HoloDust said:
curl-6 said:
I had a few minor niggles with it, like the combat, while very competent, not having as much depth as some other more involved action titles. Still one of the top 10 greatest games of the 2010s in my book though, and probably my #3 open world game ever made after only BOTW/TOTK. If they bring it to Switch 2 I'll give the new expansion a go for sure, really loved both prior ones. (To answer the poll, while both were terrific, I thought Blood and Wine was the better one) |
Not aimed at you, but I remember people coming into Witcher 3 thread back when it released and bitching how combat is not like Bloodborne (usually from people whose first Souls was Bloodborne and first Western made Action-RPG in vein of Witcher was Witcher 3 - AKA, tourists) - which was both quite hilarious and infinitely annoying. IMO, Witcher 3 has more than just satisfying combat for its genre. Problem is many people not familiar with the genre (specifically Action RPGs made in West) come into genre expecting full fledged focus on combat like what pure action/action-adventure games have, forgetting that main focus of such Action-RPGs is RPG part, with serviceable action part, and sometimes purposefully different combat than what action titles offer. However, I do get it - games like Witcher 3 (and games that came after it and tried to copy it) are made for mainstream audience first and not RPG enthusiasts, so no wonder that most people who played it fall into former, so their expectations can be very different than what people who are into genre are accustomed to. |
Yeah, I think there is also a bit of a miscommunication of what an RPG fan considers "depth" and what an action fan considers "depth"
For many action fans: more moves = depth,
But for a lot of RPG fans having 16 basic attacks, most of them attached to combos, is bloat.
Just to cut away from RPGs, to explain my experience with 2D fighters in the 1990s as an example of what I mean:
Leg/arm length, movement speed, basic attack agility, stun times (not just electrocution, but from simple basic attacks), whether this character had ranged attacks, whether this character had rapid attacks, how long they different kick strengths hold the kick in the air → and timing the shorter duration but stronger jump kicks, position of characters and how much space I had to retreat, or how much they had to retreat...
Does adding 37 more moves, and attaching them to button combinations increase the strategic depth of the game? No.
Does holding forward on the for two seconds, then a back rotation of 270 degrees to the up position while holding down light punch and tapping fierce three times to make your character fly at the enemy, auto-execute a hold and then auto-execute 17 punches and 14 kicks, setting the enemy on fire and taking off 48% of their HP seem like more depth? No, it feels like luck while button mashing.
I usually go to Chrono Trigger's 2 basic moves and 8 basic techs/magic (along with move-combos with other characters) and the character vs enemy placements/contexts on the screen to give an example of a rather simplistic set of options but very complex outcomes. Then there are games like FF6, FF7, FFT, FF8, and FFX which have more complex character building → Witcher 3 is like all of these games wrapped into one, in the Secret of Mana/Terranigma action RPG genre:
In short: you have your basic melee mechanics, movement, defensive mechanics & counters, your signs, your 4 quick-use slots where you can sign alchemy (including bombs, oils, potions, and decoctions) or resources (items). You also have stamina and adrenaline management, and abilities you can equip to your character or your weapons → in short, it's an evolution of FF7's materia system and FF8/FFT's class skill/junction systems.
So, with signs: you can upgrade them and learn different levels → for example, your basic fireburst (Igni) can be upgraded to have firesteam (a flamethrower option) among other options you can equip. There are also other upgrades that allow things like melt armor or increasing the rate at which you can ignite an enemy; and these upgrades have sub-levels... And this is true for every sign. But the upgrades aren't just standard linear systems, you have a limit to what you can upgrade, especially early on... You can buy/find items to reset it, and redistribute points. Generally, this can be adjusted by you, the player, around how you want to play the game (much like FFT/FF8), you can specialize or be a generalist, and it's all good.
Basic melee attacks: fast attacks, which are chainable, quick, low damage, but can generally keep many types of enemies stunned long enough to deliver a few. Strong attacks which are good for breaking parries, dealing heavy damage with a single blow. You have your silver vs steel sword... while silver works on everyone, it is much less durable, and steel isn't effective against monsters → it seems a bit gimmicky at first (something stuck in the games from the books), but note that you can customize your silver sword differently from your steel weapon... also, your steel weapon can be many different types of weapons (you can even get a shovel!), and among the silver swords there are many many different types as well... and just as many (if not more steel swords). Many weapons have innate abilities built in (that's different from the basics, though). I'll add there is also ranged (crossbow) and mounted combat.
Defense: you have you have parry, counters, dodges, rolls. Plus, buffs and debuffs (including things like fire, bleeding, poison), as well as things like Quen (a forcefield which blows the enemy back if they strike it).
Potions work similarly to other games: healing and buffing and grant special abilities. Oils buff against certain classes of enemy. Decoctions grant skills, debuffs against enemies, and so on. Currently, I do the Ekimmara & Echidna decoctions (one gives you vitality for every move that consumes stamina, the other basically gives your sword a vampire ability... hitting enemies drains a portion of their vitality and gives it to you).
Now I brought up FFT and FF8's ability system, basically you can take a few abilities (FFT is set at 2, FF8 has the number expand based on your GF advancement → both on AP points, much like FF6's Esper system or Tech points in Chrono Trigger), Witcher has the number advance based on your character advancement (since Witcher doesn't have an Esper/GF system), but you have four categories each with 5 categories of skills, and 3 of the 4 categories sub-category has 5 different skills while the fourth (General) has 4... or, 95 different skills. This is on top of most of the skills having 3 or 5 different tiers (basically, you invest points, you can have a lot of basic tier 1 skills, or a few higher tier skills... depending on how far you are in the game. A player halfway through New Game + will have WAY more points to invest than someone only 25 to 50 hours into their first game). On top of that, there are different mutagens with different stat boosts you can equip that compliment your skills. And later on you can get different mutations as well which also increase your innate abilities and stats. This is not a simple system, this is FF8/FFT on steroids... you can do many many different combinations, "builds" the fanbase refers to them as.
Additionally, you have weapons and armours with innate abilities, and the ability to add to that by inserting runes (this is your FF7 materia system, except without the magic system being tied to it, so it's specific, and less of a general use thing... as the magic system is located elsewhere). You can also have a character (the Runewright) which can enchant your weapons, which are basically a type of rune (materia). I have severance on a Blade from the Bits and Aerondight sword, which extends the range of my whirlwind attack by 1 meter.
Below is an example of the raw whirlwind (without quick attack range extension enchantments) which I love using in Toussaint, especially amongst swarms of Hanse (like this guy is doing at the ruins in the North end swamps of Toussaint).
I find it's even more satisfying than Ciri's blink attacks (the one she gets later where you hold down the attack button extending the moves range, and then releasing to have her teleport multiple times and hit enemies all over the place... basically that cool teleportation move the Weapon XI/Deadpool character was doing in X-Men Origins).
Anyway, bombs are more or less just another "tech" (to use Chrono Trigger terminology), they have area of effects, damage, and cause something to happen (like a de-buff, a stun, a silence, exposing a weakness).
Then there are other bars that matter: Stamina → which is the bar that determines how many moves you can use... it's like Secret of Mana with greater depth, rather than bar-fills, execute a powerful version of the move and bar empties, it is that different moves cost different amounts of your stamina. Toxicity → When you use various potions and decoctions there is a cost, your blood becomes more toxic for a time, and if you stack on too many you poison yourself killing your vitality (which is your HP). Then there is Adrenaline → during battle, the more you do, the higher your adrenaline, and the more damage you can deliver among other effects and durations, but it can be lost if you're hit.
And this is on top of the wide range of enemies and different actions and behaviours of those enemies. Now, when you're playing story or basic mode, generally you can use basic attacks to kill everything. So, if you're doing that, and you say "this game is shallow", you're judging the game's baby mode. Put the difficulty up, you will be required to dig much further into the depth of the systems, more building and preps will be required... because otherwise, that game will beat the shit out of you → and you'll eventually reach areas where you get one-hit killed.
In other words, Witcher has a lot of lateral depth (range of abilities), as well as linear depth (power of abilities). But the game's depth requirements to the player are adjustable by the difficulty setting of the game. You can still explore the depth on easier difficulties, but it's only necessary to go into all of the systems and deep into builds while playing on Death March.
When experienced players say "Death March isn't any more difficult than the basic game difficulty", that's true if you're using all the systems. I mean, some bosses will still kick your ass on basic if you're just using basic moves, you'll have to delve a little into the systems... but not that much... Playing basic mode the same as Death March is overkill. In other words, a traditional RPG's difficulty depends on how high your experience levels are: this is also true for Witcher, except instead of just one linear experience path, there are several major systems (that's why I bring up F6, FF7, FFT, and FF8... because these are games that increased the numbers of systems the player can delve into).
TL;DR → Depth of gameplay isn't just "more moves", but rather how lateral and linear development systems integrate into the planning stages and immediate gameplay. Also, that difficulty determines the depth of the game: the game is simple on basic and story difficulties, but complex on Death March.
