The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

My first reaction to this article is... So basically approach it how the other Witcher games play...

Why do these reviewers try and blast through games and then provide a review on only a few hours of gameplay, as if that's good enough. Games like these only come along every so often - soak it all in and take your time then you'll get to understand how it's meant to be played and appreciate it for what it is.
 
Someone on the eurogamer forum is reviewing it for their own website and they commented on how they received instructions with the game to play on the easiest setting so they could finish it quicker.
They also mention how with most reviews he receives instructions on how to defeat bosses, secret item locations and a play through guide instructing them where to go and in what order.
 
Sleepwalker said:
Not so positive?
If you read the whole article you'll see that he has fallen in love with the game, even after the harsh start. He started it all over and went in with a different attitude: a more slower, RPG-attitude, and the pay-off was huge.
Looking forward to it!
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I did read it.

Comments on tiny text, poor inventory and menu systems, terrible tutorials and titorials for things you don't touch for a further x hours, easy to accidently skip tutorials, painfully vague mission hints, poor difficulty spikes (not to mention to difficulty nose dive that reportedly occurs halfway in which reviewers have said they had to bump the difficulty up as it became far far too easy) poor auto save feature meaning you can unintentionally back yourself into a corner. Something that really should never happen in a game like this, there should always be an auto save held before you enter a cave etc. it's 2015, it's mind numbingly obvious to have something so basic.

I'd say those things are precisely 'not so positive' and not quite the flawless masterpiece most website are proclaiming. I've barely seen these issues or the graphical downgrade mention in other reviews, but I'd say they're well worth taking note.
 
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Not to be rude but it kinda sounds to me like you're looking for things to be wrong with the game rather than looking forward to the things that are right.
 
I'm looking for everything. Its just that most reviews/ previews are packed with praise but barely, if at all, have mentioned these annoyances. And they seem really stupidly annoying to be even in there.
I'd rather know about silly autosaves, difficulty spikes, poor tutorials, poor mission hints etc before I play, not a few hours in.

Reviews these days just stink of lapdog write ups designed to please the publishers and only mention negatives when they're huge issues. One man might not care about autosaving because they're an rpg master with hours of experience - but that's not me. I've not played the first 2 so I would never know these are issues that plague the series and just accept them.

If I'm going to spend £40 on this on Tuesday, id rather find out beforehand and then pick it up maybe a month later when patches have fixed it and I get a much better experience.
I'm sick to the back teeth of getting games day 1 and by the time they're fixed I'm tired of them and my experience is soured.

I'm sure the gameplay is great, the story supposedly awesome with your choices changing and all that. Gorgeous to look at despite the downgrades. The comments from those who got it early back those assumptions up... But they also echo the same negatives as that link did.
 
You can quite easily get it for a lot less than £40. Unless for some reason you're buying it on console? If so there's not much point buying it if you have issues with it before you've even tried it, at least on PC there's a strong chance mods will fix anything that's wrong.
 
Yeah I was getting it on ps4 so these issues are a pain.

I'm not sure what you're getting at with the line "if you have issues before even trying it".
Can we not see faults in something unless we buy it and experience it firsthand? If sdomeone said they have the game and it suffers from input lag, the framerate is all over the place and its full of bugs.. I'm supposed to ignore that until I purchase?


Its not like I'm saying these things ruin the game, make it unplayable. They're just ridiculous stupid issues that anyone with half a brain should have seen and fixed. Why even have tiny text, or silly tutorials for things you don't need for another 26 hours and by then you've forgot the tutorial or asccidently skipped it, or 26 hours in you get stuck in a cave and you're fucked?

You can have sex with the most beautiful woman in the world, except her breath stinks of shit.
Sure you can offer her a mint, turn your head away, pinch your nose etc. Or just 'deal with it'
But you shouldn't have to.


So much of the game sounds so so good though. The story and how your decisions affect it, sometimes hours later, is fantastic. As good as mass effect had it, it was always kind of signposted 'good choice' 'bad choice'.
Then I'm seeing people talking about how alive the world feels, and wandering off on your own adventure exploring is as good as, if not better than the scripted missions.

The combat sounds awesome with blocks and parries, finishers and its satisfyingly challenging.

I just don't like the sound of a couple of shitty negatives and am annoyed that reviewers have glossed over them as if its okay for them to be there. I'm glad that I found that linked article so I know about the autosaving so I'll never have that stupid issue myself, or that the vague mission hints are so vague I should just check online because you'll rarely figure it out until you exhaust yourself from trying every single option and randomly something triggers and you can finally progress.

I don't think those things sound like a load of fun, but obviously I'm wrong here.
 
Radiation said:
I'm not sure what you're getting at with the line "if you have issues before even trying it".
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I meant it in the sense that if you for example are 1. a huge Witcher fan or 2. a huge RPG fan desperate for the next decent RPG then you would have already set aside those problems in the context of the game as a whole, but if you're neither of those then of course it makes sense to be wary about spending premium dollar on a game you're not sure will click in all the right places for you.
 
Played it for one and a half hour on ps4. It looks nice and plays well - no issues for me so far. The disc will not leave the PS4 too soon.
Definetly a GOTY contender.
 
Just another five hours to go before I can play, the game has been installed since last Thursday. To lazy to change disk these days games like GTA5 and the Witcher3 have to be installed to HD.
 
Nvidia guide is out..
Lots of ini tweaks that make quite a difference...

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Overly colourful lighting needs toning down but that'll be easy enough with Reshader.
 
Ooops! Forgot I'd pre-ordered the Collector's Edition from CDON last June (and paid for it at the time) just got an email to say it's dispatched, unfortunately I have another one coming from the Czech Republic, well I guess two of the statues would make an awesome pair of bookends ;)
 
All gamers sink your teeth in and enjoy. Having a lot of Fallout moments right now. There is Triple A gaming and then there is this. Thank You CD Project!!!!!!!!!!
 
As soon as I got on the horse I immediately felt RDR - and that's a good thing. Also, I know this is such a small and arguably pointless point, but the mini map is brilliant. Doesn't look out of place or washed out, it's very detailed and crisp.

I'm only maybe 15 minutes in so I'm not sure if I've got to the prologue yet (which is the area you should absolutely RINSE prior to taking on any quests or main battles - picking up ability points, recipes, potions and crafting menus). I've completed the fighting and running tasks with Ciri in the dream, and then travelled to the Inn after helping the caravan salesman, Bren. I saved it when I got there so I've got a LOT to do still :LOL:
 
Is anyone playing on console noticing the FPS issues described in Digital Foundry's performance analysis, or is it not noticeable during gameplay?

Looking at the comments it's not noticeable during gameplay, otherwise surely the reviews would have made a bigger deal of it...

Digital Foundry: Witcher 3 Performance Analysis
 
I have noticed on my XBox One version, the cut scenes, especially the epic opening video, was quite jerky.
 
The day one patch on Xbone is messing up the cutscenes, and on PC there's also an issue which is fixed with a simple ini tweak:

in visuals.ini

[Visuals]
Gamma=1
MovieFramerate=30.0
MovieUbersampling=true

Change to 60.0 and false.
Click to expand...
 
Scutch said:
I have noticed on my XBox One version, the cut scenes, especially the epic opening video, was quite jerky.
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That's not so bad - it's more if it happens during gameplay (on console) that worries me.

Still working through The Witcher 2 so it'll be a while before I get around to this, but I'm hoping by that point it's patched and there's no FPS issues...
 
Played a few hours on PS4. FPS goes up and down during large fights with multiple enemies and I have had a few crashes during the card games and dialogue.

Love it so far though, plenty of content to explore.
 
Lots of chatter on other websites about toning down the camera sensitivity to 0.8 or 0.75 to improve "jerkiness" on all platforms, apparently it makes a real difference. Just in-case it helps anyone.

Reddit Witcher 3 Camera Sensitivity Protip

There's even a few posts on NeoGAF (scattered throughout this huge thread) that say turning all the controller sensitivity options to 0.75 helps with some of the "either creeping or Usain Bolting, no in-between" issues people have been talking about.

Still hopeful of a patch to help the FPS at some point, though. Judging by all the free stuff the devs have promised, I imagine they care enough to do it.
 
Aha yeah thanks Chris I do think that'll be useful on PC the movement is quite weird, doesn't help early on when you're trying to do something of an assault course.
 
Apparently the controller sensitivity tweaks help with "speeding past" things that you want to search/loot too, which is another issue I've seen people mention a few times (and something that keeps happening to me in Witcher 2).
 
Definitely turned that right down. Ran the Nvidia optimizer gizmo, and the game is beautiful. Really enjoying it so far.

Gameplay is a bit hard, but partly cause I'm crap. Am sure it'll become more natural, but fighting multiple foes is really difficult at the beginning.

So stoked for a big open world like this. Not quite as customizable/became what you want as Skyrim, but maybe hte next best thing.
 
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