RoboticWater

Same here. Luckily I spoke with Edèr early on and figured it out then. I hope this isn't a pervasive problem with legacy feature, and that it gets solved quickly. I just spent, like, 2 cumulative days getting the perfect endgame.

You've taken this one step too far though. Having a smaller party means enemies will be in lesser numbers to compensate (or will have some aspect altered to lessen their overall potential damage and durability). They shouldn't get buffed for the sake of balance because presumably we've dialed them back for the sake of balance already. Incidentally, Inquisition was only so bad because BioWare clearly didn't know how to make an open world game. Encounters designed for quests were fairly well paced, but BioWare evidently didn't do anything to translate these encounters into the open environment. They tried to maintain the same overall balance in the random encounters, and that just ended up being tiring. Regardless, these arguments of balance aren't all that valid because any game can be properly balanced for just about anything, and the mechanical difference between 6 people and 5 is negligible at best. It's not like Obsidian are nixing companions entirely. Quite frankly, Pillars' encounters aren't anything to aspire to anyway. It's probably for the best that Obsidian shake things up.

But that's not The Witcher's problem at all. It's a power fantasy not because you go from farmer to savior, but because you start as the studly professional and only ever have your mettle proven again and again. Only BioWare games are so structurally consistent, and even then, it's usually the player's decision to have their character follow hero's journey so strictly. I don't think you can even find especially redundant plot points between New Vegas, Pillars, and Tyranny. As RPG, their progression will feel similar, but you'd be remiss if you said they were all the same, and you'd be especially wrong if you said they were just following the hero's journey. My problem with fantasy writing in games is that they can't follow the hero's journey. Not properly anyway. Even in a game like Assassin's Creed 2 where the narrative quite clearly follows the hero's journey, the player never feels the same emotional highs and lows as Ezio. Your progression through the game is a fairly consistent upward climb in power. The actual hero's journey can only be felt sympathetically through protagonist, not directly through the mechanics. Very few games, and even fewer RPG are bold enough to take from the player and make final battle not just an obligatory outcome of the player's acquired power, but a victory earned in desperation as per the hero's journey. Honestly, if you're finding the hero's journey, it's only because you're not looking hard enough for quality fiction or you're working especially hard to ignore intricacies.

I'm surprised it didn't. The game has a much stronger opening than Pillars in my opinion. The opening area doesn't hold up against the later parts of the game (as is the case with most RPG, unfortunately), but it's still got enough of the game's unique tone to pull you through. I'd pick it back up again if you're looking for a strong narrative. The portrayal of its fantasy world is fairly original and the adventures you go on, big or small, are well told throughout. Quite frankly, I thought it was a game that would have been better off not being an RPG though. A fresh, stylish narrative and decent action game are betrayed by boring leveling, pointless loot, and other needless progression systems. It's a game about an old, professional Witcher, yet you're constantly told that "you're not a high enough level to handle this quest," and the meager +3-5% differences between loot and skill levels just aren't enough to justify the grind. It's very much like a standard AAA game: lots of flair, but mechanics that don't inspire. Luckily, the story is good enough that ignoring poor game mechanics is worth it. I don't see much reason discussing it on the Pillars forums though. There's really nothing these games could learn from each other. I might suggest Pillars become less didactic like The Witcher, but that has less to do with The Witcher specifically and more with cinematic games in general. The constraint of VO, animations, and cinematics tends to force writers into crafting more concise scripts. I generally prefer that to the word soup that CRPG can often become.

Are CRPG battles ever that visually interesting? It usually looks like a bunch of figurines waving around sticks in the distance, and ignoring the positively riveting miss and deflection rolls, CRPG fights just aren't that dynamic. Unlike an action game (e.g. Rocket League, CS:GO, etc.) where minute movements can have drastically different consequences in any number of contexts, RTwP games are incredibly deterministic. Maybe it's just me, but the narrative of my fights aren't very exciting, i.e. either I used an optimal set of powers or I didn't. I can't recall a fight where I made a particularly cunning move or had a surprising turnaround. Either I steamroll, I get streamrolled, or I slowly go back and forth with an evenly matched foe casting my usual set of spells until someone (usually me) wins. Pillars II might be getting snazzier animations, but even the coolest animations can't really save a completely straightforward fight from being boring, and I don't expect a CRPG to ever have the coolest animations. Of course, I won't tell you what you find interesting. I just don't think there's a strong demand for the feature.

So....he was created to be a whiny bitch, and somehow that makes it...better? Nope he's a successful bitch which bound to get **** for being successful. My inner adolescent power fantasizing-self wants to create my own younger Witcher who could get with Ciri but I'm stuck with this ****ing old dude who just wants his daughter to be safe and leave this life before him, he wants a steady job instead of city-hopping and spend the rest of his days(rather long years) with Yennefer(preferably). I'm sorry but I can't see any adolescent fantasy in this, if anything this is a retirement fantasy. There's a difference between "adolescent fantasy" and "fantasy about adolescents." Just because our protagonist isn't a young dude who's ridin' motorcycles and bangin' cheerleaders, doesn't mean he can't be an adolescent fantasy. Geralt is James Bond. He's someone who's only ever called ugly by people who are decidedly uglier than he is. A globe-trotting uber-stud who has the coolest job, the slickest weapons, and the bustiest chicks. He's the best of the best, but he doesn't need to tell you that; he can solve the craziest of problems and only break a sweat, because of course, it's all in a day's work, ladies. He's a pariah, hated by the common folk, but he's always right, either standing ardently for justice or condescending neutrality. His most difficult challenge: does he choose to pursue the young, feisty redhead or the proud ivory-haired beauty. If anything, this kind of character is an even more relatable fantasy than a younger character because with an adult fantasy there's always the thought that maybe, just maybe, if your family is killed by a Columbian drug gang, and you subject yourself to a 10 year 80s training montage, you too might become the grizzled and chiseled righteous renegade.[1] The Witcher 3 does a fairly decent job trying to ground our protagonist with simpler goals ("I just want to save my daughter and settle down"), but that sort of falls flat when you can fight and/or copulate with some of the most interesting magical phenomena all across the land on your grand quest to save your daughter and, coincidentally, the world. [1] A reference to one of my favorite quotes from Snow Crash

I hope so. They're quite possibly the best incarnation of CRPG "cutscene" I've ever seen. They can more accurately depict the drama of a moment all while maintaining a distinctively tabletop sort of feel. In fact, I hope they're used far more extensively during the main quest. Nothing kills a mood quicker than a bunch of NPCs passionately throwing words at each other while they stand perfectly rigid in the center of the screen, or when they toy-soldier about with generic animations and wimpy visual effects. I remember my first reaction to reaching Cilant Lis or the end of the animancy hearings wasn't shock or horror so much as it was amusement at how awkward everything was. On the flip side, one of the more affecting moments in the first game is the CYOA-style flashback you get as you approach Twin Elms where The ending to White March Pt.II was a standout moment as well. The style is visually and aurally engaging without being too overbearing and, presumably, financially taxing. If there was one thing Obsidian could improve about them, it might be to include a few animated movies sprinkled about the game like the one we saw in the Deadfire trailer. They obviously can't involve the player, but blowing up buildings and soul flashbacks? Those are fair game.