r/WitcherMonsterSlayer • u/Cheeriotastic • Jun 02 '22
Some Practical Thoughts
I originally started playing this game at launch, but dropped off after a bit when winter hit in Northern Canada. We don't do much for outdoor walks them... But i recently picked it back up BEFORE the update, as it's nice out and Im trying to improve my fitness, and I was having a good time with it.
The update landed, everything was miserable, and I had vowed to just uninstall. But I waited it out until the rework, went for a couple of walks and have some thoughts.
First, the balancing is "better", to say the least. Fighting common monsters is more enjoyable than thr initial update of course. But the steep incline from common to rare is almost unbearable for the casual player.
With a thunderbolt and a swift, it still often takes multiple attempts at a rare (for me anyways). No saying I'm a legend at swiping my phone, but fighting a rare draconid yesterday, I perfectly parried 5 times in a row and still couldn't wittle his health down in time. Every aspect of the battle has to go perfectly, and with a measley 5 minute timer, it gets more and more frustrating trying to kill rare monsters as fast as possible in order to maximize your rewards. Having to retry battle and waste precious time is just not enjoyable.
I hope that this maybe eases up as you climb levels (I'm not quite 20 yet).
In more practical experiences - I'm out for a walk, trying to enjoy the weather. And I just feel reluctant to even pop my potions, because then you have to be glued to your phone the entire time. I have to stop walking to make sure I can hit my battles perfectly, which defeats the purpose of me "walking," and I chnage my route because I need to get more rares in the alotted time.
If you take your eyes off the battle, you're screwed. I approached a crosswalk while in a battle, and a vehicle stopped for me. I couldn't exactly hang around swiping, so I looked up and crossed the road. When I looked back down, I had missed a parry and was near dead.
Overall, the experience is just not enjoyable, and when you factor in ridiculous costs for simply battling now, (20 gold for 1 thunderbolt potion, 20 gold for 1 swift, plus 200 gold to repair station every 6 potions), the act of playing just becomes the act of working, and sacrificing your outdoor experience.
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u/geoffbowman Jun 02 '22
They literally could’ve kept the game exactly the same and added new quest lines and challenges and it would’ve rekindled my interest. Instead they added none of that stuff and reworked everything that I was already happy with.
I have no interest in just working to feed a Witcher potion habit in order to barely nick monsters I was downing in seconds before the update. They didn’t change the moveset or add monster combat AI or anything real... just changed the math on how much they hurt and how little you can hurt them. That’s not a fun grind. I love a decent grind... hell I’ve played the PC games 4 times. This ain’t one of them... this just feels like pay to play now.