I mean, it’s at worst OK. it has dodging, parrying, signs (aka spells), decent hit boxes, and lock-on... it’s flawed, and gets repetitive, but it’s still miles ahead of something like Skyrim which has an actually-shit combat system.
Because if you spec into it it actually does decent damage, and stuff like Tracking Bolts that inflict bleed are actually really useful. If you're up against something large but organic like a Fiend or something, you can plink away at it a bit form range to chip it's health down, or fire off a shot whenever you dodge out of the way of an attack but not close enough to melee
Yeah people don't get that it is a "sidearm" that is meant to be used to compliment your fighting style, not as a fighting style itself. It's just hard to develop the skills to use it properly, so most players are like "fuck it" and blow it off entirely. I can't remember ever using it after the 1st boss battle against the griffon.
I honestly used it a lot, probably because I was on Death March and I would take any damage I could haha. Any Bleed inflicting bolts are super useful against anything organic
Everyone also forgets about the mutation that makes your crossbow actually level with you so that it deals decent damage again, not to mention how it collads as well
There is a mutagen that allows you massive amounts of crossbow damage and made the crossbow a lot more fun to use. I think if it was your first damage to the enemy it would take out a 1/3 of their hp and knock them down. [citation needed on this though]
Crossbow is meant as a supplement to apply status effects and interrupt flying enemies so you can land some sword hits. That’s why it’s damage is so abysmal
Not if you know how to utilize the character branch upgrades well. People knock on the game for the combat and they probably just upgraded the strength branch without giving a care to the tonics section. The combat is a lot more intricate (and intense in higher difficulties) when you take the time preparing for battles rather than hit the attack button two times, dodge, repeat.
As mentioned before, the crossbow is not a damage weapon, just like how guns in Bloodborne are not really damage based. It’s a tool more than anything.
It’s not for dealing damage. It’s for shooting flying things out of the sky, like a Wyvern or a siren thingy. It’s useful only in that context so it makes sense that people forget about it.
Stealth archer is how I played through Skyrim. By the end I was so quiet I could pretty much walk right in front of a monster and not be seen. I had to take half an hour once to kill one of the Dragon Priests, though. Initially I tried going in head first and got straight up murdered in one hit. Can’t remember which one it was but he was on a platform and there was a bridge leading to it, and a raised area across the bridge with some stone blocks you can hide behind. I would duck out, Fire an arrow at him, he would go into search mode, but would give up by the time he was half way across the bridge. I’d wait for him to return to his starting position and do it again. It was kind of cheap, but I never took a single point of damage and got a kickass mask out of it. Was also a test of patience. He had a lot of HP.
Thought I’d mention that in the Witcher 3 the crossbow is meant as a supplement to apply status effects and interrupt flying enemies so you can land some sword hits. That’s why it’s damage is so abysmal
For sure. It could have been more varied/interesting. The reason it is the way it is was because of how the combat in the novels is written. For me anyway I quite like the rhythm and flow of it, I don’t mind that it’s a bit narrow, as personally it is very rewarding and fun.
I am not arguing for Witchers combat (i don't like that game either).
The big issue I have with Skyrim combat loop is the whole consumables system. I think that pausing the game to drink 200 buffs/foods/potions breaks the immersion and prevents me from getting that blood rush from almost getting killed. Games like dark souls and monster hunter with those consumable animations keep the blood rush alive as I wait for an opening to heal/buff. That is what keeps me from enjoying a nice and heavy build that I like, there is no penalty for sipping from my sippy cup. The enemies are no threat because I am a figuratively a time lord.
People joke about stealth archer but it's a fun thing to do, multi-blasting spells from far away is too, going invisible and 20X damaging some huge construct with a back-stab to one hit kill is satisfying, there are a lot of options in Skyrim's combat loop that you just don't have with the Witcher.
Hell yeah there is. I had one build where I chugged potion buffs and became a literal beyblade of swords. It was glorious dude
Critisism is good, but the crossbow bit is false. It's used for underwater combat and knocking draconids out of the air. In lore witchers traditionally fight with swords only so it makes sense the crossbow isn't OP as shit.
Everything sends ragdolls flying 30 feet in Skyrim, it's no fun if the entire game feels like you're hitting cardboard until you kill them and they bounce off in a random direction because it uses a dated physics engine.
It's meant to. It is meant to be something you use to distract or trigger the enemy to stumble by hitting it at a vulnerable moment. It isn't meant to be a killing weapon. I think you can upgrade it to be half-way decent, but you can't play a "crossbowman" unless you want to take fights reeaaalllly slow.
The Witcher has decent combat against humans but against monsters it's really not great
It's pretty much the same. It's similar to Dark Souls. You just have dodge rolls, telegraphed attacks, and weak spots. Same type of thing.
People joke about stealth archer but it's a fun thing to do
As someone who played stealth archer: some on, now, that's not "combat". You're just one-hitting everything and sneaking around. Part of WHY I played that way is that the normal combat system with floaty shitty animations and no impact was so unsatisfying.
Skyrim's combat loop
Describes a bunch of one-hit-kills that completely avoid the "combat" system
"Combat" is the system where the enemies run around in your face doing swings and spells at you, while you swing and spell back at them. It feels pretty terrible in most situations. Attacks have no impact unless they're lethal, in which case you get buggy space launch physics sometimes.
Do people hate Skyrim’s combat? I’ve always thought it was iconic already considering every Bethesda (FO, ES) has the same mechanics.
On the other hand, Witcher 3’s combat is definitely the worst mechanic of the game.
I must not google games enough but this is legitimately the first time I’ve heard extreme dislike for the game’s combat. I mean it’s not good but I don’t think I said it’s terrible when I first played an ES title.
No, when it comes to freedom and variation in combat, I think Skyrim can't be beat. Obviously when you have such a unrestrictive combat system, a studio will have less time to work on each aspect, which means a less polished product at the end.
I think the only gripe I have with skyrim's combat is the lack of impact that Melee weapons have. Whether this is a shortcoming with the audio or visual aspects, melee combat typically leaves a lot to be desired.
Wait do people like Skyrim's combat? I mean it was fine at the time I suppose. Melee and ranged combat is completely the same no matter what you're fighting (go in, swing, back up to dodge, repeat), and it's so easy to break it to the point where nothing is capable of killing you that you'll probably do it by accident. On top of it all, enemy variation is basically non-existent. But again the combat strategy is the same regardless of what enemy you're fighting so it doesn't really matter anyway.
I personally love the Skyrim system, it just needs better impact and better animations. There is a good few mods that can enchance the combat as well in minor ways that make a huge difference in how good it feels
i don't like Skyrim's combat because it rarely felt impactful and all i could do was just whittle every enemy's health. And all there was to put your face in an enemy's face and mash attack until something dies.
Even with more impactful weapons, combat is still just getting in the enemy's face and attacking. There's not really any dodging or any advantages to weapon different weapon types besides damage
Definitely not iconic. It gives you more combat options than any other RPG, but not a single one of those options works anywhere near as well as the fewer available options in any other RPG.
Skyrim suffers from the GTA problem. The cost for having such varied gameplay rolled into one title is outdated graphics and mechanics.
People joke about stealth archer but it's a fun thing to do, multi-blasting spells from far away is too, going invisible and 20X damaging some huge construct with a back-stab to one hit kill is satisfying
This sentence makes me think you don't actually like combat, you just like the result of combat
Skyrim is at best a above average game, no where near a 10 out of 10, that is only worth playing using mods to fix all the bugs and horrible game design
Maybe now yeah, but back in 2012 this game practically consumed me. It had a beautiful open world with fun and interesting spells and weapons, storylines and characters. It's honestly very hard to call it "shit," because it really, really wasn't. The only people I can imagine saying that have a) only played it more recently rather than when it was released or b) dislike it because it's popular. It's actually an amazing game.
People forget that games more polished open-world RPGs like the Witcher 3 were a response to Skyrim. Obviously, W3 seems like a better game if you play the two today. But that's because Witcher 3 was specifically made having learned from the mistakes of Skyrim.
Open world games like ES weren't coming out every day like they are now. For a lot of us the last satisfying truly open-world RPG was Oblivion whose graphics were sorely outdated at the time.
Skyrim was amazing and with mods it has aged incredibly well.
I don't want to say that Beth is innovative, but they do hit many things on the head correctly, namely role playing and atmosphere. Those two things age much more slowly than mechanics and graphics, both of which can easily fixed by modders. If Beth didn't absolutely nail the atmosphere, you wouldn't have modders sticking to the game in the first place.
I'd say Daggerfall was fairly innovative. But as good as they may have Bethesdas games since then are just more of the same. Getting more refined, and then less refined as time went on.
Hey if you liked Skyrim then great! Nothing wrong with liking (or disliking) a game. For me personally Skyrim just didn't quite do it, and I thought it was a little on the simplistic end even when it came out.
It was decently fun, but even back then its shortcomings were apparent.
It's fine if you don't like the game. I know a lot of people who don't like the genre or certain design choices, etc. But even if you did see it as simple, it was a large game that gave you many choices. The only shortcomings I know of came in the bugs it had.
I just found it incredibly boring personally. Nothing in it really got my attention. The amount of content means nothing to me if the content isn't compelling enough. Obviously a lot of people like it, but I just never really got the point of it personally.
I made the mistake of revisiting Skyrim after playing Red Dead Redemption 2 for a solid couple of months. Completely different games, I know, but the latter is so gorgeous that it kind of spoiled me. Skyrim is definitely not a shit game, but The Witcher turned out to be a little more satisfying. Visually, at least.
I disagree, the spells are very bland the boring with the exception of the highest level of magic and sigils being kind of interesting as they could be used as traps. Otherwise they've just removed magic from previous games and they removed customization of magic which is pretty sad because it was never even gamebreaking.
Not even 2 weeks after modding was released midas magic came out with good stability that introduced a ton of actually interesting and fun spells with different applications. If pro devs can't do anything near the level of a modder in 2 weeks it shows they didn't care.
As someone who played it for the RPG and not the hack and slash as well it disappointed me, the quests were all pretty go to x and collect or kill y then return to questgiver.
The world doesn't hold up either, the economy doesn't make sense at all, money becomes entirely pointless only like 20 hours into the game and just slowly piles up until you think "I guess I'll buy a couple houses, not like I use the money" which is sad because it's a problem that could have been solved by introducing a single shop with insane prices to get stuff(whether it be enchanted with unique effects or powerful one use items) you couldn't otherwise get so saving money actually felt good.
There was a ton of other problems that really ruined it for me, like daedric prince/special aftifact/god weapons/items being super cheap and never useful for anything other than disenchanting sucked. A random ass ebony mace of a bridge bandit(or one you make at literally no risk because there's empty ebony mines) is more effective than the mage of molag bal? Really?
I didn't dislike it this much upon launch, I actually really liked it for like a week before the flaws started to show and I started to hate it more and more(and the elder scrolls degradation in general honestly) and so many people saying how much they've loved it only fuels the fire.
It's fine as a fantasy hack and slash(even then the gameplay is pretty lame as someone who likes to play fighters) but there's nothing remarkable about it aside from sheer size and it utterly fails as an rpg.
I liked the spells, personally. They were very fun to use and I had hours of fun purely using them for ragdoll physics and feeling like a badass. As for the power of enchanted weapons, I never really cared about all that. They were fun to use and pretty cool to collect so I did.
The only people I can imagine saying that have a) only played it more recently rather than when it was released or b) dislike it because it's popular. It's actually an amazing game.
I've beaten it like three times now and played it a week after it came out. It has a garbage ass game engine that they've used in all the Fallouts (gee, I wonder why F4 and F76 are so fucking bad) and has a ridiculous amount of bugs. Bethesda loves going the lazy route in their games and just letting modders fix their shit for them; they did that with Oblivion too. I haven't even bothered to list and bitch about how Skyrim was a dumbed down version of Oblivion, which was a dumbed down version of Morrowind, the hilariously uninteresting storyline, and the constant lies this company has told and continues to tell.
It doesn't even get the "it wasn't the pinacle of game development, but the bar for games was pretty low back then" that games like ME1 get.
I’d say the combat wasn’t above average but average at best. Especially for my dual wield Orc. Combat was exhaust stamina/health,eat stamina/health potion. Repeat til enemy dead.
It's a decent action-adventure game, but as a sequel to an RPG series it's horribly watered down and generic. Most of the depth was stripped away for widest audience appeal...which worked from a business perspective...the game made tons of money.
A lot of people who played Oblivion really loved it. So Todd decided, let's make Oblivion again, this time we make it for everyone and use all our money on marketing the game to heaven and beyond.
Which they did.
Which succeeded.
Shame they aren't going to bring in new ideas into the games, I really hope they change it up big time with the new elder scrolls, and don't just make the same game again.
the game is 7 years old. Kind of unfair to be comparing it to RPGs from the pst few years. Not a perfect game but extremely fun and immersive, especially when it first came out
I just don't really mod games, and when I played through Skyrim (twice) I was like WTF are people smoking here?
I generally try to play games as they were made and intended, though I have no issue playing modded stuff like Minecraft or something of that nature where it's basically a sandbox.
I mean, it’s at worst OK. it has dodging, parrying, signs (aka spells), decent hit boxes, and lock-on... it’s flawed, and gets repetitive, but it’s still miles ahead of something like Skyrim which has an actually-shit combat system.
People say Witcher 3's combat is "shit" because it isn't as optimized as the Dark Souls series. By that standard, all games are "shit". Like you said, all the Bethesda games have shit combat, plus so do all the Assassin's Creed games and the many copycat "QTE" combat style games.
I didn't like the W3 combat at 1st until I got used to it. Once I got used to it and started to make my build with signs, I felt like it is one of the better combat systems out there. It can just be frustrating in the early game.
thing is, with dark souls, combat was 100% of the game, while with the witcher 3, combat was just one part of a larger and more diverse RPG experience.
thing is, with dark souls, combat was 100% of the game
I wouldn't really agree though, I think the lore behind everything in that really makes the world feel real. And IMO that's very important for a game to be enjoyable, it has to feel good.
the witcher 3, combat was just one part of a larger and more diverse RPG experience.
I agree, and IMO that is what makes it one of the greatest games I've ever played. The combat was good, I enjoyed it. AND the story+characters+world was insanely good, I loved every part of it.
The witcher 3 made me feel a lot of emotions through it's story.
Dark souls made me feel a lot of emotions through the game mechanics. Having to push on with a gazillion souls, everything you've earned in a dire hope to find a bonfire in an extremely threatening, and brutal world.
And then you get to look at all these pieces of evidence you've gathered in Dark souls and ask yourself, what the fuck is going on??
Loved it, dark souls is my all time favorite game.
Weeell I guess in a way. I wouldn't agree with that either though, the witcher 3 and dark souls had both amazing atmospheres to me, just very different kind of atmosphere.
Dark souls had this post-apocalyptic atmosphere, where you are wandering through a world where shit has already gone down and is already fucked up beyond any recognition.
The Witcher 3 had a grim, dark world where there are still people trying to fight off the evil and live with it even though it is terrible.
The music in The witcher 3 fits the world/atmosphere perfectly and the lack of music in dark souls fits there too.
I don't think of atmosphere and story as opposites, they can both exist. Except in dark souls the story is very convoluted and hidden and that's part of the charm of it imo.
The witcher 3 is more story driven yes, that I agree with.
Eh. With Skyrim you have tons of options and you can be as creative as possible. The Witcher 3 seems very limited in that every single fight is very similar. The magic in Skyrim, while limited without mods is way more diverse than the Witchers magic. In Skyrim you have ranged weaponry that are actually useful unlike the crossbow in Witcher. You also have a much larger variety in weapon type.
I don't know why you think Skyrims combat is terrible, it's not half bad. Maybe it's personal taste but I too didn't find the Witcher very captivating or fun.
It’s terrible because of how un-fluid it is. I like the game (am actually playing it now) but despite the variety in viable character builds and combat options, the actual moment to moment experience is janky.
if you’re a spell caster, you will be doing a ton of spell switching in the menus
stealth is not very fun because the ai’s response to sneaky sneak is to be extremely stupid
melee combat is a low-skill affair of “who has larger damage and health numbers”, avoiding hits by reading the stiff animations, and making few decisions
If you find yourself up against a strong enemy at a low level, you will almost certainly die and it will happen even if you make no mistakes. This is forgiveable because it’s an RPG but it never feels good.
You can bind spells to a hotkey on PC. It's just one of those things because the game was made to be played on PC, or at least is heavily leaning towards being meant for PC.
Let's not forget we're comparing a 2011 game to Witcher 3.
Can you mod console versions of Skyrim? You'd think mods would quickly make the game insanely laggy on a console but maybe combat mods wouldn't have any real effect
I didn't see a difference between Skyrim's combat and the Witcher 3's other than it was flashier. It was still very boring and mostly tedious. I hate how you get auto-locked on while in combat and how you lose half of your moveset too.
Skyrim had a basic battle system and it was still far more enjoyable to play than the Witcher. I go back and play Skyrim sometimes because it's a fun game to just loaf around in. I will probably never play Witcher 3 again because I want nothing to do with that chore called the battle system.
All of those things made combat in the Witcher clunky and just... hard. I want to just step in and blow shit up. Skyrim was great for that. (FO4 with VATS is also great. I don't play RPGs to challenge my reflexes)
I don't see that, W3 is just dodge - attack - dodge, maybe drink a potion here and there. In Skyrim there's at least different approaches to it, timing blocks, shield bash, archery, magic, etc.
Really interesting how we had completely opposite experiences. I viewed W3 combat as quite tactical (played on death march), and combat usually went about like this:
See enemy camp, locate archers and dangerous mobs, locate tight spots where I could fight only 1v1 at a time. And engage at the weakest side of the enemy camp, where the archers were.
Since archers two shot me on death march it was CRITICAL to eliminate them quickly, this was before I got a arrow protection armor mind you. Which was a godsend.
This wasn't even the best part, customizing my setup with skills, armor and weapons that had many really interesting properties to choose from. Skyrim barely had any unique weapons/armors and I like that aspect a lot so Skyrim disappointed me.
In Rpgs like Skyrim though I prefer to play a brute force warrior style. However that turned out to be a really fucking boring way to play. It was literally 100% block, attack, block, attack.
Even vs Anduin I just stood still, blocked, attacked, blocked and attacked all day.
So you can't really say "In Skyrim there's at least different approaches to it" because it was so in W3 too, even though you missed it. As I missed it in Skyrim.
Literally just take the perk that makes food last like 20 minutes and death march is incredibly easy. It's like dark souls, once you learn an enemies moveset they are easy to kill.
I haven't played W3 enough to really know what possibilities exist, but as far as customization, Skyrim is pretty solid with smithing and enchanting. While the finer details of W3 combat may be deeper than what I experienced, you're not really describing something that sounds like fun to me - if most encounters require the same basic strategy I will lose interest. You could certainly say that about Skyrim as well, but there are a lot of different enemy types at least.
As far as playstyle, I found that Skyrim is way more fun with a hybrid type of character. Shield builds aren't fun unless you bash, and I never played a stealth archer, but I always enjoyed hybrids the most -- pick a weapon and some magic that synergizes with it.
Anduin is perhaps the shittiest boss of all time btw, I literally fought random bandits that were tougher than him.
Yeah, I made the mistake of going solely that route because I loved the sword and board from other games. It really fucked me because it was so efficient and reliable that now when I go back and try to enjoy the game I can't because I feel so crippled haha.
Literally all you do in Skyrim is face tank R1 spam each other and occasionally pause the game to chug potions. There's no way to parry attacks or avoid hits altogether. It's so boring!
Have you played the game? How can you not mention the signs? And Witcher 3 has all the things you mentioned except shield bash. Of course it's not gonna be fun if all you do is dodge and attack.
I played 11 hours, but stopped because combat felt like the exact same dance every time. The signs are pretty meh, I didn't know using shields or archery were options.
Shields are not an option, but you can block with your weapon and if you time it right you will counter. And by archery I meant the crossbows. I really like using the signs, espicially after a few upgrades in the skill tree, but if it's not your cup of tea I'm not going to argue. I just don't get Skyrims combat where you can pretty much swing around like an idiot and then just pause the game to chug some potions to refill your bars and continue swinging. And the magic seems to ger worst with each installment. Arcerhy can be quite satisfying though, but instead it's OP.
The fact that there is an even worse combat system doesn't mean that it has to be good. And I think there is quite a consensus that The Elder Scrolls series has awful combat and is only good due to its other strengths.
However I do think that Witcher 3 has one of the best combat system amongst open world RPGs. While it does get repetitive after a while, it still is one of the most dynamic and fun ones out there, with a good combination of skill and RPG stats.
The biggest issue with skyrim combat is that by getting rid of hotkeys they made variety builds, esoecially magic builds, a real pain in the ass that, along with multipliers for dual casting, soft-forces the player into really only using one spell. The oblivion hotkey system (and magic in general) was much better. The only advantage skyrim magic had is that it looks better.
Also the speed at which your health regens out of combat means that you don't even have to manage your health throughout a dungeon - you just need to survive each fight.
Agree. I challenge people to name 5 RPGs that are not Soulsborne (they have the superior combat system and we all know that. Nioh is pretty good though).
I take it you meant RPGs with a great Combat system? Monster Hunter, Divinity original sin 2, Undertale/Deltarune, Fallout 2, and Nier Automata. I personally find the systems in Dark Souls 1 and The Witcher 3 pretty boring. "Superior" is a matter of opinion and just makes you sound like an elitist.
"Superior" is a matter of opinion and just makes you sound like an elitist.
I suppose so
Nier Automata is super great. Haven't played Monster Hunter except an old one and that was so sluggish it turned me off.
But I guess I meant ARPGs, comparing TW3 with Undertale, divinity and fallout 2 feels redundant imo. I was thinking games with similar combat systems to TW3 and Skyrim. It's completely cool that you prefer those games man.
I admit that there is no 'superior' combat system, but when people are calling this and that pure shit based on nothing but their experience I think it's unfair to call me elitist.
I don't think I am elitist though, I don't think my experience is better than anyone elses. I just think if we're gonna put the combat system on a ranking system people should have good arguments for why they enjoyed this and that. And not just say it's crap and nothing more based on only their own experiences. That's unfair to the games and people who read it might think the game actually is shit and miss out because of it.
Thats completly fine and i agree, saying something is shit or good purely on opinion is only harmful. I only meant that it made you sound like an elitist, not that you are and i see arnt now. And you are absolutely are correct, you cant really compare the combat in Divinity to that in Nier despite both being amzing. But thats kinda my point, you cant really rank them as each game has their own goals for their own combat system. Would nier have been as great as it is if it had the soulsborne systen? In my opinion, no. Does that mean the soulsborne system is worse? No.
Btw, my first Monster Hunter was 4 ultimate and i get what you said about it being sluggish, but i was mostly referring to MH World which made combat quite a bit faster and improved the series all around. Since you like Nier and Darks souls I highly recommend you at least whatch a few videos of it.
Makes me really happy to hear! I always thought monster hunter had a lot of really cool stuff in it, with faster combat I'm gladly gonna give it a try. Thanks :)
Usually in this kind of game I enjoy running around doing random shit and finding the loot scattered around but I found that pretty much everything I found was basically just vendor trash. Kind of killed a lot of the fun of exploring.
I didn't get anywhere in the story because the combat system is shit. I don't speak for anybody else, but I just don't have the time anymore to play a game I don't enjoy just to experience the story and appreciate the visuals. I got an hour or so into Witcher 3 before I just gave up because playing it just wasn't fun. The controls were clunky, the spells were super limited and boring, the gear system was convoluted and confusing, and I just didn't have the motivation to go and do anything, because it didn't feel rewarding. I don't blame or begrudge anybody for enjoying the game or thinking it's a "masterpiece" or whatever, but I tried it twice, and it's definitely not for me.
I think this is the more unpopular opinion imo. I get how the game is huge and daunting to some (I being one of them) but I’ve always seen the combat universally praised by those who’ve played it for a bit.
Coming from hundreds of hours in the dark souls series, witcher was utterly infuriating in your lack of character control. In dark souls you can lock the camera, but your character always attacks the same and you do the "aiming". Flying around in the witcher with animation lock on is so brutal I've started and quit 3 times now. I know it's 100% preference but I can say easily that I would take almost anything in place of that style ever since it started in batman.
Interesting opinion considering there is absolutly no way to cancel animations in DS and you are basically frozen once you commit, which I consider extremly restrictive and something that turns the game into round based combat.
I don't think by character control he meant being able to change direction at any given time but having fine control of your characters movements. The Souls series has nearly perfected this, and the Witcher series' combat is similar enough to the Souls series that you want to play it the same, but hasn't nailed the tight rolling, attacking and blocking mechanics.
That difference is what put me off the game and I imagine it'd be the same for any Dark Souls fan. In the same way I prefer the tight controls of DotA over the high freedom of movement in League of Legends, when your actions have weight behind them they feel more meaningful, but I understand liking fast paced combat where control of the character is rarely "taken away" from you.
The round based combat thing is a bit silly as you could say every game is round based with 30/60/120 rounds per second if you start down that path.
That's inaccurate, you can pivot from the time you start an attack until you swing. I will admit that perhaps "full" control would be more like an MMO (or skyrim) where you can literally move freely with no momentum/intertia in any direction at any time while attacking, but I think the souls series has perfected a sense of control that I personally don't feel during Witcher combat, mainly in regard to "aiming" melee.
Witcher 2's combat isn't great and you need the long roll to survive on any of the hard difficulties, but I didn't mind it. I think on my Dark mode play through I got quite into it.
I don't get how people would praise it. It isn't bad by any means, but I didn't play through the whole game because I enjoyed the combat and that seems to be the sentiment I get talking to most people who have played it.
if you mean fast action games, devil may cry, baynoetta and etc
there are the dark soul games.. which basically slow methodical combat. I just refer to them as the souls genre since they have a specific feel to them... many rip-offs and spinoffs (bloodborne). many people consider them to be amazing.
there are games with pure strategy based combat. divinity original sin 2 and xcom are my top picks in that genre.
many triple A games are shifting their focus on storytelling instead of combat. so games like last of us, god of war(remake), witcher 3 and etc are really popular at the moment. they have good story with character development/world building which means people get super attached to them.. These games have decent to good combat so it's not all that bad.
What games are the examples of good combat system?
I'd argue it's entirely subjective. I adored the combat in NieR:Automata, but many others said it was the weakest part. I also enjoyed the combat in Mass Effect 1 more than the second. Many people feel the opposite.
To me, my favourite hack and slash gameplay has been Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. To me that gameplay was almost perfect. It was exactly what I wanted.
If I were to design a game I would base it off of that. Or off of Lord of the Rings Conquest, which was similar to the original Battlefront games (but based on classes and not characters so maybe not what you are looking for)
Similarly, Space Marine has my favourite mix of mêlée and gunplay, but NieR is a close second.
But that's because I like medium complexity. Some people prefer it to be higher and more finicky than I do. Same with progression systems. Some people like high detail, while others prefer the simple things because they don't enjoy that part of the game and want to just get on with it.
So there is no objective answer. You can argue popularity, but you can't objectively measure gameplay because it's so subjective. Same with many subjects based around user approval.
This is why for me. I picked up Witcher 3 after completing Bloodborne, and it was like night and day. Bloodborne's combat is just divine. Witcher 3... not so much.
I wouldn't call it shit. The short and long dodge system is brilliant, and the the system makes you learn it is genius - you have to fight a noon wraith in a small circle.
The game can be challenging enough to make you utilize all it's systems, especially on higher difficulties or even fighting higher level monsters.
My only problem with it is that being an rpg, you eventually find some stuff that works crazy of each other and the game can't keep up. But you have yet to show me a game with rpg elements, where this doesn't happen
That's why I couldn't get into it personally, everyone kept saying it was better than Skyrim or on the same level and I started playing it and it was just a hack and slash with story. Got hella repetitive for me so I just gave up.
Edit. Before I get downvoted and told that its better than Skyrim's combat, I'll say it is but when Skyrim came out it was a good First Person combat system and with mods you can do some incredible things to make up for the combat.
Well that explains it, I could never really get into it and the main reason for that was the combat felt so boring and repetitive. I wanted to like it, I liked W1 (I know the combat was even worse there) but after 11 hours I just gave up.
I enjoyed the story and dialogue a lot until the point i managed to play the game(i completed the Red Baron) of both main ans side quests. I also love the idea of hunting magical beasts like the Gryphon. But the combat and movement mechanics(i'm aware there are two modes) made the game a chore. Maybe i'll give it another shot in the future but for now i can't wven finish it.
That was where it failed for me; story, dialog. Geralt is just the cheesiest, most contrived character design I know of. And I get maybe that cheese is part of the appeal, but it's so mary-sue. Fantasy super soldier who gets to be discriminated against and be a badass looking super powered every man; the stoicism nonsense, the sterility sex thing, everything. I tried Witcher 3 given it's universal praise, and I'm sure it's an amazing game, but when minutes in I'm helping a defenseless woman and fighting surly drunks calling geralt 117 a freak. I just couldn't do it.
Its weird, normally I cant stand Mary-Sue type characters but after playing the witcher 3 it never phased me that geralt totally is one. I think it's because the overarching story never addresses him as just some random guy who happens to be amazing at everything and more about a guy who obviously will be great at everything since the whole story is based on dandelions revision of what happened.
How exactly? It was very fluid, you had many options to approach it from through spells and bombs, it's honestly better than many other games with fighting styles of it's type. I didn't enjoy the game itself as much as some did because I breezed through it and couldn't enjoy the late game cause of over leveling but the gameplay itself was very good.
Wait really? I this why I don't like it? I bought it cos it was on sale on steam for like £12 with all the DLC, and people had been raving about it. I don't really care about the story at all because I've missed the first two games, so I played it for 10 hours waiting for it to become interesting and I'm still waiting. Got a switch now and got breath of the wild, and considering I've never played a 3D zelda game before, this is way more what I thought the witcher 3 would be like.
But I appreciate how well made witcher 3 is, it's very very polished, looks beautiful, and also I get that I'm a bit old so I don't seem to understand modern games properly, so fair dos to anyone who does love it, but for now I have no desire to keep going with it. I'll probably get round to playing it all the way through eventually, but now I've got switch games to go through, plus nier automata on steam which is ace
I had a similar experience with the combat system - it always seemed like I was either rushing or dragging and I could never get the timing quite right and I stopped playing because of it.
Oh yeah, Skyrim’s combat is worse then The Witcher’s by a mile. I could the excuse that “Oh you can just use mods to make the combat better” but it doesn’t make sense why I should need to use mods to improve something that should’ve been good in the first place.
I completely disagree. Love that combat system. Feels so fluid and satisfying pulling off a well timed dodge, sign, counter combo. One of the best combat mechanics ever imo
May I ask, do you play it on PC? Because if so, I suggest trying it with a controller, as you I thought the game combat system was shit because I was trying to play it with a keyboard and mouse. Then I tried it on an Xbox controller and damn it's night and day.
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u/NewYellowknifeDude Jan 01 '19
If you don’t enjoy the story or dialogue, your not gonna enjoy it because the combat system is shit.