What are you playing?

[gamer0004]

So, what with all the talk about Skyrim and getting bored with Mount and Blade, I decided to finally install the Witcher (the first one) and play it. I had once tried the demo and thought that was terrible, but when I started a new game I found out I can actually use a mouse + keyboard combination (third person view) instead of an isometric view, so I was pretty excited.

Please do not mind me swearing a lot, but I've got to let off some steam.

WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY THINKING WHY THE FUCK DID THEY DESIGN THE ULTIMATE MOST TERRIBLE FUCKED UP COMBAT SYSTEM!!!?!?!?!?!??1

Seriously. Imagine an engaging, fun, intuitive and responsive combat system (I think Mount & Blade is pretty much that). Now imagine the exact opposite of that and you have the Witcher's combat system. They took the typical MMORPG combat system, stripped it of all features that have anything to do with player skill/input (of which there isn't much in MMORPGs anyway) and for good measure made it unintuitive and unresponsive. The player must click on an enemy to target him, as in MMORPGs, but unlike MMORPGs this directly affects the way in which the player character moves, which is really weird and makes it feel like the character is doing something and the player has hardly any control over his character. On one occasion my character suddenly made a stupid jump/backflip/whatever combination for no reason at all, straight in front of another enemy who was about to hit someone else and subsequently hit me. Then, if the player has, with great pains, successfully moved his character in front of the targeted enemy, he has to click on said enemy to attack? Right? The game says so, but I can't find out whether anything is happening. My character moves, but it is totally unclear whether he is actually attacking the enemy or getting hit by that enemy. There are no clear animations that show what's happening and there are a few numbers floating above our heads but it's also unclear whom those numbers affect (compare that to M&B: if the player attacks an enemy, it makes a clear sound whether he hit the enemy properly, only slightly, hit his shield or missed the enemy altogether; if it was a successful hit his sword becomes bloody as does the enemy's face, and the game tells exactly who hit whom and how much damage he dealt). I have restarted the introduction four times AND I STILL CAN'T FIGURE OUT WHETHER I AM HITTING THE ENEMY. Not just whether I am doing things as well as possible, with the right timing and using special abilities or whatever, no I restarted FOUR TIMES to find out whether I am actually HITTING the enemy at all. And I still can't figure it out.

Please tell me the combat system will improve after the first few hours or that there is a mod that makes the gameplay at least bearable.

[Jaedar]

After you get igni sign to level 3 or so, you can just blaze through all combat by spamming it.

[Zaine]

Ok, Now I'm (apologies for language) REALLY PISSED OFF!!!!!!!!! Some ASS on Youtube's comments section for Saints Row The Third gave away a HUGE PLOT DETAIL on a trailer video. Now I wouldn't normally be bothered about that as he may be wrong but 20 IDIOTS Hit THE LIKE BUTTON MAKING IT THE TOP BLOODY COMMENT!!!!!
ARRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Hassat Hunter]

Never had that issue with Witcher 1. Just click again when the arrow is "in flames" to strike up combo's until the enemies dead.
Use strong, you miss? Use fast. Many enemies? Use group.

I never had troubles distinguishing who got hit. Sometimes I got sloppy and died, but never because I couldn't distinguish what happened or I made sudden backflips...

[Zaine]

Does The Witcher 2 Improve this system? I've not heard much about it myself despite the fact that It's out.

[Jaedar]

Does The Witcher 2 Imporve this system? I've not heard much about it myself despite the fact that It's out.

It's certainly more actiony. You simply slash with your blade and if there's an enemy there, they get hit.

[gamer0004]

The Witcher still. Perseverance! So yeah the first hour all I could do was being frustrated at its extremely crappy combat, leaving just enough attention to notice that the player has virtually no freedom to do what he wants (invisible walls everywhere!) so yeah the gameplay isn't what I'd call good, and it certainly isn't what I'm looking for in an RPG.
But I have managed to ignore that for a while to enjoy the other things people might play the Witcher for. Storyline (I though someone here said that people play the game for its storyline, not so much its gameplay, but I can't find that comment anywhere?), perhaps the environments or music. And yeah that's terrible as well. Music is just not very good, the environments so far are very cliche and boring (as bad as Oblivion) and the storyline... Well all I can say is that so far it's horrible, it's cliche, it's unrealistic (they spent minutes talking to each other with enemies just standing still) and yes pretty much generic as well, and certainly boring. Also, voice acting is bad as are facial animations. Skill system was very unintuitive and I still don't fully understand it.
What I liked was Leo, one of the characters, getting killed and I felt sorry for him even after such a short time. Character development seems to be the only thing that's any good in this game so far.
But yeah fingers crossed it gets better after the intro sequence (the fight is over but we're still in the castle) because man... Is it a disappointment so far. I was really looking forward to playing this, I bought it half a year ago to wait for a moment when I had some free time on my hands to give it my full attention. So far it has given me lots of frustration and a badly executed action RPG.

[Jaedar]

It's generally accepted that the witcher gets better after you get past the first chapter. Which takes several hours

[gamer0004]

Phew, thanks, I now have the courage to continue.

[bobby 55]

SecuRom and KoTOR2 trouble. I bought the game and it won't start after the Lucas Arts and Obsidian logos come up. I've patched it, did the 32dll thing...nada. I even tried a "fix" but it won't work with Intel chipsets. A site says to ask SecuRom for a fixed exe. What ever happened to putting a disc in the drive and playing the game for fucksakes?

[gamer0004]

Perhaps you can find a working crack?

And hurah for piracy. I was just playing Skyrim to try it out, as I really didn't know what to think of it. After playing it with friends I thought meh, but now I've been able to play it for less than an hour myself I am convinced it is worth the money (even though I have an apparently patched version of Skyrim hehe).

[shadowblade34]

Perhaps you can find a working crack?

And hurah for piracy. I was just playing Skyrim to try it out, as I really didn't know what to think of it. After playing it with friends I thought meh, but now I've been able to play it for less than an hour myself I am convinced it is worth the money (even though I have an apparently patched version of Skyrim hehe).

My asshole brother came home before me on release day and managed to activate it on Steam, so I didn't. I had to crack it, so another hurrah for piract!

[Zaine]

Just bought Saints Row The Third, I'm about to play it now. I'll give my views later.

[AEmer]

WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY THINKING WHY THE FUCK DID THEY DESIGN THE ULTIMATE MOST TERRIBLE FUCKED UP COMBAT SYSTEM!!!?!?!?!?!??1

I FUCKING KNOW IT'S FUCKING TERRIBLE THE WORST EVER I ONLY MADE IT TO THE MANTIS THEN I PUKED AND COULDN'T GO ON.

Ahem. Yes. I agree with you sentiment. I boot'et the game because of it. Simply could not cope.

If there's one thing I can't abide in a game, it's when I'm not having fun in combat. Everything else, I can cope with, but if there's combat, I need to be having fun, because otherwise it's just not worth it.

[Jaedar]

Anno 2070

Must get more citizens, more resources
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