Disappointed with The Witcher 2

I have to say I'm disappointed with The Witcher 2. Perhaps that was unavoidable considering I regard The Witcher 1 as the best game I've ever played and thus my expectations for a sequel were rather high, but even then I'm surprised at the fact I've no interest in completing TW2. I seem to be a lone voice in this regard however; the majority are thrilled with TW2.


When I played the demo of TW1 it instantly pulled me in. The atmosphere, the music and the mechanics persuaded me to buy the full game, and throughout that I always felt like I was in Geralt's shoes. I felt angry at Azar, I wanted revenge on him, I felt torn by the decisions I had to make along the way, I felt betrayed by the Grandmaster, I felt loyalty to my friends. I really delved into the game and thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience. I have played the full game around 3-4 times now, and everything just seems excellent about TW1.


When I played TW2 however, it was more trying to push me away. At first I felt totally lost when I woke up in the middle of the camp with Triss. I had to PM chautemoc to double-check I was on the right path. I played through a bit of the story, then started again to help build up the picture and catch anything I missed before. I've since played through to the start of chapter 2 and then stopped, because I felt so disconnected. The one time I felt I was in Geralt's shoes was when the Kingslayer was going after Triss and I had to race to stop him. Apart from that, I can't recall any moments when I felt strongly connected to the game like I was in TW1. I understand the story now, after playing it a few times, but I'm not in any rush to clear Geralt's name.


It's not just the story though, the entire package just doesn't sit right with me. I now suck at combat for example. The 'professional monster slayer' I played in TW1 is now a rookie who can't take down a few guards without sustaining injuries. 1v1 is easy; I found you can button-mash through any single combat, even boss fights. I kicked the Kingslayer's backside when we first fought, which made the fact that I had to lose that fight in a cutscene all the more annoying (in TW1 when you fight Azar in the swamp, he knocks you out with a bomb and then retreats, which I feel was a much better way to stall the fight). But as soon as there are three or more opponents, the difficulty ramps up and I have to do a lot of running around. I remember struggling with a cave of nekkers near the first major city, as well as a trio of wraiths in the forest which took me a few tries and lots of running to defeat. Tried throwing a few bombs but they always missed or didn't seem to do much at all. Tried signs which helped a bit, but they left me with little to no vigor, meaning I can't block enemy attacks, meaning I lose a lot of health. I seemed to always have to run around and make quick sword swings when one enemy split up from the group that was chasing me. I certainly didn't feel like a professional monster slayer in this game.


Also, perhaps I'm a bit on the slow side, but at several points in the game I had to look online for answers on how to proceed because after several attempts I couldn't work out what to do. As an example, part-way through the fight with the Kayran I kept getting battered by rocks as I was running around trying to find what I had to do next. The squid had amazing accuracy, because he always hit me no matter what I tried to do to dodge. After several deaths (meaning I had to start the whole fight again), I went online and found out that the shield sign would protect me; a sign I'd rarely, if ever used up until that point.


The whole alchemy / potion system seems too bothersome to use now. The fact you need to predict when combat will occur in order to take potions doesn't help. In TW1, if you were suddenly jumped by a powerful enemy, Geralt would grab a potion from the clasp on his shoulder, take a swig and then dive into combat. Now, if you get jumped by a powerful enemy, tough luck for you. Geralt needs to sit down and take out his box of potions, which you can't do if an enemy is nearby.


There are also lots of little things which bothered me, such as what they did with the witcher's medallion (from the proper 'vibrate around enemies' to 'make boxes glow'), the fact that dice poker is now a single game instead of best-of-three, Geralt's repetitive "Damn you're ugly" taunts, the choice of icons for alchemical ingredients, the cumbersome user interface (to quote Yahtzee: "NO! We do that from a different screen!"), the rush to choose a conversation option, the fact that you can't train indefinitely until you feel comfortable with defeating enemies. I also can't remember a single piece of music I heard throughout chapter 1, while I simply cannot forget the music from TW1.


I purchased the Collector's Edition of TW2, such was my admiration of the first game. I was thrilled when the box arrived (was even more thrilled when I requested a replacement sculpture and got a Witcher's medallion 8D), but totally underwhelmed when it came to actually playing the game. Perhaps after a few more patches I'll start up the game again and try to get into it more. But as things stand at the moment, I've played up to the beginning of chapter 2 and have no interest in continuing from there.

I actually had a hard time not feeling like was in the Witcher world just because of how stunning the game looked. Of course, the story line and characters were essentially for immersion, but the quality of lighting and graphics really amazed me.

Sorry you are not enjoying the game ACY3, but as chautemoc said, maybe 2.0 will changes things for you. It's live now.

I too have had a hell of a time getting into the game. But not for the same reasons the OP has stated. I simply haven't gotten past the tower seige. And below is an email from me to Atari as to why.

Hi,



I’m really to sorry to hear about your issues with our game. Frankly speaking, I have no problem with the camera controls – it works flawlessly in my opinion. If tweaking your settings doesn’t help, I would suggest contacting our tech support folks (tw2support@thewitcher.com). They should be able to help you. As far as lack of pause button – you can always use the escape key.



I hope you try to look past the issues you are experiencing and still enjoy Assassins of Kings.



Kind Regards,




Marcin Momot

Community Manager

CD Projekt RED Sp. z .





From: [mailto:]
Sent: Friday, August 26, 2011 2:40 PM
To: Subject: The Witcher 2 complaints





Although I seriously doubt that I will hear back from anyone in the company, I feel the need to register 2 complaints about The Witcher 2 game for PC. When I first heard that the game was in development, I was really excited and could barely wait for it's release. When it hit the shelves, I was there to buy it. I now feel it was a huge waste of my money and will now probably never buy anything from cdprojektred ever again. I will and freely admit that the graphics are awesome. I simply have not seen anything to compare with them.





Now these are my complaints about the game.


1) There is no Pause in the game. If you have to answer the phone or use the restroom, there is no way to pause the game until you return to continue. I have searched the game and the Internet and discovered that you guys have purposely removed pause from the game. You guys have seriously F#*KED the game up by doing that.


2) Camera control is out of control(no pun intended). If I barely touch the mouse, the camera goes haywire. I quite literally have not gotten past the prologue portion of the game because i have not been able to control the camera angles. I have tried to adjust the mouse sensitivity to no avail. The furthest that I reached, has been to the far side of the bridge when the dragon attacks. But I still wind up dieing from the incineration's. All because I can't control the camera to see where I'm going and/or doing.





I really do hope to hear from someone about these issues

I loved this game so much, some minor issues and a story that ends right when you feel you're getting somewhere. But aside from that this game is amazing, visually, story-wise, and I love the fighting system. Playing it with the xbox 360 pad really makes it more enjoyable. I don't know if you're all using the keyboard for this game or not but using the pad is really easy and it has a pause button and the camera angles are easy to adjust.


Minor flaws to me are:

• Short story
• Not enough options/choices to mold the game with the less important characters
• Slightly frustrating targeting system
• The camera being a pain in the arse when in tight places

And I really think that's it.


I haven't yet played the first game though, so the complaints about Geralt are falling on deaf ears here. I find it very easy to relate to him. It disappoints me to read you lot tearing it apart like this. At least all the professional critics have given it top marks. I'm massively surprised this is a fairly unheard of game too.

The environment is indeed amazing. The graphics and audio do a great job of creating a realistic world and I can't find fault with that at all.

I'm sure there's an amazing story in this game, but I just haven't latched onto it yet. The first post is entirely a retrospect on my first play-through which began with me feeling totally confused and then being unhappy at some of the changes which have been made to other areas of the game compared to TW1. Perhaps it's worth mentioning that my first play-through happened immediately after I finished TW1, so the differences in gameplay were more noticeable than if I had taken a few weeks break between them.

The more I practice combat the more I understand it's mechanics, although it still seems you have to run away 90% of the time when faced with three or more opponents. I maintain that some of the issues 'fixed' in patch 2.0 are still present to some degree, although perhaps not as prominently as in previous versions. The running away is what has caught me out the most; in TW1 you can pretty much go full offensive and cut down anyone in your path, which simply isn't possible in TW2. I'm getting better though; Aard + slashing is my preferred method.

I still don't like the new witcher medallion. I much preferred it when I was walking through a dungeon and suddenly it started twitching, telling me to prepare for a fight.