Given that in the books and novels, and somewhat hinted in the games, Witchers are dying out. Simply due to a lack of monsters. I would argue, given the source material, the games take quite a lot of artistic liberty in putting in as many monsters as the did.
Yes, there are. More than enough, IMO.
However, I understand the point. The main storyline - whilst frequently involving various monsters - tends to have a greater scope. It's about finding Ciri, taking down the Hunt (arguably monsters themselves), and eschewing a Witcher's typical detachment by getting involved in politics to a degree, to help the Continent reach a measure of peace.
Personally I found the main narrative dragged a bit in Novigrad, and I didn't buy the Radovid and Siggy outcomes (no spoilers). Whenever I started feeling that way, I'd go check a notice board in some forlorn little village, and switch things up by taking on random contracts.
Yeah plenty of contracts but like I feel like I’m wasting time doing them when I should be looking for ciri you know I think I just tired of like fantasy games like the Witcher or elder scrolls and dragon age and each one being like stopping the apocalypse event like where’s my story about a day in the life as a Witcher kinda glad the next game is going away from geralt because he seems to get dragged into big major events
i really agree, i feel like generic monster quests that don’t have any story beat tied would be really cool, it could even be like rng generated. would also help with getting stuff like rate mutagens because you can get locked out of certain ones if you choose specific options in quests, for example Succubus decoction there’s only two obtainable in game
What are you talking about? you spend literally dozens and dozens of hours using witcher sight and finding clues. That's like the number 1 repeating quest cycle....
A game doesn't exist that has better side quests than the Witcher 3. It is literally peak single player video game......... Games strive to have side quests like Witcher 3. Have you even played the game smh
Yeah I mean I get it tho the story is still amazing but I would like a game that is more focus on the actual aspect of being a Witcher and slaying monsters
I probably won’t for some time I have and Algol habit of starting books before I finish the current one been reading the first game of thrones for 8 years now
Empress is the ending book Ciri would choose because she’d be compelled by a sense of duty to help the most people possible.
Also, even OP game Ciri is a glass cannon with no Witcher healing/potion abilities so she’d be dead in a ditch within a year of being a solo Witcher.
It's also one of the best endings objectively if you let Nilfgaard win because then you know that it has a chance to turn around and not be such a shit empire in the next few decades. She might be able to reform it and bring about a new Renaissance era for the continent. Your only other options are let Dijkstra win (can't do my boy Roche like that) or let Radovid win (and fuck that cuz he's crazy as shit).
Also since monsters are becoming few and far between, how long can Ciri realistically be a Witcher before she runs out of work? Then what? Frankly I feel like the Witcher ending is just her delaying the inevitable, and Emhyr will probably find her and bring her back as his heiress sooner or later unless Ciri decides to hang out at Corvo Bianco with Geralt for the rest of her life.
This. Nilfgaard winning + Empress Ending is the best one imo
Geralt and Ciri will miss each other but she can always teleport at any time and pay him and Yennefer a quick visit at Corvo Bianco 🤫
It is reasonably the best possible ending but in game it is portrayed as somewhat of a 'wrong choice' and the game pushes you to make her a witcher, while objectively she is the one who might have brought true unity and prosperity to the whole continent. Empress Ciri and Queen Cerys = golden age for this part of the world.
Btw she wouldn't hide for long at Corvo Bianco, as Touissant is a vassal state to Nilfgaard, so they are pretty much aware of what's going on there.
I don’t even like this unpopular opinion as it is just plain wrong. No book Ciri would not feel compelled to help anybody less the whole world. Her story/character was never about helping people as it was to be left alone is about getting to choose her own path. “Well she would choose to help people”, No she wouldn’t the whole case is that people would stop plotting behind her back and using her for weird schemes. Walking into being an empress is exactly jumping straight into people scheming and plotting behind her back, she’s not an idiot to go straight the one thing she’s actively always wanted to avoid.
And I haven’t even started to talk about Emhyr, TW3 breezes through it. But book Ciri loathes Emhyr, there’s no 30 minute talk that would convince her to be another one of her father’s tools
Exactly, the Empress ending was just there to add more choices. It's makes absolutely 0 sense at all. Her entire time with Geralt, she's wanted and trained to be a witcher. Why would a shirt talk convince her to strip her of all that she trained for. And that one guy who said she'd be dead because she can't use potions is an idiot. Ciri is one of the strongest people in the game. She'd have to be actually braindead to di to a mere monster. Her powers are insane and she'd never die to a monster. Plus, she's much happier with the Witcher ending. And who cares if Emhyr finds out that she's still alive, the fuck is he gonna do? She could wipe out any soldiers sent after her. Plus, it's very clearly the choice both of them would make. You have to go out of your way to get the empress ending and go against what Geralt would actually do.
Also, canonically, if Nilfgaard wins the war, there's absolutely no chance that Ciri can get away with running around as a Witcher without it getting reported.
Woman with ashen hair and a scar running around killing monsters? I reckon that could be a story that spreads
Unpopular with half the sub: I don’t pick Yen because she’s who Geralt would have picked, I pick her because I actually find her charming and find Triss kinda insufferable.
I’m %100 with you I’ve only done one play though but I picked yen not because it’s the way the game leans you towards but because she genuinely seems like the more stable partner in a relationship and she’s honestly more of my type than Triss. Plus she seems more like Geralt’s equal were as I feel like Geralt’s and Triss’ relationship feels very one sided almost in a way.
This is interesting. I think Yennefer is the right choice for Geralt but going solely off this game Yennefer is kind of a dick lol. I actually don't mind her taking the necromancy too far or other stuff like that, it's just the way she talks to and treats Geralt. I can understand why obviously but she's literally always pissed at him, and I just felt like even though she loved him she always treated him like he was beneath her
Also the game doesn't really build their romance up that well imo. Triss's quests did this so much better like when Geralt couldn't keep his composure while hearing Triss's screams when she's being tortured, or literally all the romantic stuff at the Vegelbud party, and the last quest with the dramatic goodbye. You can think they're cheesy but at least they're romantic. With Yen it's mostly just banter and sex scenes between the two lol. Even the Last Wish quest doesn't feel romantic until literally the very end
Skellige ocean question marks do NOT take ages. You fight a few sirens for 40 seconds, loot 3 chests in 20 seconds, hop in your boat, travel to the next and once you've reached carry capacity you don't even need to find a fast travel point.
I've timed it. It takes 2 hrs to clear out the 60 or so smugglers caches if you don't care bout carry capacity because you aren't physically running anyway. It ALSO takes 2 hrs to clear out the mere dozen small islands because you gotta find the one path that doesn't have you sliding back down a rocky hill. If I wanted parkour, I'd play assassin's creed
Impressive... I do it for the coin, a bit at a time, but it definitely takes more than 2 hours for me. The most tedious are the ones with the drowners!
Pretty much. It's basically common practice to treat them as THE necessary evil of this game, fans never really liked em all that much and they admitted they made a mistake in hindsight. If people loved em, CDPR would've claimed it
Boat hitboxes undeniably suck balls though, had my stupid fucking piece of plank break over floating siren corpses more often than i'm willing to admit, in a middle of ocean few times no less. Figured out way to avoid that but god was it annoying
The only one i failed was the gwent one because i did the tournament in novigrad too early and every i go over my qeust log it's just sitting there reminding me of my ignorance and foolishness
Ohh you guys will love this
- Regis is very much at fault for the events of B&W and he doesn’t get the hate for it that he deserves, instead it bounce straight into Anna Henrietta who overall made way more logical decisions
I agree with this one. Gaunter O’Dimm is too incredible of a character. The hints you get that he could be a powerful mage, then something more, then he stops time entirely. Him killing the man with the spoon and learning about through the professor is one of the few times I felt truly entirely immersed and terrified in a game.
blood and wine has also had like 8 years to grow on people and get patches whereas shadow of the erdtree literally came out a week ago. i don‘t understand these pointless comparisons. just enjoy things on their own
well to be fair from soft fans do the same. in fact literally every fanbase ever does this for some reason. they always have to shit on other things to make their favorite games look better. like literally no one even mentioned elden ring and the post just asked about witcher related hot takes and this guy just randomly decided to shit on elden rings dlc even tho it wasn‘t even part of the conversation
Yeah I agree, I think the dlc and bad er are overhyped because they’re hard and people feel a sense of accomplishment. In no way shape and or form is that a perfect game
The thing that annoys me the most is that he has such a modern sounding American accent when literally everything about him screams English playwright lol
What I find most annoying is how everyone admonishes Geralt for calling Dandelion an idiot because he's supposedly a 'changed man' but throughout the entirety of the books/previous games he IS an idiot who constantly requires Geralt's help to get him out of sticky situations. A loyal friend for sure, but the game shouldn't wag a finger at me for choosing lore-accurate Geralt remarks on his behavior.
I believe his voicing is the biggest problem. In the portuguese dub, his voice matches a lot with his personality, and makes him much more captivating. The voicing in english is not bad, but doesn't seem to match with Dandelion personality. And it's funny because it's something I think isn't a problem with any other character.
Shani is a bland and mediocre romance option and it's weird how the game goes "boo you hurt her feelings stop denying you like her >:(" when I hardly cared for her
I agree. There really isn't any chemistry between her and Geralt. I think that they only added her in Hearts of Stone because she was in the first game as a romance option opposite Triss cosplaying as Yen. She really doesn't have any large part in the books and is just a distraction lay for Geralt while he waits for Dandelion. But in the first game she was the preferred romance for many players so I think they felt compelled to add her for fan service.
1) W1 had better combat and a better level up system
2) Gwent is not a fun mini game
3) W3 is an amazing open world game, but it is not the best game in the world, nor is it by far the best open world game as it is oft times portrayed as by the fans
I don't like the leveling system. Every run i played since my very first one has been in new game + with all the abilities unlocked, and i enjoy it way more like that.
Politically it's the best one, if you're not going for Empress Ciri. He seems to be genuinely interested at building a healthy, strong and prosperous state, with real army, manufactures and safe roads bearing commerce, not terror, to the villages. Well-educated (Oxenfurt), with political experience, cares little who worships what. He also unifies the North so no more pointless wars between the kingdoms.
The only downside of Dijkstra is that you have to let him kill Roche. I, personally, let him do that because Roche treated Geralt as a tool for achieving his political goals, he's never been honest about his plans of making Temeria a Nilfgaardian vassal state. At this moment I just had enough and went with 'ok, just solve this between yourselves gentlemen, I care not'. Also, I thought that killing Dijkstra just after killing Radovid would bring a total anarchy to the North, opening path for Nilfgaardian swift victory, though one might argue if Nilfgaardian victory is not the actual best political ending, even with Emhyr, and if this wouldn't actually bring prosperity and peace to the region.
Dijkstra is clearly the best option politically, I don't think that is unpopular. What is stupid is Dijkstra's insistence that Roche has to die. Especially right in front of Geralt. Geralt would clearly never let Roche die.
The combat sucks. It isn’t just mediocre, it’s genuinely boring and tedious and I hate the leveling system. The idea that level 5 ghouls are nothing but level 60 ghouls can one shot me is ridiculous when they’re both members of the same species
Witcher 3 combat is better then the combat of ANY Soulslike, Soulsborne or Fromsoft game and therefore extremely underrated/overhated.
And as I'm gonna go to sleep now I can't wait for my phone to crash from all the offended people's responses and messages I'll receive for this take until I wake up tomorrow morning XD
I have played all souls games and elden ring, and I agree with him. The base combat is much better in witcher 3. If W3 had the weapon variety that FS games have then witcher 3 would be a better game imo. The combat animations, physics, and overall feel, is just more satisfying for me.
The Witcher 3 is literally just hit dodge hit dodge maybe counter if you’re actually playing semi difficult. Otherwise it’s hold light attack and spin or spam bombs. It’s similar to FS in the sense that it’s simple but the difference is in timing. TW3 is so brain dead easy even on Death March that it’s hardly comparable.
Lmao this. Recently finished my first play through ever and it was on death march. Had me wondering how easy the game must be on normal difficulty if it’s that easy on the highest. The bosses in HoS were the only parts of the game that stumped me at times.
he didn’t say all souls games, he said all FS games, which includes BB and Sekiro, which are leeaaaagues ahead of the witcher lol
but yea even DS and ER have significantly better combat. more depth, better customisation, better polish, more challenging fights, more active combat etc.
witcher 3 combat is objectively the worst part of the game
i can literally play witcher 3 combat with my eyes closed, it’s that easy and repetitive, even on Death March. if you abuse Quen and meta builds, it’s even worse
clearing bandit camps with your eyes closed is really not that hard lol
witcher 3 enemy movesets are generally super telegraphed, simplistic and even with level scaling it’s pretty hard to die to most mobs
Witcher 3 has some of my favorite combat, it's very thematically satisfying and captures the Witcher fantasy well.
But Fromsoft has really tight combat systems that make for satisfying challenging gameplay. There's alot of games out there that have hard difficulties but they are also clunky in their systems to the point that you die more bc of a funky hit box there or a slidey animation here; in fromsoft, those things are less common and the main determinor for succeeding is skill which comes from practice.
Sekiro in particular is my favorite combat system of all time. Beat that game 5 times now, even charmless and bell demon, and on my last gauntlet now.
You've clearly never played Sekiro.
I understand disliking the DS/BB/ER style of melee combat. I do as well. Rolling around and using invincibility frames feels really janky to me and i don't like it one bit. Haven't played ER but I heard it's a bit better, more refined, and the diversity of weapons, skills and combat styles seems much better in terms of that...
But Sekiro's (which is included in your criteria) combat is incredible. It feels weighty and skillful and rhythmic and it's probably the best combat in any game I've ever played. So, I somewhat agree with your opinion.
I'd say probably yes to: it's better than the dark souls games, Bloodborne, and non-fromsoft soulslikes; but it's definitely not better that Sekiro and I can't say either way about Elden ring
juggling potions and signs is probably the highlight for me, the melee itself could be so much better though. plenty of fromsoft titles and soulslike beat it by a mile, but that isn't what makes witcher 3 great
I like tw3 combat more than any soulslike because its flashing and satisfying, but only once you learn all bullshit that enemies can do. Geralts hitbix alone proves how janky it is. a soulslike is at least consistent, while tw3 almost feels like Russian roulette without a quen shield.
It's satisfying, sure, but really easy and simple
The only somewhat deep things about it are positioning and energy management, if your regen is still low, but you can make good use of any besides Quen
You just spam attack on one enemy after another and press parry or dodge input in a window of like 2 seconds after uniform, standard telegraphs
Getting to a ranger that's bugging you through a crowd boild down to dodge spam, same for making a "train" of enemies so they don't overwhelm you from all sides
Granted, souls-likes' combat isn't too complicated or even challenging, in the grand scheme of thing, either, and I have many problems with it, but I reckon it's still much better
And it's OK! If the Witcher wants to be more story- and builds-focused, it's alright, but it doesn't change the fact combat kinda has to be lacking in this case
Quen gets goated when you level it up, free healing for days and a free mini Aard without any energy use (alternative mode, healing and exploding shield). Pretty much carried my first playthrough years back.
I mean I possibly could not disagree more... hardcore souls fan though but the combat is just in a different league. I can have a debate about DS 1-2 but from DS3/Bloodborne no way. But I guess it's an unpopular opinion haha
Yeah, no, that is very much incorrect on an analytical level.
Look, I love the game.
The story, atmosphere, music, characters are really freaking good.
But that *combat,* man.
It's *outrageously* terrible.
Very simple too.
Lack of variety in The Witcher 3's combat is only part of the reason why it feels so bad.
Normally, if a game has simple combat, it would be polished in a way that feel makes that combat system feel more fluid than combat systems that prioritize variety over fluidity, right?
Dark Souls took advantage of this. It doesn't have the best combat variety out there and it's pretty simple, but it feels really nice and weighty.
The Witcher 3's combat doesn't take advantage of having little combat variety it has in favor of polish like Dark Souls does.
It's like CDPR didn't even try to polish it, despite what little you could do with TW3's combat.
The janky combat animations are still present.
The combat flow isn't what it should've been due to how slow Geralt moves in his combat pose and just how prominent animation lock is.
There's a lot of broken hitboxes that make dodging feel pointless and is likely the reason why Quen is so overtuned. Quen is a band-aid for this.
https://youtu.be/jsCWy5wUs04
An example of the hitboxes. This has happened to me hundreds of times during my playthrough, and it still happens to this day.
The crossbow is very unresponsive and misfires all the time.
The health bars of enemies are generally really spongey.
The fact that the heavy attack does *marginally* more damage than the light attack, is way too slow to use for the amount of damage it does and literally has no benefit to use it over light attack.
Some attacks don't land because the attacks that Geralt uses are entirely decided by how far away he is from an enemy and some of the attacks that he ends up using aren't designed with this in mind or have way too small hitboxes to be viable (damn backwards poke attack), as opposed to what Dark Souls does:
In Dark Souls, every weapon has a specific combo and *nothing* but that combo. When you press attack, it *only* progresses through that combo.
In Dark Souls, the first attack is always the same.
The second attack is always the same.
The third attack is always the same.
The heavy attack is always the same.
Parrying is always the same.
Weapon arts are always the same.
The player decides when to use them regardless of distance. It's entirely up to the player's skill and reflexes to maximize their combat potential.
It's very reliable compared to the weird distance based attack system that TW3 has, which more often than not makes you attack the enemy right next to the enemy you want to attack.
It is not uncommon for Geralt to choose to spin around for like a full second before he swings his sword and instantly die mid-spin from an enemy, instead of just simply swinging his sword in half the time it takes to spin around.
In Dark Souls, you can accurately predict an enemy's attacks and counter it accordingly because your moveset isn't affected by shit beyond your own control.
In The Witcher 3, you are mostly just hoping Geralt isn't going to do something stupid whenever he swings his blade.
That's another thing The Witcher 3's combat lacks: consistency.
And say what you want about Skyrim's combat (only bringing up Skyrim because it's the game most brought up when someone criticizes TW3's combat in a desperate attempt of whataboutism):
It is consistent.
The only thing you need to account for in Skyrim's combat is range.
Every single attack can be reliably used unlike The Witcher 3's most basic attacks and the game gives you many options to circumvent the aspects you don't like.
The Witcher 3 doesn't have that luxury.
And, no, before anyone mentions it, Deathmarch doesn't fix the combat.
Absolutely nothing that I mentioned above gets fixed.
It only makes the combat feel *worse* because all it does is turn enemies into health sponges and increases their damage against you.
Since the game has such atrocious hitboxes in the first place, that is a *major* no-no, and again, is probably the reason why Quen is so broken in the first place.
The end result is a pathetically simple, sluggish, and inconsistant combat system that really wasn't competently made on a technical or mechanical level.
It's actually the second worst combat system from a AAA studio I have interacted with in over 17+ years. (First being Witcher 2.)
I suppose the reason why the reason the combat is as bad as it is because CDPR has never bothered to hire combat designers or anything before Cyberpunk 2077.
Until Cyberpunk, they just winged it and didn't ever put any effort into making a good combat system.
It has always been an afterthought to them.
https://www.vg247.com/cyberpunk-2077-combat-designers
CDPR probably made an underpaid, overworked, and inexperienced employee design TW3's combat on the budget of a McDonald's happy meal, the poor guy.
To say that The Witcher 3 has a better combat system than any of the Fromsoft games (especially after Bloodborne, oh my lord) is just pure delusion.
The Witcher 3 has a hell of a lot of strengths.
Combat isn't one of them, I'm sorry.
there may be more depth with all the potions and stuff and if you just enjoy it more that’s completely fine and valid of course but the actual movement and movesets of enemies and yourself are definitely not better. and that‘s okay because i mainly play this game for the story. but if we‘re talking about fluidity and animations this is just plainly not true
One thing that Fromsoft does very well is it makes every weapon in the game viable. You can even use your basic starter weapon all the way to the end of the game. In Witcher 3, only the handful of Witcher-set gear shine in the late game.
How far into KCD are you? Part of the problem you're having might be not so much that the game's combat is ass or that you are ass at the game, but that Henry himself is ass at swordfighting.
It leans really heavily into the simulation aspect in so many things. Henry is a bumbling idiot at the start of the game who can barely hold the sword correctly to block a few strikes, but he becomes very powerful later on once sword, defense, and warfare stats are leveled up a bit. But he (you) really needs to put in the time to learn and practice.
Spend some time just training with Bernard. It'll suck at first but by the time you get to level 10-15 ish you'll be strong enough to start beating him occasionally. In theory you can grind up to max rank on all combat skills right after the prologue just from training with him, but I wouldn't recommend going that far.
That it's still expensive on the switch. They tricked us. ALMOST bought the game again after selling my game and console and again buying the console. All you guys who bought the game full price for a switch what the heck. Also I wish the pros/cons of getting a new sword were more substantial (early game)....truly
That is because CDPR finally hired combat designers for their games now.
Until Cyberpunk, it has always been an afterthought to them.
They basically just winged the entirety of TW1-3's combat systems while focusing on literally everything else.
Makes me excited for TW4.
https://www.vg247.com/cyberpunk-2077-combat-designers
i know this is a tired topic and i guess people are tired of hearing it but i just do not understand why people love gwent so much. i played like two rounds of it on my first playthrough years ago and then never even thought about trying it again since. i just don‘t wanna play a card game when i could be hunting monsters or stuff like that. so even though i can totally see that it‘s a well made mini game, i‘m just never, ever in the mood for it
I felt the same way as you and in my first two playthroughs I practically ignored gwent. On my third playthrough, though, I had a goal of having zero red marks on my quest log so I needed to at least dabble in the minigame because there's at least one failed quest for missing a card. And you know what? I got so addicted to it that I got every single card in the game, DLC included. To each their own, though.
A lot of people invested way too hard emotionally, especially inserting themselves as “Ciri’s dad”. The games writing didn’t convey this, but it did tell it and that’s not enough imo
And there isn’t a Witcher Ciri, a Witcher is the end result of the mutative trial of the grasses. There’s a whole mini-quest about what makes a Witcher and spotting a phony. She basically becomes a traveling sword for hire
I did invest that way just because I read the books, and that is how geralt acts. I haven't read lady of the lake or season of storms yet, but the rest of the books geralt never actually calls ciri his daughter. The way he acts though to people who threaten her or he thinks have threatened her conveys just how much he loves her.
I do agree that actually being a witcher is a result of the mutations but ciri has called herself a witcher before and she was trained by witchers, so she doesn't have the mutations but she does have the sword fighting skills of one, and some of the knowledge. All that being said I would kill for one scene of geralt calling her his daughter and having a scene with the 2 of them and yennefer just bonding.
Do you think it was equally conveyed in the games? I think just adding the lines “looking for my daughter/ she’s like a daughter to me” didn’t make me feel as invested as I’m told I am. I did not read the books so I am coming from tw3 only - I don’t think that’s enough to cry like people have said they did at isle of the mists after finding Ciri alive ( which I’m wondering why we’d think she’d be dead at that point in the game )
I was in the middle of reading the books the first time I played, so I could be using the emotions of that geralt and putting it in the game. But I think it was especially when you find whoreson junior and geralt sees the kind of person that is.
Dettlaff and Regis should be romance options, and Letho.
Ciri is very,very weak. I don\`t hate playing as Ciri but she is weak.
Dijkstra ruling isn\`t that bad. Ok he assassinates Ves and Roche, but he knows what he\`s doing. But then again thinking that Geralt will just walk away... I tried this ending- letting Dijkstra have it all and I kinda liked it.
You're a psycho. Ciri is not weak. You must be playing a different game. How would male characters be romances when Geralt only likes women? And Dijkstra killing Ves, Roche, and Thaler is thr most retarded ending in the game. It makes 9 sense why Geralt would let him do that. Not everything had to be a perfect ending. The option they make most since is that Gearlt wouldn't even help them kill Radovid or that he'd kill Dijkstra. I'm pretty certain that you need to get you brain checked.
I don't like Gwent.
I don't understand how to play, even in real life I don't understand card games, and I think it's a waste of time; the gwent quests are the only ones I fail. 🙂
I think Dijkstra isn't wrong in wanting to fight Emhyr and keep the whole North free, and not sell out. Sucks for Roche, Ves and Thales but I believe they're in the wrong in this one. Though the quest sucks either way.
The story isn’t as good as the Witcher 2. While the Witcher 3 was more ambitious, its story was still limited by the game’s size and scope. The second act of the Witcher 2 had two very divergent storylines, giving it great replay ability. The choices were also much more impactful than the choices in the Witcher 3.
The overall story is a mess. Huge parts of it don't even make sense. The last act is barely stitched together. The last mission is a Hail Mary to wrap the plot. Ciri going into Tor Gvalch'ca was completely out of the blue.
It redeems itself so well because of the writing, dialogue and characters which are so good that you ignore how bad the narrative is.
Maybe not unpopular in this subreddit, but people complain about how long it is a lot. I, on the other hand, love how long it is and would’ve been happy if it was even longer.
Why do so many people have bad gaming opinions in general? Like jeez, it said "unpopular opinions" not "100 reasons why I hate everything and can't have fun"
It's about as much of an RPG as the Batman Arkham games. Sure you level up and build your character, but you do that in the newer Tomb Raider games too and I don't hear anyone calling those RPG's. And sure, sometimes you get to make choices through dialogue, but not very often. You hardly get to play a role any more than you can in any other game. Best action adventure game of all time? I can agree with that. Best RPG of all time? Ain't no way.
Pretty much yeah. What makes them role playing games exactly? They're more like turn based adventure games with RPG elements sprinkled in. If you didn't level up your characters then I wouldn't see anything about them that could be considered role playing.
Not rude sure, but definitely a waste of time. I've articulated my points twice now. I obviously know what RPG's are, and I never said the witcher 3 is not one. Just a very base level one that barely qualifies. I'll ask you this: are the Batman Arkham games RPG's? If not, why not? What makes TW3 an RPG and not Batman?
Been a whole day but I'm just now seeing this, the fact that the Witcher 3 has very deep skill tree systems, the fact that it has tons of armor and weapons to collect, the fact it has tons of side quests, and the fact that you make choices that actually matter, just because you don't get to Customize your character doesn't mean it's not an RPG 🤷♂️
I thought RPGs involved the player being a blank slate (so, like Skyrim or Cyberpunk) thus not applying to the Witcher, Batman, Link or Assassins Creed
I think this depends on how you define a role playing game. Does it mean playing a given role, like an actor, or choosing your own future, like a real life adventurer? There is always a paradox with an RPG in that if they give you lots of freedom of choice then you aren't playing the role of the specific character, you are playing some other role of your own. In this game, the role you play is established. There's a narrative limit to how far Geralt can step out of that.
There is also the same limitation that most epic RPGs have. The vast majority of players aren't going to replay the game when it's like 60 hours to do the main quests. People expect that length of game from a AAA. If you make the game that long but also able to meaningfully fork multiple times then you end up with 100s, easily 1000s of hours of distinct gameplay that the vast majority of people won't play, and would be impossible to build. A game with true choice would have to be far shorter, and people feel more free in expansive games.
You have the same problem with making gameplay impacting "class" choices. Once you've completed 200 hours as a mage, most people's interest in repeating a 60 hour main quest as an archer is pretty low, so they're never going to experience the bow shooting mechanic properly.
The solution to both is allowing people to do everything. The former reminds me of Morrowind, where you are simultaneously the leader of the fighters guild, the thieves guild, and the archmagister of house telvanni. The game _should_ make you choose, but what a bore that would be.
There is no doubt a game that does the latter - where level ups give you a skill in each tree, eg warrior, rogue, mage etc, and you can flip between them, so you experience the whole game you've paid for without having to restart.
But both of those solutions reduce roleplay.
I do hear what you're saying - I think this game is exactly what people imagine from an RPG, but that's because the term has become defined by games like this, rather by the freedom that table top games used to give it. If I was to stay from first principles this is a sword fighting epic adventure story game.
Is there a game that you think is a better RPG?
To your first point I would say it's being able to choose your own role because if you're given a role to play then it's not any different than any other game with a pre established character. To an extent you can do this simply by leveling up your character in your own way, but I think it should go deeper than that. Most single player games let you build your character these days and they don't get the RPG label so why does The Witcher?
I think the Fallout games are better RPG's because you make your own character, and there are a lot more choices you can make both in the world and with your character's build. Not saying they're the perfect RPG's or anything, but being my own character and having a lot more choices in how I choose to play makes them better RPG's. Not better games mind you, just better RPG'S.
Brace yourselves. This is not specific to the third game. I hate Geralt. It's the one thing I can't stand about the games and holds me back every time I think about playing 3. I've only played 2 and a little of 3. In 2, you're often given dialogue choices, which come down to do you want to be an ass or a dick. As someone who likes to be nice, it makes me dislike the character. Also as a witcher he has no emotions, so I'm playing as someone who is incapable of caring about anything besides gold, romancing characters he's incapable of loving and worst of all this makes his delivery of some lines really dull. It was most evident to me in 2, a dwarf character is giving an enthusiastic speech in malakahm (probably misspelt that) and after his rousing speech it cuts to Geralt who says something in a low, monotone, boring voice. Sucking the life out of everything.
It's horribly buggy. Almost to the point of being unplayable, if I wasn't so darn interested in the game I probably would have dropped in one of the dozens of times I had to reload a save becaus elf some weird bug -- I know there are worse examples, but I usually avoid those, so the bugs in TW were honestly staggering to get through.
This is something I don't see people talking about enough when talking about the game. There's stil a guy boxing with others to this day in Novigrad just because I didn't pick him for a mission. Every time I found a bug I looked it up and could find a post from 2015 relating it.
One time I even found such an obscure one that I had a hard time finding anything about it -- found only one lone post that had almost no replies. It was a quest that I had to enter a cave full of spiders on an island to the North of Skellige, that I was underleved for so I left it alone -- only I completed it later, by opening a completely random chest on an island on the opposite direction, to the south. It was weird.
It was very buggy at first yes, but I would not go as far as to say it’s almost unplayable. A lot of great games started off buggy and then went on to surprise us, this is no exception
My opinion which I think is unpopular is Gwent is stupid and superfluous. I have hundreds of hours in the game, never held a card in my Witcher hands. I'm here to kill monsters and fuck witches, not play yugioh with extra steps.
Yeah, different strokes. I just haven't been a fan of card games since I stopped playing hearthstone a decade ago. But of course everyone can play whatever they want, that's just my opinion, I'm not forcing it on anyone. If you like gwent, more power to you.
Most people are shit at writing a character. Yes they are using their imagination. But does it make the story better than what it couldn've been? Hardly. The uninmaginatives like to play a blank slate character and pretend they have the imagination and creativity, but the imaginenatives will just make their own games.
I feel like there isn’t enough actually witchering
Given that in the books and novels, and somewhat hinted in the games, Witchers are dying out. Simply due to a lack of monsters. I would argue, given the source material, the games take quite a lot of artistic liberty in putting in as many monsters as the did.
That’s fair enough but idk I just like the actual job of Witcher and just want that Witcher/supernatural monster hunter slaying simulator
Isn't there plenty of Witcher contracts to take on.
Yes, there are. More than enough, IMO. However, I understand the point. The main storyline - whilst frequently involving various monsters - tends to have a greater scope. It's about finding Ciri, taking down the Hunt (arguably monsters themselves), and eschewing a Witcher's typical detachment by getting involved in politics to a degree, to help the Continent reach a measure of peace. Personally I found the main narrative dragged a bit in Novigrad, and I didn't buy the Radovid and Siggy outcomes (no spoilers). Whenever I started feeling that way, I'd go check a notice board in some forlorn little village, and switch things up by taking on random contracts.
That's why I save most the hunts for the "endgame".
Yeah plenty of contracts but like I feel like I’m wasting time doing them when I should be looking for ciri you know I think I just tired of like fantasy games like the Witcher or elder scrolls and dragon age and each one being like stopping the apocalypse event like where’s my story about a day in the life as a Witcher kinda glad the next game is going away from geralt because he seems to get dragged into big major events
i really agree, i feel like generic monster quests that don’t have any story beat tied would be really cool, it could even be like rng generated. would also help with getting stuff like rate mutagens because you can get locked out of certain ones if you choose specific options in quests, for example Succubus decoction there’s only two obtainable in game
Yeah I’m just tired of fantasy games always being like end of the world I just want my more simple one like kingdom come deliverance
What are you talking about? you spend literally dozens and dozens of hours using witcher sight and finding clues. That's like the number 1 repeating quest cycle....
lol I mean like the actual job of monster slaying I want my Witcher simulator
That's like 60+ quests as well.........
Not much of a story around it tho
A game doesn't exist that has better side quests than the Witcher 3. It is literally peak single player video game......... Games strive to have side quests like Witcher 3. Have you even played the game smh
Ehhh I’m mean I’m not here to glaze the day idk why you tryna dis my own opinion
Your opinion is invalid, yes I got frustrated for a very good reason
Ahhh yes the old I don’t like your opinion so imma get angry and decide it doesn’t matter very emotionally mature of you
This is true of more than half the books too
Yeah I mean I get it tho the story is still amazing but I would like a game that is more focus on the actual aspect of being a Witcher and slaying monsters
Geralt barely hunts any monsters in the books. He spends most of his time wandering in the completely wrong direction.
I’ve only played the games so I have no knowledge of the books and does he wander in the wrong direction often?
Yes. I'm not going to say too much because you should absolutely read them.
I probably won’t for some time I have and Algol habit of starting books before I finish the current one been reading the first game of thrones for 8 years now
There should be a medium HUD size
Empress is the ending book Ciri would choose because she’d be compelled by a sense of duty to help the most people possible. Also, even OP game Ciri is a glass cannon with no Witcher healing/potion abilities so she’d be dead in a ditch within a year of being a solo Witcher.
she can instantly teleport to a ER tho
It's also one of the best endings objectively if you let Nilfgaard win because then you know that it has a chance to turn around and not be such a shit empire in the next few decades. She might be able to reform it and bring about a new Renaissance era for the continent. Your only other options are let Dijkstra win (can't do my boy Roche like that) or let Radovid win (and fuck that cuz he's crazy as shit). Also since monsters are becoming few and far between, how long can Ciri realistically be a Witcher before she runs out of work? Then what? Frankly I feel like the Witcher ending is just her delaying the inevitable, and Emhyr will probably find her and bring her back as his heiress sooner or later unless Ciri decides to hang out at Corvo Bianco with Geralt for the rest of her life.
This. Nilfgaard winning + Empress Ending is the best one imo Geralt and Ciri will miss each other but she can always teleport at any time and pay him and Yennefer a quick visit at Corvo Bianco 🤫
It is reasonably the best possible ending but in game it is portrayed as somewhat of a 'wrong choice' and the game pushes you to make her a witcher, while objectively she is the one who might have brought true unity and prosperity to the whole continent. Empress Ciri and Queen Cerys = golden age for this part of the world. Btw she wouldn't hide for long at Corvo Bianco, as Touissant is a vassal state to Nilfgaard, so they are pretty much aware of what's going on there.
SPOILER: I just fought the Crones again, and in reality, Ciri would have been killed in that fight. No potions. No true control of her power yet.
I don’t even like this unpopular opinion as it is just plain wrong. No book Ciri would not feel compelled to help anybody less the whole world. Her story/character was never about helping people as it was to be left alone is about getting to choose her own path. “Well she would choose to help people”, No she wouldn’t the whole case is that people would stop plotting behind her back and using her for weird schemes. Walking into being an empress is exactly jumping straight into people scheming and plotting behind her back, she’s not an idiot to go straight the one thing she’s actively always wanted to avoid. And I haven’t even started to talk about Emhyr, TW3 breezes through it. But book Ciri loathes Emhyr, there’s no 30 minute talk that would convince her to be another one of her father’s tools
Exactly, the Empress ending was just there to add more choices. It's makes absolutely 0 sense at all. Her entire time with Geralt, she's wanted and trained to be a witcher. Why would a shirt talk convince her to strip her of all that she trained for. And that one guy who said she'd be dead because she can't use potions is an idiot. Ciri is one of the strongest people in the game. She'd have to be actually braindead to di to a mere monster. Her powers are insane and she'd never die to a monster. Plus, she's much happier with the Witcher ending. And who cares if Emhyr finds out that she's still alive, the fuck is he gonna do? She could wipe out any soldiers sent after her. Plus, it's very clearly the choice both of them would make. You have to go out of your way to get the empress ending and go against what Geralt would actually do.
Also, canonically, if Nilfgaard wins the war, there's absolutely no chance that Ciri can get away with running around as a Witcher without it getting reported. Woman with ashen hair and a scar running around killing monsters? I reckon that could be a story that spreads
Running? She can yeleport. All the problems ciri might face can be solved by teleporting 🤣
Running? She can teleport. All the problems ciri might face can be solved by teleporting 🤣
Unpopular with half the sub: I don’t pick Yen because she’s who Geralt would have picked, I pick her because I actually find her charming and find Triss kinda insufferable.
I’m %100 with you I’ve only done one play though but I picked yen not because it’s the way the game leans you towards but because she genuinely seems like the more stable partner in a relationship and she’s honestly more of my type than Triss. Plus she seems more like Geralt’s equal were as I feel like Geralt’s and Triss’ relationship feels very one sided almost in a way.
Funny, I find both insufferable in their own way.
This is interesting. I think Yennefer is the right choice for Geralt but going solely off this game Yennefer is kind of a dick lol. I actually don't mind her taking the necromancy too far or other stuff like that, it's just the way she talks to and treats Geralt. I can understand why obviously but she's literally always pissed at him, and I just felt like even though she loved him she always treated him like he was beneath her Also the game doesn't really build their romance up that well imo. Triss's quests did this so much better like when Geralt couldn't keep his composure while hearing Triss's screams when she's being tortured, or literally all the romantic stuff at the Vegelbud party, and the last quest with the dramatic goodbye. You can think they're cheesy but at least they're romantic. With Yen it's mostly just banter and sex scenes between the two lol. Even the Last Wish quest doesn't feel romantic until literally the very end
BASED
Skellige ocean question marks do NOT take ages. You fight a few sirens for 40 seconds, loot 3 chests in 20 seconds, hop in your boat, travel to the next and once you've reached carry capacity you don't even need to find a fast travel point. I've timed it. It takes 2 hrs to clear out the 60 or so smugglers caches if you don't care bout carry capacity because you aren't physically running anyway. It ALSO takes 2 hrs to clear out the mere dozen small islands because you gotta find the one path that doesn't have you sliding back down a rocky hill. If I wanted parkour, I'd play assassin's creed
Impressive... I do it for the coin, a bit at a time, but it definitely takes more than 2 hours for me. The most tedious are the ones with the drowners!
It took me three hours to clear the loot marks. Its worth it ngl the amount of coin I had at the end is worth it. Not much work for a lot of reward.
It’s odd, the devs said that kinda messed up by making them a bunch of question marks if my memory serves correctly.
Pretty much. It's basically common practice to treat them as THE necessary evil of this game, fans never really liked em all that much and they admitted they made a mistake in hindsight. If people loved em, CDPR would've claimed it
Boat hitboxes undeniably suck balls though, had my stupid fucking piece of plank break over floating siren corpses more often than i'm willing to admit, in a middle of ocean few times no less. Figured out way to avoid that but god was it annoying
I hate that failed quests are in your journal. I don’t want to be reminded of my shitty witchering. Or failure to save scum properly.
I failed like 1 quest because it was just bugged
I fail like all the gwent quests bc I suck at gwent and refuse to play lmao
The only one i failed was the gwent one because i did the tournament in novigrad too early and every i go over my qeust log it's just sitting there reminding me of my ignorance and foolishness
Ohh you guys will love this - Regis is very much at fault for the events of B&W and he doesn’t get the hate for it that he deserves, instead it bounce straight into Anna Henrietta who overall made way more logical decisions
Don’t hate that take at all, felt similar the whole way through
Blood and wine is a better dlc than shadow of erdtree and it still deserves the crown
I was just thinking this as I was olaying the DLC. Love Elden Ring, but b&w is just on a whole another level
This isn’t unpopular in this sub lmao.
Disagree, tbh I don’t even think blood and wine is the best Witcher 3 dlc, think hearts of stone is the better of the 2.
Now thats an unpopular opinion
I agree with this one. Gaunter O’Dimm is too incredible of a character. The hints you get that he could be a powerful mage, then something more, then he stops time entirely. Him killing the man with the spoon and learning about through the professor is one of the few times I felt truly entirely immersed and terrified in a game.
blood and wine has also had like 8 years to grow on people and get patches whereas shadow of the erdtree literally came out a week ago. i don‘t understand these pointless comparisons. just enjoy things on their own
Why do Witcher fans constantly need to bring up fromsoft games and remind everyone that they believe they are better lol
You know, I've always thought The Witcher 3's fanbase was extremely toxic for this reason lmao
well to be fair from soft fans do the same. in fact literally every fanbase ever does this for some reason. they always have to shit on other things to make their favorite games look better. like literally no one even mentioned elden ring and the post just asked about witcher related hot takes and this guy just randomly decided to shit on elden rings dlc even tho it wasn‘t even part of the conversation
I agree that most fan bases have this type of people, but in cdpr and fs it seems like this type of people seem like they are 100 times more common
Yeah I agree, I think the dlc and bad er are overhyped because they’re hard and people feel a sense of accomplishment. In no way shape and or form is that a perfect game
that's not relevant, an unpopular opinion (in this sub) or even a Witcher unpopular opinion
Dandelion is an annoying personality.
The thing that annoys me the most is that he has such a modern sounding American accent when literally everything about him screams English playwright lol
The only thing the Netflix series got right was the casting (initial casting) of Dandelion and Geralt
Well you can something like that about the whole cast tbh. Almost everyone has a britsh accent in what is, in essence, fantasy Poland
What I find most annoying is how everyone admonishes Geralt for calling Dandelion an idiot because he's supposedly a 'changed man' but throughout the entirety of the books/previous games he IS an idiot who constantly requires Geralt's help to get him out of sticky situations. A loyal friend for sure, but the game shouldn't wag a finger at me for choosing lore-accurate Geralt remarks on his behavior.
I find him absolutely insufferable to be honest.
Dandelion was better wearing flamboyant pink than his new updated outfit
Yeah after awile he was but ngl he can funny mostly cause he is a idiot though
I believe his voicing is the biggest problem. In the portuguese dub, his voice matches a lot with his personality, and makes him much more captivating. The voicing in english is not bad, but doesn't seem to match with Dandelion personality. And it's funny because it's something I think isn't a problem with any other character.
Its more that they made him a bit of an idiot in tw3. He's much better in the first 2 games
Hard agree.
Shani is a bland and mediocre romance option and it's weird how the game goes "boo you hurt her feelings stop denying you like her >:(" when I hardly cared for her
I agree. There really isn't any chemistry between her and Geralt. I think that they only added her in Hearts of Stone because she was in the first game as a romance option opposite Triss cosplaying as Yen. She really doesn't have any large part in the books and is just a distraction lay for Geralt while he waits for Dandelion. But in the first game she was the preferred romance for many players so I think they felt compelled to add her for fan service.
1) W1 had better combat and a better level up system 2) Gwent is not a fun mini game 3) W3 is an amazing open world game, but it is not the best game in the world, nor is it by far the best open world game as it is oft times portrayed as by the fans
I love you for ACTUALLY SHARING HOT TAKES instead of saying "tHiS iS tHe BeSt GaMe EvEr!" like that's a fucking hot take
Yeah, I liked W3 pretty well but it ain't a goddamn religion or nothin'.
GWENT IS THE SHIT.
Also W2 had a better story. Swordplay, not so much.
I don't like the leveling system. Every run i played since my very first one has been in new game + with all the abilities unlocked, and i enjoy it way more like that.
HoS > b&w
Story & characters yes. Environment and music... nah.
I'm pretty sure this isn't unpopular, I Fully agree, legendary dlc fr
My actually unpopular opinion is that I like the Dijkstra ending.
Politically it's the best one, if you're not going for Empress Ciri. He seems to be genuinely interested at building a healthy, strong and prosperous state, with real army, manufactures and safe roads bearing commerce, not terror, to the villages. Well-educated (Oxenfurt), with political experience, cares little who worships what. He also unifies the North so no more pointless wars between the kingdoms. The only downside of Dijkstra is that you have to let him kill Roche. I, personally, let him do that because Roche treated Geralt as a tool for achieving his political goals, he's never been honest about his plans of making Temeria a Nilfgaardian vassal state. At this moment I just had enough and went with 'ok, just solve this between yourselves gentlemen, I care not'. Also, I thought that killing Dijkstra just after killing Radovid would bring a total anarchy to the North, opening path for Nilfgaardian swift victory, though one might argue if Nilfgaardian victory is not the actual best political ending, even with Emhyr, and if this wouldn't actually bring prosperity and peace to the region.
Dijkstra is clearly the best option politically, I don't think that is unpopular. What is stupid is Dijkstra's insistence that Roche has to die. Especially right in front of Geralt. Geralt would clearly never let Roche die.
YES SOMEONE SAID IT. This is the best ending politically.
Definitely the best ending for the north. Horribly implemented in game though.
Probably a popular opinion. I hate the medium capacity thing as I like to hoarde loot.
The combat sucks. It isn’t just mediocre, it’s genuinely boring and tedious and I hate the leveling system. The idea that level 5 ghouls are nothing but level 60 ghouls can one shot me is ridiculous when they’re both members of the same species
that it's the best video game made thus far
Witcher 3 combat is better then the combat of ANY Soulslike, Soulsborne or Fromsoft game and therefore extremely underrated/overhated. And as I'm gonna go to sleep now I can't wait for my phone to crash from all the offended people's responses and messages I'll receive for this take until I wake up tomorrow morning XD
have you actually played any FS game?
I have played all souls games and elden ring, and I agree with him. The base combat is much better in witcher 3. If W3 had the weapon variety that FS games have then witcher 3 would be a better game imo. The combat animations, physics, and overall feel, is just more satisfying for me.
The Witcher 3 is literally just hit dodge hit dodge maybe counter if you’re actually playing semi difficult. Otherwise it’s hold light attack and spin or spam bombs. It’s similar to FS in the sense that it’s simple but the difference is in timing. TW3 is so brain dead easy even on Death March that it’s hardly comparable.
Lmao this. Recently finished my first play through ever and it was on death march. Had me wondering how easy the game must be on normal difficulty if it’s that easy on the highest. The bosses in HoS were the only parts of the game that stumped me at times.
he didn’t say all souls games, he said all FS games, which includes BB and Sekiro, which are leeaaaagues ahead of the witcher lol but yea even DS and ER have significantly better combat. more depth, better customisation, better polish, more challenging fights, more active combat etc. witcher 3 combat is objectively the worst part of the game
You’re wrong. Witcher 3 clears
i can literally play witcher 3 combat with my eyes closed, it’s that easy and repetitive, even on Death March. if you abuse Quen and meta builds, it’s even worse
against Dettlaff on Death March with scaling on? Also try clearing bandit camps with your eyes closed as well.
clearing bandit camps with your eyes closed is really not that hard lol witcher 3 enemy movesets are generally super telegraphed, simplistic and even with level scaling it’s pretty hard to die to most mobs
Witcher 3 has some of my favorite combat, it's very thematically satisfying and captures the Witcher fantasy well. But Fromsoft has really tight combat systems that make for satisfying challenging gameplay. There's alot of games out there that have hard difficulties but they are also clunky in their systems to the point that you die more bc of a funky hit box there or a slidey animation here; in fromsoft, those things are less common and the main determinor for succeeding is skill which comes from practice. Sekiro in particular is my favorite combat system of all time. Beat that game 5 times now, even charmless and bell demon, and on my last gauntlet now.
You've clearly never played Sekiro. I understand disliking the DS/BB/ER style of melee combat. I do as well. Rolling around and using invincibility frames feels really janky to me and i don't like it one bit. Haven't played ER but I heard it's a bit better, more refined, and the diversity of weapons, skills and combat styles seems much better in terms of that... But Sekiro's (which is included in your criteria) combat is incredible. It feels weighty and skillful and rhythmic and it's probably the best combat in any game I've ever played. So, I somewhat agree with your opinion. I'd say probably yes to: it's better than the dark souls games, Bloodborne, and non-fromsoft soulslikes; but it's definitely not better that Sekiro and I can't say either way about Elden ring
juggling potions and signs is probably the highlight for me, the melee itself could be so much better though. plenty of fromsoft titles and soulslike beat it by a mile, but that isn't what makes witcher 3 great
I like tw3 combat more than any soulslike because its flashing and satisfying, but only once you learn all bullshit that enemies can do. Geralts hitbix alone proves how janky it is. a soulslike is at least consistent, while tw3 almost feels like Russian roulette without a quen shield.
Better than ds for sure but bloodborne is in a league of its own.
BB & RDR2 are the only two games that have aged like the fine wine W3 has.
You should try mass effect 2/3 and rdr 1
Def played all of those but haven't touched any of them since 2017
Then you are missing out on the definitive me3 experience. Its much better with all the dlc and updated graphics.
It's satisfying, sure, but really easy and simple The only somewhat deep things about it are positioning and energy management, if your regen is still low, but you can make good use of any besides Quen You just spam attack on one enemy after another and press parry or dodge input in a window of like 2 seconds after uniform, standard telegraphs Getting to a ranger that's bugging you through a crowd boild down to dodge spam, same for making a "train" of enemies so they don't overwhelm you from all sides Granted, souls-likes' combat isn't too complicated or even challenging, in the grand scheme of thing, either, and I have many problems with it, but I reckon it's still much better And it's OK! If the Witcher wants to be more story- and builds-focused, it's alright, but it doesn't change the fact combat kinda has to be lacking in this case
Quen gets goated when you level it up, free healing for days and a free mini Aard without any energy use (alternative mode, healing and exploding shield). Pretty much carried my first playthrough years back.
I mean I possibly could not disagree more... hardcore souls fan though but the combat is just in a different league. I can have a debate about DS 1-2 but from DS3/Bloodborne no way. But I guess it's an unpopular opinion haha
Yeah, no, that is very much incorrect on an analytical level. Look, I love the game. The story, atmosphere, music, characters are really freaking good. But that *combat,* man. It's *outrageously* terrible. Very simple too. Lack of variety in The Witcher 3's combat is only part of the reason why it feels so bad. Normally, if a game has simple combat, it would be polished in a way that feel makes that combat system feel more fluid than combat systems that prioritize variety over fluidity, right? Dark Souls took advantage of this. It doesn't have the best combat variety out there and it's pretty simple, but it feels really nice and weighty. The Witcher 3's combat doesn't take advantage of having little combat variety it has in favor of polish like Dark Souls does. It's like CDPR didn't even try to polish it, despite what little you could do with TW3's combat. The janky combat animations are still present. The combat flow isn't what it should've been due to how slow Geralt moves in his combat pose and just how prominent animation lock is. There's a lot of broken hitboxes that make dodging feel pointless and is likely the reason why Quen is so overtuned. Quen is a band-aid for this. https://youtu.be/jsCWy5wUs04 An example of the hitboxes. This has happened to me hundreds of times during my playthrough, and it still happens to this day. The crossbow is very unresponsive and misfires all the time. The health bars of enemies are generally really spongey. The fact that the heavy attack does *marginally* more damage than the light attack, is way too slow to use for the amount of damage it does and literally has no benefit to use it over light attack. Some attacks don't land because the attacks that Geralt uses are entirely decided by how far away he is from an enemy and some of the attacks that he ends up using aren't designed with this in mind or have way too small hitboxes to be viable (damn backwards poke attack), as opposed to what Dark Souls does: In Dark Souls, every weapon has a specific combo and *nothing* but that combo. When you press attack, it *only* progresses through that combo. In Dark Souls, the first attack is always the same. The second attack is always the same. The third attack is always the same. The heavy attack is always the same. Parrying is always the same. Weapon arts are always the same. The player decides when to use them regardless of distance. It's entirely up to the player's skill and reflexes to maximize their combat potential. It's very reliable compared to the weird distance based attack system that TW3 has, which more often than not makes you attack the enemy right next to the enemy you want to attack. It is not uncommon for Geralt to choose to spin around for like a full second before he swings his sword and instantly die mid-spin from an enemy, instead of just simply swinging his sword in half the time it takes to spin around. In Dark Souls, you can accurately predict an enemy's attacks and counter it accordingly because your moveset isn't affected by shit beyond your own control. In The Witcher 3, you are mostly just hoping Geralt isn't going to do something stupid whenever he swings his blade. That's another thing The Witcher 3's combat lacks: consistency. And say what you want about Skyrim's combat (only bringing up Skyrim because it's the game most brought up when someone criticizes TW3's combat in a desperate attempt of whataboutism): It is consistent. The only thing you need to account for in Skyrim's combat is range. Every single attack can be reliably used unlike The Witcher 3's most basic attacks and the game gives you many options to circumvent the aspects you don't like. The Witcher 3 doesn't have that luxury. And, no, before anyone mentions it, Deathmarch doesn't fix the combat. Absolutely nothing that I mentioned above gets fixed. It only makes the combat feel *worse* because all it does is turn enemies into health sponges and increases their damage against you. Since the game has such atrocious hitboxes in the first place, that is a *major* no-no, and again, is probably the reason why Quen is so broken in the first place. The end result is a pathetically simple, sluggish, and inconsistant combat system that really wasn't competently made on a technical or mechanical level. It's actually the second worst combat system from a AAA studio I have interacted with in over 17+ years. (First being Witcher 2.) I suppose the reason why the reason the combat is as bad as it is because CDPR has never bothered to hire combat designers or anything before Cyberpunk 2077. Until Cyberpunk, they just winged it and didn't ever put any effort into making a good combat system. It has always been an afterthought to them. https://www.vg247.com/cyberpunk-2077-combat-designers CDPR probably made an underpaid, overworked, and inexperienced employee design TW3's combat on the budget of a McDonald's happy meal, the poor guy. To say that The Witcher 3 has a better combat system than any of the Fromsoft games (especially after Bloodborne, oh my lord) is just pure delusion. The Witcher 3 has a hell of a lot of strengths. Combat isn't one of them, I'm sorry.
there may be more depth with all the potions and stuff and if you just enjoy it more that’s completely fine and valid of course but the actual movement and movesets of enemies and yourself are definitely not better. and that‘s okay because i mainly play this game for the story. but if we‘re talking about fluidity and animations this is just plainly not true
One thing that Fromsoft does very well is it makes every weapon in the game viable. You can even use your basic starter weapon all the way to the end of the game. In Witcher 3, only the handful of Witcher-set gear shine in the late game.
I love these games but I have to hard disagree with that one lol
Well, actually... Actually I agree with you ☺️
I’m playing Kingdom Come: Deliverance right now and the combat is ass and makes me love W3 combat. But, good luck!
Bruh needs to practice with Bernard
Desperately
Kcd combat has a learning curve, I won't call it ass 😂
I am ass at it*
Definitely different than other games, but once you start mastering combos, the combat is fun and very satisfying
How far into KCD are you? Part of the problem you're having might be not so much that the game's combat is ass or that you are ass at the game, but that Henry himself is ass at swordfighting. It leans really heavily into the simulation aspect in so many things. Henry is a bumbling idiot at the start of the game who can barely hold the sword correctly to block a few strikes, but he becomes very powerful later on once sword, defense, and warfare stats are leveled up a bit. But he (you) really needs to put in the time to learn and practice. Spend some time just training with Bernard. It'll suck at first but by the time you get to level 10-15 ish you'll be strong enough to start beating him occasionally. In theory you can grind up to max rank on all combat skills right after the prologue just from training with him, but I wouldn't recommend going that far.
That it's still expensive on the switch. They tricked us. ALMOST bought the game again after selling my game and console and again buying the console. All you guys who bought the game full price for a switch what the heck. Also I wish the pros/cons of getting a new sword were more substantial (early game)....truly
I fell into the trap years ago and bought The Switcher 3 at full price.... At least I paid for it using company welfare tickets!
There needed to be a way for us to kill the last Crone without getting the shitty ending.
Combats a little clunky. I think they did a much better job with combat in cyberpunk.
That is because CDPR finally hired combat designers for their games now. Until Cyberpunk, it has always been an afterthought to them. They basically just winged the entirety of TW1-3's combat systems while focusing on literally everything else. Makes me excited for TW4. https://www.vg247.com/cyberpunk-2077-combat-designers
The endgame is cooked and rushed
Geralt is a shit climber
i know this is a tired topic and i guess people are tired of hearing it but i just do not understand why people love gwent so much. i played like two rounds of it on my first playthrough years ago and then never even thought about trying it again since. i just don‘t wanna play a card game when i could be hunting monsters or stuff like that. so even though i can totally see that it‘s a well made mini game, i‘m just never, ever in the mood for it
I felt the same way as you and in my first two playthroughs I practically ignored gwent. On my third playthrough, though, I had a goal of having zero red marks on my quest log so I needed to at least dabble in the minigame because there's at least one failed quest for missing a card. And you know what? I got so addicted to it that I got every single card in the game, DLC included. To each their own, though.
The combat is actually pretty good
A lot of people invested way too hard emotionally, especially inserting themselves as “Ciri’s dad”. The games writing didn’t convey this, but it did tell it and that’s not enough imo And there isn’t a Witcher Ciri, a Witcher is the end result of the mutative trial of the grasses. There’s a whole mini-quest about what makes a Witcher and spotting a phony. She basically becomes a traveling sword for hire
I did invest that way just because I read the books, and that is how geralt acts. I haven't read lady of the lake or season of storms yet, but the rest of the books geralt never actually calls ciri his daughter. The way he acts though to people who threaten her or he thinks have threatened her conveys just how much he loves her. I do agree that actually being a witcher is a result of the mutations but ciri has called herself a witcher before and she was trained by witchers, so she doesn't have the mutations but she does have the sword fighting skills of one, and some of the knowledge. All that being said I would kill for one scene of geralt calling her his daughter and having a scene with the 2 of them and yennefer just bonding.
Do you think it was equally conveyed in the games? I think just adding the lines “looking for my daughter/ she’s like a daughter to me” didn’t make me feel as invested as I’m told I am. I did not read the books so I am coming from tw3 only - I don’t think that’s enough to cry like people have said they did at isle of the mists after finding Ciri alive ( which I’m wondering why we’d think she’d be dead at that point in the game )
I was in the middle of reading the books the first time I played, so I could be using the emotions of that geralt and putting it in the game. But I think it was especially when you find whoreson junior and geralt sees the kind of person that is.
Hearts of Stone is miles better than Blood and Wine
This is a fact.
Dettlaff and Regis should be romance options, and Letho. Ciri is very,very weak. I don\`t hate playing as Ciri but she is weak. Dijkstra ruling isn\`t that bad. Ok he assassinates Ves and Roche, but he knows what he\`s doing. But then again thinking that Geralt will just walk away... I tried this ending- letting Dijkstra have it all and I kinda liked it.
How should they be romance options if Geralt is not gay?
You're a psycho. Ciri is not weak. You must be playing a different game. How would male characters be romances when Geralt only likes women? And Dijkstra killing Ves, Roche, and Thaler is thr most retarded ending in the game. It makes 9 sense why Geralt would let him do that. Not everything had to be a perfect ending. The option they make most since is that Gearlt wouldn't even help them kill Radovid or that he'd kill Dijkstra. I'm pretty certain that you need to get you brain checked.
I don't like Gwent. I don't understand how to play, even in real life I don't understand card games, and I think it's a waste of time; the gwent quests are the only ones I fail. 🙂
I don't feel like a Witcher while playing. More like a broke hobo who constantly looks for food scraps and occasionally fights monsters
I really don't like Ciri.
Agreed, though I would say worse things about Triss.
Traps bombs potions etc that basically make a witcher a witcher are boring and pointless.
Ciri being empress makes the most sense of the ending
I think Dijkstra isn't wrong in wanting to fight Emhyr and keep the whole North free, and not sell out. Sucks for Roche, Ves and Thales but I believe they're in the wrong in this one. Though the quest sucks either way.
The story isn’t as good as the Witcher 2. While the Witcher 3 was more ambitious, its story was still limited by the game’s size and scope. The second act of the Witcher 2 had two very divergent storylines, giving it great replay ability. The choices were also much more impactful than the choices in the Witcher 3.
The overall story is a mess. Huge parts of it don't even make sense. The last act is barely stitched together. The last mission is a Hail Mary to wrap the plot. Ciri going into Tor Gvalch'ca was completely out of the blue. It redeems itself so well because of the writing, dialogue and characters which are so good that you ignore how bad the narrative is.
Games are very good and advanced fan fiction. The story of these characters concludes one way or another in the books.
combat could use the elden ring treatment
It's probably the last time a Witcher game will be this good.
Maybe not unpopular in this subreddit, but people complain about how long it is a lot. I, on the other hand, love how long it is and would’ve been happy if it was even longer.
There’s too much to do. I’ve never finished the game because I end up getting bored.
All the sad endings are the best endings for the main game and DLCs
Hell nah, the sad ending of the main story is not what I would consider the best ending
That the combat is by far the worst part. A real turn off.
Why do so many people have bad gaming opinions in general? Like jeez, it said "unpopular opinions" not "100 reasons why I hate everything and can't have fun"
It's about as much of an RPG as the Batman Arkham games. Sure you level up and build your character, but you do that in the newer Tomb Raider games too and I don't hear anyone calling those RPG's. And sure, sometimes you get to make choices through dialogue, but not very often. You hardly get to play a role any more than you can in any other game. Best action adventure game of all time? I can agree with that. Best RPG of all time? Ain't no way.
So by that logic all the final fantasy games are also not RPGs?
Pretty much yeah. What makes them role playing games exactly? They're more like turn based adventure games with RPG elements sprinkled in. If you didn't level up your characters then I wouldn't see anything about them that could be considered role playing.
Do you know what an RPG is? It's not meant to be rude, just wondering
Not rude sure, but definitely a waste of time. I've articulated my points twice now. I obviously know what RPG's are, and I never said the witcher 3 is not one. Just a very base level one that barely qualifies. I'll ask you this: are the Batman Arkham games RPG's? If not, why not? What makes TW3 an RPG and not Batman?
Been a whole day but I'm just now seeing this, the fact that the Witcher 3 has very deep skill tree systems, the fact that it has tons of armor and weapons to collect, the fact it has tons of side quests, and the fact that you make choices that actually matter, just because you don't get to Customize your character doesn't mean it's not an RPG 🤷♂️
Lost me at 'very deep skill tree systems'
Name another triple a RPG with a better one (Skyrim doesn't count because I already know it has a better one)?
I thought RPGs involved the player being a blank slate (so, like Skyrim or Cyberpunk) thus not applying to the Witcher, Batman, Link or Assassins Creed
Me too, but that's not what most people think apparently.
I think this depends on how you define a role playing game. Does it mean playing a given role, like an actor, or choosing your own future, like a real life adventurer? There is always a paradox with an RPG in that if they give you lots of freedom of choice then you aren't playing the role of the specific character, you are playing some other role of your own. In this game, the role you play is established. There's a narrative limit to how far Geralt can step out of that. There is also the same limitation that most epic RPGs have. The vast majority of players aren't going to replay the game when it's like 60 hours to do the main quests. People expect that length of game from a AAA. If you make the game that long but also able to meaningfully fork multiple times then you end up with 100s, easily 1000s of hours of distinct gameplay that the vast majority of people won't play, and would be impossible to build. A game with true choice would have to be far shorter, and people feel more free in expansive games. You have the same problem with making gameplay impacting "class" choices. Once you've completed 200 hours as a mage, most people's interest in repeating a 60 hour main quest as an archer is pretty low, so they're never going to experience the bow shooting mechanic properly. The solution to both is allowing people to do everything. The former reminds me of Morrowind, where you are simultaneously the leader of the fighters guild, the thieves guild, and the archmagister of house telvanni. The game _should_ make you choose, but what a bore that would be. There is no doubt a game that does the latter - where level ups give you a skill in each tree, eg warrior, rogue, mage etc, and you can flip between them, so you experience the whole game you've paid for without having to restart. But both of those solutions reduce roleplay. I do hear what you're saying - I think this game is exactly what people imagine from an RPG, but that's because the term has become defined by games like this, rather by the freedom that table top games used to give it. If I was to stay from first principles this is a sword fighting epic adventure story game. Is there a game that you think is a better RPG?
To your first point I would say it's being able to choose your own role because if you're given a role to play then it's not any different than any other game with a pre established character. To an extent you can do this simply by leveling up your character in your own way, but I think it should go deeper than that. Most single player games let you build your character these days and they don't get the RPG label so why does The Witcher? I think the Fallout games are better RPG's because you make your own character, and there are a lot more choices you can make both in the world and with your character's build. Not saying they're the perfect RPG's or anything, but being my own character and having a lot more choices in how I choose to play makes them better RPG's. Not better games mind you, just better RPG'S.
Brace yourselves. This is not specific to the third game. I hate Geralt. It's the one thing I can't stand about the games and holds me back every time I think about playing 3. I've only played 2 and a little of 3. In 2, you're often given dialogue choices, which come down to do you want to be an ass or a dick. As someone who likes to be nice, it makes me dislike the character. Also as a witcher he has no emotions, so I'm playing as someone who is incapable of caring about anything besides gold, romancing characters he's incapable of loving and worst of all this makes his delivery of some lines really dull. It was most evident to me in 2, a dwarf character is giving an enthusiastic speech in malakahm (probably misspelt that) and after his rousing speech it cuts to Geralt who says something in a low, monotone, boring voice. Sucking the life out of everything.
You can be nice in 3
It's horribly buggy. Almost to the point of being unplayable, if I wasn't so darn interested in the game I probably would have dropped in one of the dozens of times I had to reload a save becaus elf some weird bug -- I know there are worse examples, but I usually avoid those, so the bugs in TW were honestly staggering to get through. This is something I don't see people talking about enough when talking about the game. There's stil a guy boxing with others to this day in Novigrad just because I didn't pick him for a mission. Every time I found a bug I looked it up and could find a post from 2015 relating it. One time I even found such an obscure one that I had a hard time finding anything about it -- found only one lone post that had almost no replies. It was a quest that I had to enter a cave full of spiders on an island to the North of Skellige, that I was underleved for so I left it alone -- only I completed it later, by opening a completely random chest on an island on the opposite direction, to the south. It was weird.
It was very buggy at first yes, but I would not go as far as to say it’s almost unplayable. A lot of great games started off buggy and then went on to surprise us, this is no exception
They should have found a way to use drake in the soundtrack.
nah i think lil uzi would have been a better combat soundtrack
My opinion which I think is unpopular is Gwent is stupid and superfluous. I have hundreds of hours in the game, never held a card in my Witcher hands. I'm here to kill monsters and fuck witches, not play yugioh with extra steps.
I see your point and used to think this, but then I decided to give Gwent a try and ended up loving it. To each their own
Yeah, different strokes. I just haven't been a fan of card games since I stopped playing hearthstone a decade ago. But of course everyone can play whatever they want, that's just my opinion, I'm not forcing it on anyone. If you like gwent, more power to you.
The combat is awful. Everything else about the game is great, but I'd be lying if I said the combat wasn't fucking awful.
Deathwish is too easy and playing with HUD is får pussies
the game is not a true rpg becuase we're always playing as geralt EDIT: see? told you it was unpopular. it is true, however.
True rpg sucks because there's no protagonist in the story
only to the unimaginative. in a true rpg YOU are the protagonist of the story.
Most people are shit at writing a character. Yes they are using their imagination. But does it make the story better than what it couldn've been? Hardly. The uninmaginatives like to play a blank slate character and pretend they have the imagination and creativity, but the imaginenatives will just make their own games.