What do you think about The Witcher 3 combat?

The Witcher 3 is top-tier in terms of writing, world-building, presentation, graphics, voice acting, exploration, side quests, quests, music and most things that make a game great. However it has one major flaw for me. The combat. It's a critical component of the game as well. You're a Witcher who makes a living off killing monsters.

While I think the game is fantastic, I think it getting all sorts of accolades and praise sets a dangerous precedent. A game can have one major and prevalent flaw and still be lauded by critics as one of the best(and I've seen people call it the best) RPG's ever. It's not a minor inconvenience like a questionable save system or a component of the combat(weapons breaking too quickly). It's the entire combat system. It's nothing short of terrible.

With that I ask, what do you think of the combat system in The Witcher 3? How much did it impact your enjoyment of the game? What do you think about the fact that it seems to be treated as an afterthought mostly.

I just came to get The Witcher 3 spoiled because of some arbitrary dumbass rule a dumbass made about when you can spoil the third in a series of longass RPGs.

Not to go off topic, but The Witcher 3 is on sale right now on X1. 25 dollars for complete edition. Is it worth it?

I disagree. I think the combat system is better than most non-turn-based RPGs. There are much better games for combat out there from other genres, but I think it should be held up against its peers

The combat is the reason why I sold that trash game and used the money to get Arkam Knight.

I don't think it's that bad tbh. I'm much more annoyed with the slow as molasses leveling system. I'm early in the game and I can't anything because levels are too low. Then it takes forever and a day to gain a damn level. I remember I had 969/1000 exp and I was trying to level up. I swam up onto a beach and it turned out to be occupied by a large pirate group. I fought and slaughtered like 30 pirates on that beach in a fierce battle while dodging crossbow bolts. By the time they were all dead I was at 984/100 smh

Yes

Why would you even compare its combat turn-based RPG's? You best compare it to action RPG's like Kingdoms of Amalur, Darksiders, TES or Fallout.

@Juub1990: Ok, I think I'm going to buy it. See what all the fuss is about lol.

@Juub1990: I didn't compare it to turn-based RPGs.

@Mercenary848: Arkham Knight is a shit game. :/

It was alright. A lot of the game is about knowing the enemy and adapting to fighting the enemy type in front of you. For instance how you fight a wraith was different than when I fought a golem or human opponent.

Sorry, missed the non turn-based part. I would argue it's worse than most decent action RPG's in terms of combat.

I thought it was great half way through the game, then it got too easy at the end.

I absolutely hate the combat in The Witcher 3. It's terrible and I had to stop playing the game because of it.

Combat and movement controls are very important and while the game may do other things very well, I don't think it should be receiving the near perfect review scores that it received when the combat and movement controls are so terrible.

I think the Combat System is okay, never had any issues with it really. People need to remember Witcher 3 isn't a hack-n-slash, it takes time when making a blow to your enemies and I like using spells but most of the times, I pretty much cast Igni, Quen, and Yrden for the most parts. When playing Witcher 3 on PC, I always use my Xbox Elite Controller and I can tell you it works really good and I feel it's best suited for this type of game since it's 3rd person.

Overall, I like the Combat in Witcher 3, I just learn to adapt within the games mechanics.

Saying the combat was average is an doing Witcher a favor.

@Juub1990:

To me, it's a bad version of Fable 2's combat system.

I enjoyed the combat....for an RPG, it's awesome.

In fact I enjoyed everything about the Witcher 3 and it might be my favorite game of all time.

I have another question. I've been hesitant getting Witcher 3 because I couldn't get into the Witcher 2 at all. Do you think there's a good chance I will enjoy Witcher 3 even though I couldn't get into 2?

I say get it cause Witcher 3 is a huge improvement over Witcher 2 to me that is. It is hard for me to go back playing Witcher 2 for me, that part I can say that.

@davillain-: Thanks. I'm going to go ahead and buy it.

Should open same thread for quite a few games, it is interesting how Witcher grabs all the shit, but yes it is pretty mediocre, feels sluggish, there's not much sense of an impact, it's quite slow paced considering Geralt is a witcher whose speed is supposedly vastly superior to normal human's.

It was fine. It's not the best in the world and it very clearly is the weakest component of the game, but it never detracted from my enjoyment of the game.

Played it on Death March and absolutely loved it.

It had some small hitches, but the Souls series is the only sword and board 3rd person RPG series that has better combat. And, I don't know if I'd count Nioh, because it is basically the same as Souls combat.

Apparently, doing combat for 3rd person RPG games in a semi-realistic manner is difficult without making it a mindless button mashing hack and slash.

Honestly, though, if you never played the game on death march, then you probably don't know how good it is. It's actually a good challenge on death march, requiring actual strategy to beat most enemies.

I like that it penalizes a hack-n-slash approach. You have to be willing to back off and circle your enemies, and use multiple tools strategically. Especially when fighting a group. I agree that the controls are a bit clumsy, but it's not much of an issue if you aren't trying to bulldoze your way through a mob. When I'm in the mood for DmC or something, I'll play that, but I really enjoy the more heavy and strategic combat of TW3 in its context. Reminds me of my time studying Kendo, when the realities of sword combat hit me (literally)

Funny. I made a topic awhile ago asking if where I should start on the Witcher. Got mixed responses. But after playing the first 2 I have no interest in 3.

I assume if the combats anything like the first two it is absolute ass. Yeah we all wish we were Geralt and boobies and such. Much bravado. Pass.

Worst combat ever in third person action game i have seen. and thats the reason why its one of the most overrated game of this gen.

that pretty much says how many third person games you have played

I didn't have any problem with it. I liked the floaty nature of how Geralt moved. I know it's not the deepest combat system ever, but it's not that terrible. I never truly understood the hate.

It's fine. Have I played better? Sure, but I really don't understand all of the bitching against it, and from this forum in particular.

The combat is fine, I wish the normal movement controls would be a little tighter. Been a while since I played the game and had some problems with them, especially after beating Zelda with its tight controls.

@DragonfireXZ95: I agree. I also didn't specify my playing situation: I was playing 60FPS with M&K - maybe it's a very different experience on consoles or other control schemes

I couldn't enjoy The Witcher 2 either, but I got caught up in the hype for The Witcher 3 and I tried it hoping that it would fix the flaws that made me not like The Witcher 2 (namely the horrible combat and horrible movement mechanics), but it didn't. The combat and movement in The Witcher 3 is still horrible and therefore I couldn't enjoy this game either.

I don't understand why this developer that is so great at designing other aspects of the game is incapable of designing good combat or even something as basic and critical as movement.

It's not good, the other aspects are just so great that outweigh that shortcoming for me, but it's understandable why one would opt to not play it due to that aspect being subpar, after all it's an important element of the game.

Same. Was playing at 60 fps with mouse and keyboard. The initial movement controls were a little strange, but CD PR fixed that pretty quickly with the movement change in the options. Although they didn't really seem to affect combat that much, mostly just running around in the world normally.

I loved the difference between the dodge and roll key. The fact that when you dodge behind an enemy, Geralt spins in a 180 circle so he's facing them is so cool. And if you dodge away from them, he doesn't spin. I thought it was a unique twist in dodge controls.

@howmakewood: you should know better than to reply to anything ghost write...

Anyway while the combat wasn't the greatest, people hugely exaggerates how bad it was...

@djoffer: Oh I know, it's just fun to poke at him as he hates everything 3rd person

It's serviceable. It's got issues, but I didn't think any of them were pervasive enough to hamper the overall experience.

Perfect combat. The blocking, dodging, parrying, requiring perfect timing. Can't ask for more in a game, and it's much better than stupid Arkham combat which it's all just two buttons spammed over and over. How anyone could even suggest that it's better is beyond reason. Wow.

The gameplay has terrible design, but people have been conditioned to kiss CDP butt, even though they have generally always been low/med developer, just a very loud one that thinks it's better than it actually is.

Skyrim is an objectively better designed game. Funnily enough, yet that's the one that gets the hammering, while Witcher 3's (plainly) terrible gameplay is ignored.

It's a disgrace, really.

I thought that it was ok, didn't really have any issues with it myself and it didn't detract any with the overall game which I found to be excellent. The only gripe I had with the game was that the underwater swimming felt awkward but that was a very minor gripe.

Skyrim has some of the most mindless point-and-click combat you can find. It's about as shallow as you can get

A few things:

• I hate the movement - even the alternate movement style is annoying. I know it looks more realistic, but it's a game.
• I felt that the combat system just wasn't that fun until the late game when I had lots of skill points to invest (late game Combat + Alchemy was fun).
• I think the quest design was better in the earlier Witcher games. Yes W3 is polished and streamlined, but I feel like it lost some of it's role playing. W3 is very much a follow-your-mini-map kind of game.

I enjoyed the game for the most part, but I did have to force myself to finish it.

@primorandomguy: YES.

I like the combat when the game demands you use everything.

Had no issues with it at all, it's responsive enough and passable when compared to the majority of real time RPG's (it's far better than Skyrim). Besides eviscerating bandits never gets old.

Personally, I found the combat system to be refreshing. It broke the mold of similar RPGs.

Nether have I. I'm not saying it's the best combat in Witcher 3 but I never had any issues with it at all and it's what I expected a Witcher to do in a combat, take your time and don't treat it like a hack-n-slash game. Geralt's movement is just fine so I too never got the hate for the combat at all.

But I'll say this, I play this with my Xbox Elite Controller when it comes to any 3rd person views, I don't if the hate comes from using KB/M but I just think using a controller helps out in my case however.

I don't dislike it as much as other people. It certainly didn't ruin the experience for me.

The combat was acceptably okay. I think it's highly disingenuous to say it's bad, and is the kind of thing contrarians say for the simple sake of shitting on what's popular.

It isn't combo heavy or complex as a control style, and yes it's not a big draw for the game, but there's enough enemy variety and passive designs you can build into that make it better than other mindless action button mashers or action-RPGS. And there's nothing particularly buggy or fundamentally busted about any of it either.