt stands there and tries to kill things WITH HIS MIND.

The engine is pretty, but buggy as sin.

[Minvaren]

Gave the Queen another dozen tries tonight.  Best go was 50%.  The stun effect either hits her for 5-8 seconds or maybe a second, no in-between, and the former is 1/4 times if you're lucky.

Might try again on easy, but this one's likely going back on the shelf for a patch or two.

[caladein]

Big List o' Mods

[kildorn]

Gave the Queen another dozen tries tonight.  Best go was 50%.  The stun effect either hits her for 5-8 seconds or maybe a second, no in-between, and the former is 1/4 times if you're lucky.

Might try again on easy, but this one's likely going back on the shelf for a patch or two.

Cheese it with throwing knives.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I made the queen charge into a tree, rolled behind her and corner cheesed her fighting game style. 

[Tarami]

Are you playing it in English? I have to assume that it is better untranslated.

English. My Polish is pretty weak.

I think it's more about the structure and attitude of the writing rather than the exact literary content that make me enjoy it. Besides, I think I enjoy having a real character much more than I do the tabula rasa but generic badass that is popular.

[kildorn]

I made the queen charge into a tree, rolled behind her and corner cheesed her fighting game style. 

Since it's always the third egg thing you open, I opened two, and trapped the SHIT out of the area with those free snare traps, and cheesed her charge that way, and spammed throwing knives (which hit for about 4x the damage of a silver sword. Apparently, they're magical silver throwing knives or something)

You just have to be aware of invuln frames from things. If you chuck one when they're hit by a trap or just hit by a knife, they're invulnerable and you'll just do a little brown puff of smoke. You throw, count to one, throw, repeat. This is usable to cheese ANY miniboss type fight in the game.

[tmp]

Are you playing it in English? I have to assume that it is better untranslated.

English. My Polish is pretty weak.

I think it's more about the structure and attitude of the writing rather than the exact literary content that make me enjoy it. Besides, I think I enjoy having a real character much more than I do the tabula rasa but generic badass that is popular.

Am thinking the translation may affect things to a degree for this one -- i find the native version very good and enjoyable, but it uses a style and nuances which would be a bitch to fully convey, and stripped from them it might get pretty wooden.

Still, i'd think having conversations more in-depth than exchanges of the inane hollywood oneliners is a refreshing change from the recent standard.

[Ingmar]

Are you playing it in English? I have to assume that it is better untranslated.

English. My Polish is pretty weak.

I think it's more about the structure and attitude of the writing rather than the exact literary content that make me enjoy it. Besides, I think I enjoy having a real character much more than I do the tabula rasa but generic badass that is popular.

Am thinking the translation may affect things to a degree for this one -- i find the native version very good and enjoyable, but it uses a style and nuances which would be a bitch to fully convey, and stripped from them it might get pretty wooden.

Still, i'd think having conversations more in-depth than exchanges of the inane hollywood oneliners is a refreshing change from the recent standard.

The 'recent standard' is Dragon Age 2 which has the best (voice acted at least) English dialogue of any RPG I've ever played, so that may be working against them for me here.

[tmp]

The 'recent standard' is Dragon Age 2 which has the best (voice acted at least) English dialogue of any RPG I've ever played, so that may be working against them for me here.

Well, i'd include ME2 in there, too. Although it gets really acute with DA2.

The voice acting in BioWare games is top-notch, no argument. It's rather what's actually being said that drives me up the wall. But then i find the native VA of the Witcher 2 to be excellent and easily on par. So if that's different in the English version, it could be localization issue.

[Riggswolfe]

Gave the Queen another dozen tries tonight.  Best go was 50%.  The stun effect either hits her for 5-8 seconds or maybe a second, no in-between, and the former is 1/4 times if you're lucky.

Might try again on easy, but this one's likely going back on the shelf for a patch or two.

Odd. She only took me a few tries. Maybe 6 or so. Here is what I did. I saved right before opening the third pod. I then laid down a trap so I had manuever time. I then drew her back while dropping the occasional magic trap. I found you can hit her usually once or twice and then if you roll away and come back at her you usually miss her counter attack. There is also a cheesy way:

 Eventually you'll find she has a preset limit to how far she'll chase you, much like the other critters. It's more or less an invisible line in the ground she'll rarely cross. So you can just cheese it. Whack her, roll across the line and run until she turns around, run in, whack her some more. Rinse, repeat.

I only had to work hard on the first queen. I beat the second one into the dirt with very little effort but I think it had to do with a couple of levels and me using Quen extensively on the second queen fight.

[Tarami]

Am thinking the translation may affect things to a degree for this one -- i find the native version very good and enjoyable, but it uses a style and nuances which would be a bitch to fully convey, and stripped from them it might get pretty wooden.

Still, i'd think having conversations more in-depth than exchanges of the inane hollywood oneliners is a refreshing change from the recent standard.

I think the big difference was that Geralt asked questions *I* would ask and responded in ways *I* could have. I had more moments of "oh right, that is a good question, why is that?" than I've had in the past couple of Bioware games combined. The dialogue just felt sensible, rational, eventhough it was absolutely hammered by weird names and titles, more on basis of structure perhaps than the exact words.

To elaborate on what I meant by "attitude:" Characters are REASONABLE. Not all of them, not all the time, but if Geralt comes with a fair deal, people will pick him up on it. It isn't always about arm twisting, extortion, some kind of holy principle of NEVER reaching a sound compromise. Roche and Geralt had lots of "you do this, I'll agree to that" without a lot of high-strung emotions.

But yeah, there were moments of trying too hard. I'm not trying to pass it off as deserving of literary awards.

Well, i'd include ME2 in there, too. Although it gets really acute with DA2.

The voice acting in BioWare games is top-notch, no argument. It's rather what's actually being said that drives me up the wall. But then i find the native VA of the Witcher 2 to be excellent and easily on par. So if that's different in the English version, it could be localization issue.

The English voice work is fine, although not as great as DA2. The mastering is a bit wonky too but I think it was believable enough. Thing is, since the writing (atleast the translated one) is rather dramatic, it works with the actors hamming it up a bit on occasion.

Example of what I mean: (skip to 5:55)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTyZ_o7-dgA

I think it's cute how the player seems genuinely surprised he got away with it.

[Ingmar]

I have a really hard time identifying with Geralt personally, which I guess is the opposite of you two. Mostly my problem is that it's hard to get into a character who's primary trait seems to be "I DON'T WANT TO CARE ABOUT ANYTHING, STOP TRYING TO MAKE ME CARE."

It may get better farther in though, I'm still mired in Act I. Mind you I may never get to see where it gets better if I can't get over the combat system, I'm pretty frustrated with it right now.

[Lakov_Sanite]

See, just the opposite with me. Geralt is just a man that wants to live his life, be with his woman(s) and kill some monsters. Yet people keep stepping in a fucking with his shit so he's got to fix it and while he does, he tries to do the right thing. That sentimentality is something I can certainly identify with.

[tmp]

I have a really hard time identifying with Geralt personally, which I guess is the opposite of you two. Mostly my problem is that it's hard to get into a character who's primary trait seems to be "I DON'T WANT TO CARE ABOUT ANYTHING, STOP TRYING TO MAKE ME CARE."

That could very well be it. Geralt is to large degree about trying his darndest to walk the neutrality line and avoiding any sort of typical hero business unless there really isn't anyone else to take care of it, and this happens to be my preferred archetype that i fall into pretty much naturally. Plus i'd guess the fact i'd read the books before i got to play the games helps too -- gives much better idea of what he's about.

[Tarami]

I have a really hard time identifying with Geralt personally, which I guess is the opposite of you two. Mostly my problem is that it's hard to get into a character who's primary trait seems to be "I DON'T WANT TO CARE ABOUT ANYTHING, STOP TRYING TO MAKE ME CARE."

It may get better farther in though, I'm still mired in Act I. Mind you I may never get to see where it gets better if I can't get over the combat system, I'm pretty frustrated with it right now.

I think the characterization of Geralt was very nicely done.  It maintained a fine balance between having Geralt be a folk hero and a professional. To common folk, he appears as a hero (or freak, or murderer) because it's his job to do typically heroic deeds - to the ruling class, he's a meddling nuisence but not to be ignored. His unwillingness was well done I thought, stuck somewhere between a sense of duty and necessity and running off and screwing Triss until his prick fell off. There are several hints he's seriously considering the latter on a number of occasions, that his motivations for clearing his name are based in practicality, not principle. Geralt doesn't have to meddle, the kingdoms will roll on, bad and good things will happen but they will anyhow. He can help a certain goal but he's in the end just another guy.

I feel I'm being a bit aggressive, not my intention. I just thought the whole arc of the game was very efficient eventhough the pure production values don't compare to Bioware's heavy-weights.