Witcher 2

[Tigranes]

I love the game, but the railroaded cinematic stuff they're pointing out *is* stupid. The opening of Chapter 2 is probably the one place where it all combines to make a pretty boring 15 minutes - walk around slowly as a different character, fight a duel that doesn't matter, then walk very slowly killing some random things to the next destination. I just don't think they happen frequently enough to bring down the game overall - they end up being fairly small parts of the gameplay and narrative.

 

I think the biggest problem, actually, is when the cutscene decides that you lose when you've just beaten

Letho

at the end of Chapter 1. That's the worst because it was actually your Geralt fighting, with no good reason for you to lose. At least in Ch2 you're watching what happens to other characters, mostly.

[Malcador]

Didn't like the Eternal battle for that, the loss of abilities. At least the first phase of it anyway, the latter ones go by without fuss. Is it really that annoying for you guys though ? Heh. Good point about the garden fight though. They should have handled the ending of Ch 1 like Javed and the Professor in Act 2 of the first game. Ah well.

Edited May 29, 2011 by Malcador

[Hassat Hunter]

You're meant to use a Cat potion.

Ah.

Tried them once in a cave, hated the graphical effect and sold them all, never to be used again.

Caves aren't that dark anyways.

 

Oh well, next game I already know where he is anyway, no more hunting.

[Calax]

I just finished the second boss fight (in the battle flashback) and I wouldn't have minded the segment to much... if it wasn't for the fact that the boss fight was right after that segment and there was no save point... so you have to keep redoing the segmant with just a sword.

[Tigranes]

It does save when you turn into

Seltkirk

though, so that's just 5 enemies.

 

That particular boss tends to be very slow and clumsy, and the arrows / etc are fairly easy to dodge, esp. with Quen buffer. I preferred using a lot of daggers and bombs to get him from far away, then closing in a few times to deliver heavy attacks.

[Zoraptor]

I couldn't see anything with him due to the screen jumping around madly. I suspect he's also the hardest boss fight with the all magic build I had.

 

I finished last night, overall impressions extremely positive despite a large number of small issues. I had only one crash in total.

 

Iorveth path spoilers.

Probably the largest issue was the difficulty spikes and making preparation in some fights almost impossible despite them being ones where it would be most useful- but as I said I had an absolute magic specialist. I had a fair few minor story related issues, perhaps the largest there being that the crowned heads of state are monumentally stupid and it's a crying shame Letho never got around to removing them from the gene pool too. As always a few times I would have liked to have more conversation options (something like "say hello to Adda for me" when Radovid leaves you in the dungeon) and there are some obvious plot line tinkerings such as when you're told in a cutscene that Stennis definitely poisoned Saskia when in the game as presented it could as easily have been Phillippa.

 

 

Will replay taking the other storyline, would also buy TW3 (or an expansion) tomorrow were it available.

Edited May 30, 2011 by Zoraptor

[Calax]

It does save when you turn into

Seltkirk

though, so that's just 5 enemies.

 

That particular boss tends to be very slow and clumsy, and the arrows / etc are fairly easy to dodge, esp. with Quen buffer. I preferred using a lot of daggers and bombs to get him from far away, then closing in a few times to deliver heavy attacks.

I beat the boss. But it took me two or three tries and got really frustrated with the "different body" parts because while I took like squat for damage, it just took forever because i kept getting staggered.

[Lexx]

so far only Tigranes has really liked the game, it seems can't be that bad, c'mon! I stopped reading the thread at somethingawful, but it was all "best RPG of the decade" stuff

 

I love it as well, but the game also has it's annoying flaws.

 

 

Btw. once again I couldn't beat Letho and had to switch to easy-mode. He is just crushing me with his ninja speed and signs, regardless of what I've tried. As soon as he is using Quen once, I am as good as dead. Everything else in chapter 1 was no problem. Really annoying.

Edited May 30, 2011 by Lexx

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

I have the same framerate no matter how high the settings are. Anyone know what the problem could be? I haven't tried the patch yet.

[WorstUsernameEver]

so far only Tigranes has really liked the game, it seems can't be that bad, c'mon! I stopped reading the thread at somethingawful, but it was all "best RPG of the decade" stuff

 

I love it as well, but the game also has it's annoying flaws.

 

 

Btw. once again I couldn't beat Letho and had to switch to easy-mode. He is just crushing me with his ninja speed and signs, regardless of what I've tried. As soon as he is using Quen once, I am as good as dead. Everything else in chapter 1 was no problem. Really annoying.

 

Aard + fast, fast, slow.

 

Do that and he's piss easy.

[Calax]

I'll be honest here, I'm starting to hate the "Do this!" QTE's (even the easy ones which amount to just "Hit the button!" because in a few of them you aren't given much prompting, and in the one i'm currently in I couldn't even see the thing until AFTER I'd been gutted.

[WorstUsernameEver]

and in the one i'm currently in I couldn't even see the thing until AFTER I'd been gutted.

 

Chapter 3:

in the dungeon of Loc Muinne with Philippa?

 

[Lexx]

I've disabled QTEs and I am happy about it.

 

 

At the end of chapter 1, squirrel path, is there a QTE for saving / not saving the elf women in the tower? Looked to me as if one could decide to help or not to help them via a QTE.

 

[Tigranes]

I've played once with "Difficult QTEs" on and once with it off. The thing is, if you turn that off, you get like 5 QTEs in the entire game. I dont' think you get any in the cutscene, you just get a few clearly labelled and relaxed situations where you have to tap the mouse button a fwe times (quite slowly, I might add). Anyone complaining about them is bonkers... unless if you want QTEs but wish they were designed better, I guess?

 

The Letho fight in Chapter 1 definitely is a challenge, my main problem was dodging his Aard & Igni. For his Quen, though, I found the best solution to be roll around and wait for it to expire (it's only level 1), or use throwing daggers - they are very handy. If you try and beat his Quen down then it makes it easy for him to kill you (as it should be).

[Zoraptor]

I have the same framerate no matter how high the settings are. Anyone know what the problem could be? I haven't tried the patch yet.

vysnc, most likely. If it's on it the framerate will only reach (typically) 60 or 30 fps for a 60hz digital monitor and there will be little or no variation.

[C2B]

I strongly suggest this ini tweak guide for everyone for visual quality.

 

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p...;postcount=2825

Edited May 30, 2011 by C2B

[Calax]

I've disabled QTEs and I am happy about it.

 

 

At the end of chapter 1, squirrel path, is there a QTE for saving / not saving the elf women in the tower? Looked to me as if one could decide to help or not to help them via a QTE.

Exactly. The event notice is in such a place that it's washed out entirely by the backround. I don't mind the QTE's IN AND OF THEMSELVES, but when they're put in so badly it's just... urgh.

[Drowsy Emperor]

Did you think that Boo would forget to come and gloat because CDProjekt is pushing Bioware to the trash heap of history?

 

Think again!

 

 

Although I won't be playing this until 2015 or something.

[HoonDing]

Letho didn't seem harder in melee than a regular grunt, the difference was just that he could use bombs and signs.

 

The key is being aggressive to keep him attacking you in melee and prevent him from triggering Quen. His two-handed sword is pretty slow, it's easy to roll behind him and attack him in the back.

 

Riposte works well too.

[Kaftan Barlast]

That guide seems to ingore that shadows are a major, major GPU hog. If you force the size of the shadow maps to 128-256 youll se huge framerate imrpovements

[Orchomene]

I've played once with "Difficult QTEs" on and once with it off. The thing is, if you turn that off, you get like 5 QTEs in the entire game. I dont' think you get any in the cutscene, you just get a few clearly labelled and relaxed situations where you have to tap the mouse button a fwe times (quite slowly, I might add). Anyone complaining about them is bonkers... unless if you want QTEs but wish they were designed better, I guess?

 

To sum up a bit with QTE disabled :

- Prologue

Ballista, low impact if missed, only another group of soldiers to fight.

 

- Chap 1

Kayran fight, easy QTE

 

- Chap 1

Aaxi QTE with Iorveth lieutnant, not very visible but low impact if missed. First time, I missed it five times in a row before seeing that I was required to click on a button

 

- Chap 1

Iorveth path, burning house with elves. Dead first time because I've waited for the end of the discussion before clicking. Not really a relaxed situation.

 

- Chap 2 Don't remember

- Chap 3

Dragon fight. Not that difficult as far as I remember.

Maybe others I don't remeber.

 

What I don get is why with difficult QTE removed you still get some QTE ? Couldn't they just remove all the QTE for people that don't want QTE ?

[sorophx]

Did you think that Boo would forget to come and gloat because CDProjekt is pushing Bioware to the trash heap of history?

 

Think again!

you lost weight or something? barely recognized you, old buddy

Edited May 30, 2011 by sorophx

[Nightshape]

That guide seems to ingore that shadows are a major, major GPU hog. If you force the size of the shadow maps to 128-256 youll se huge framerate imrpovements

 

By the gods that'll make for some ****ty looking shadows

[Pidesco]

If you're going to set shadows to that, you are better off just disabling them.

[Tigranes]

Orchomene: Exactly. You've only cited one 'difficult' one, and to be honest the QTE is appropriate in that situation - without it you WOULD be quite relaxed, it helps make you as tense and in danger as you should be.

 

On my super low settings the shadows were 256 & 512 anyway, and they looked good enough.

 

Edit: Anyone tried the Better Combat mod? I'm not a fan of some of it as it seems to make Geralt even more powerful (in the vanilla, once you know your way round you can make him very strong), but it does tone down Quen and make other paths more viable.