The Witcher 3 - What am I missing? No fun??

[eschatological]

I like RPGs, but the combat in this game is so bad that every time I hit combat (the first time in the village on the way to the stockade, IE), I turn the game off because killing a pack of wild dogs is way too clunky.

[Halicia]

Voice acting for games is still a joke outside of a few high profile JP developers, Rockstar, Naughty Dog and SSM. Most don't want to pay high price actors for multiple takes to get it right.

Voice acting is bad in both W3 and Baldurs Gate tho imo /shrug. A few notable performances but the casts as a whole are bad.

Anyways it seems this is the typical "I don't like this, why is this popular" post something being popular does not mean everyone likes it.

Especially in the case of RPG's, I feel that voice acting isn't just a financial question, but a question of whether you want your audiences forced into hearing your characters in only the way you present them, instead of the way they actually perceive them. With most RPG's, I prefer the main character to speak as little as possible, because it will generally conflict with the image I have of them in my head, or subconsciously mold me into experiencing someone else's story instead of my own.

[Luko]

Absolutely not true whatsoever.

You seem to be confusing personal opinion, with fact, which is common on this forum

RPGs have always been about the journey, story, and development. That is literally the very core concept of their creation. There are varying subsets of the RPG genre now, but even going back to the days of "The Bard's Tale" and the D&D Gold Box games, you will find storytelling was always the key part of it (mainly due to the GFX being shit).

Not going to bother replying, as you just seem hell-bent on arguing over literally nothing, which again, is the norm for this shithole website.

Dude, you're confusing gameplay with action. In those D&D inspired games, you're still playing a game. You still need to be invested in the controls and the combat. You'll need to enjoy the gameplay to fully enjoy the game. You come at me with this "confusing personal opinion with fact" nonsense but then you continue to push the idea that storytelling is "the" key part of an RPG. No, man. Storytelling is A key part of it. It's absolutely subjective which part takes precedence as the deciding enjoyment factor, but a successful RPG needs factors from all of these aspects.

Almost everyone complains about the gameplay of witcher 3, even people who love the game. That's not alright, man. And besides, this isn't just about RPGs. To stay on topic, everyone keeps telling OP to go play Diablo or PoE. Alright well say these "Action focused" games got the action right, but the loot and gearing system (another important part of the games genre, just like gameplay for the Witcher) was awful. The game wouldn't be satisfying.

See what I'm saying? It's not black or white.

[maccajoe]

Plenty of RPGs have great gameplay with less story. RPG isn't entirely about forced story, hell a big part of a lot of RPGs is just doing your own thing.

Im not sure if you are new here but an RPG (table top) in its purest form is about following a story and being able to do your own thing (choices). Sure there are RPGs where there is no story but thats not how the genre started or the norm.
The narrative in an RPG has always been important. In an ultimate pure RPG you would pick your backstory, gender and class on top of dialogue and a story which is what Cyberpunk is aiming for.

[Onikaroshi]

Im not sure if you are new here but an RPG (table top) in its purest form is about following a story and being able to do your own thing (choices). Sure there are RPGs where there is no story but thats not how the genre started or the norm.
The narrative in an RPG has always been important. In an ultimate pure RPG you would pick your backstory, gender and class on top of dialogue and a story which is what Cyberpunk is aiming for.

TBF when it comes to table top, the BEST way to do was still to create your own story, sure you could follow books, but to have a good DM who could make up a story to fit your characters in was a blast, not a forced a narrative. Table top also really didn't have the "gameplay" part as much as a video game can do. If an video game RPG focuses on story to the point of neglecting gameplay it's ok to make a fuss, story isn't the ONLY thing that's important.

If cyberpunk has a great narrative and character creation and allows you to kind of build YOUR story, but the gameplay is ass, still not going to sing it's praises. We've evolved way pasted "roll a d20" being the epitome of RPG gameplay.

[eschatological]

The best tabletop RPGs I've ever played have been an effort in collaborative storytelling, where the DM said, "This is the world, and these are the events unfolding in them. Address them or not, move towards them or not, it's up to you."

The best online RPGs I've ever played were text-based RPGs on AOL (and before that CompuServe/prodigy) in the 90s, where literally the world was text room descriptions connected by cardinal directions. The orcs were to the southeast, the undead to the east, but some people never left town and played healers who healed for a fee in the town square.

I'm very strongly of the opinion that a story in an RPG is almost always a clunky thing. It never goes exactly the way the player wants it unless the player is just a passive git along for the ride, and it never goes the way the storyteller wants (because of player agency), unless they make it so rigid that the player is on rails. Neither is a desirable outcome, imo. I'm all for sandbox RPGs.

And like I said earlier, I've never gotten more than an hour into the Witcher 3, because of the godawful combat. Never even got to the story. I have hopes that Cyberpunk will be better because shooting combat is probably easier than melee sword combat, but I agree, if the combat in CP2077 sucks, it'll be another game that sits on my hard drive for years, unplayed.

[Onikaroshi]

The best tabletop RPGs I've ever played have been an effort in collaborative storytelling, where the DM said, "This is the world, and these are the events unfolding in them. Address them or not, move towards them or not, it's up to you."

The best online RPGs I've ever played were text-based RPGs on AOL (and before that CompuServe/prodigy) in the 90s, where literally the world was text room descriptions connected by cardinal directions. The orcs were to the southeast, the undead to the east, but some people never left town and played healers who healed for a fee in the town square.

I'm very strongly of the opinion that a story in an RPG is almost always a clunky thing. It never goes exactly the way the player wants it unless the player is just a passive git along for the ride, and it never goes the way the storyteller wants (because of player agency), unless they make it so rigid that the player is on rails. Neither is a desirable outcome, imo. I'm all for sandbox RPGs.

And like I said earlier, I've never gotten more than an hour into the Witcher 3, because of the godawful combat. Never even got to the story. I have hopes that Cyberpunk will be better because shooting combat is probably easier than melee sword combat, but I agree, if the combat in CP2077 sucks, it'll be another game that sits on my hard drive for years, unplayed.

Yea, I've heard very few people say "the gameplay was amazing! but the story sucked so I stopped playing", but you throw mediocre gameplay in.... man does that turn people off no matter how great the story in. "I slogged through the bad gameplay because the story was good"

[nocturnus]

Hello everyone

Literally everyone i've seen says The Witcher 3 is a godlike good game.. BUT.. I'm really struggling to like it. I absolute hate the dialog.. dialog every god damn where I go.. I wanna fight monsters, collect gear and fight monsters..! Not spam press space bar all over. I'm level 14 atm and I just arrived at Skellige and i'm so closed to being burned out.. My own fault for space bar though all dialog? In that case I can say I can't and won't be able to endure the dialog spam all over..

Should I just give up or will the game get any better? My biggest problem in the beginning of the game was the voice of Geralt but now it's simply the dialog all over....

What to do?

Just stop playing. In an RPG, the story is the most important thing. The Witcher 3 has neither a good story, nor good game play. Truthfully, the only good thing about that game were its graphics.

Obviously my opinion, before the rabid fans go for their pitch forks.

[AeneasBK]

OP is at least completley accurate about David Warner. In the Seige of Dragonspear I wonder who attempted to emulate it (I didn't finish but assuming the mysterious robed dude turns out to be Irenicus), must have been an intimidating role.

[Xofa]

OP is at least completley accurate about David Warner. In the Seige of Dragonspear I wonder who attempted to emulate it (I didn't finish but assuming the mysterious robed dude turns out to be Irenicus), must have been an intimidating role.

"You dare to attack me here.. do you even know who you face?!"

[Baracuda]

I like RPGs, but the combat in this game is so bad that every time I hit combat (the first time in the village on the way to the stockade, IE), I turn the game off because killing a pack of wild dogs is way too clunky.

I feel like the people who say this are 10-15 years old at most. Because you obviously haven't played any older games if you think that's true.

[eschatological]

I feel like the people who say this are 10-15 years old at most. Because you obviously haven't played any older games if you think that's true.

I'll be 38 years old this year, and have been gaming since the 80s. Sorry that I expect The Witcher 3 to have better gameplay than Pitfall.

[Crillam]

Yeah well it is not your type of game. I would love to play Witcher 3 or RDR/2 and the upcoming Cyberpunk but I know that it is not my type of game. To much dialogue puts me off but in most games you can skip that. But true RPGs like these it is important. Gameplay just wont cut it.

[Onikaroshi]

Yeah well it is not your type of game. I would love to play Witcher 3 or RDR/2 and the upcoming Cyberpunk but I know that it is not my type of game. To much dialogue puts me off but in most games you can skip that. But true RPGs like these it is important. Gameplay just wont cut it.

You can have great, smooth gameplay and a good story that doesn't interrupt you so much, there's a balance, things like the Witcher and Elder Scrolls try to throw so much story to cover up their shody gameplay, but it doesn't have to be like that.

[Tech614]

Yeah well it is not your type of game. I would love to play Witcher 3 or RDR/2 and the upcoming Cyberpunk but I know that it is not my type of game. To much dialogue puts me off but in most games you can skip that. But true RPGs like these it is important. Gameplay just wont cut it.

RDR2 doesn't compare to W3 at all in this regard, there are some cutscenes sure but they aren't often or long for the most part. Most of the dialogue happens during actual gameplay not just in screens of staring at people talking.

The RDR2 to W3 comparisons are always weird to me, it's like people see a horse and see some of the tiny baby rpg mechanics rockstar added and think it's some full blown RPG... It's still just an open world TPS action game.

[Coombs]

It sounds like you prefer shallow games. WoW is waiting.

[Tech614]

You can have great, smooth gameplay and a good story that doesn't interrupt you so much, there's a balance, things like the Witcher and Elder Scrolls try to throw so much story to cover up their shody gameplay, but it doesn't have to be like that.

Witcher 3 doesn't have the best gameplay ever but it looks like a Souls game compared to the shit show that is ES gameplay...

Anyways I would be lying if I said I never enjoyed games that have bad gameplay, I have enjoyed games with FAR worse gameplay then W3 but at the same time I can never call a game a masterpiece if the gameplay is bad while everything else is great which is why I simply call W3 a good to great game, and not a masterpiece.

At the end of the day the games that are the total package are few and far between and you're lucky if you get 2 of them a generation so every game will have it's flaws. CDPR was right to focus on story for W3... 2077 on the other hand being an FPS their gunplay needs to be tight and I hope they realize this. The gameplay demo of it did seem solid tho.

[Onikaroshi]

Witcher 3 doesn't have the best gameplay ever but it looks like a Souls game compared to the shit show that is ES gameplay...

Anyways I would be lying if I said I never enjoyed games that have bad gameplay, I have enjoyed games with FAR worse gameplay then W3 but at the same time I can never call a game a masterpiece if the gameplay is bad while everything else is great which is why I simply call W3 a good to great game, and not a masterpiece.

At the end of the day the games that are the total package are few and far between and you're lucky if you get 2 of them a generation so every game will have it's flaws. CDPR was right to focus on story for W3... 2077 on the other hand being an FPS their gunplay needs to be tight and I hope they realize this. The gameplay demo of it did seem solid tho.

Just as long as it isn't like... Fallout gunplay (Behesda's fault really) it shouldn't be bad. Honestly though I'll take a game with a mediocre story usually as long as it has good game play... but I find it much harder to play a game with a great story if it's game play is mediocre, unless it's specifically a story game like Telltale, but we know how well those do.

[maccajoe]

TBF when it comes to table top, the BEST way to do was still to create your own story, sure you could follow books, but to have a good DM who could make up a story to fit your characters in was a blast, not a forced a narrative. Table top also really didn't have the "gameplay" part as much as a video game can do. If an video game RPG focuses on story to the point of neglecting gameplay it's ok to make a fuss, story isn't the ONLY thing that's important.

If cyberpunk has a great narrative and character creation and allows you to kind of build YOUR story, but the gameplay is ass, still not going to sing it's praises. We've evolved way pasted "roll a d20" being the epitome of RPG gameplay.

Im not exactly sure wtf you are talking about here? Witcher allows you to create your own story. Yes its not 100% ie pure make your own character etc and pick a class but there are tons of different outcomes regardless of that people RP the shit out of it.

Secondly yes Table top has tons of gameplay....... The stuff you are doing paper, pen and literally everything in between is the gameplay. People always seem to think that because its not a videogame there is no "gameplay" If you dont like the gameplay of a table top you wont like it. Like me i like stories but table top turn to turn gameplay never appealed to me. Even monopoly has gameplay, risk has gameplay boardgames have gameplay. Hungry Hungry Hippos gameplay is different to Jenga. So yeas table top has gameplay..... yes its extremely important. Prolly even MOREso in a tabletop.

Lastly the reason i mentioned all this stuff in the first place was because OP devolved into not specifically liking story and dialogue in Witcher (which is fine) to not liking it in GENERAL which is bad news if you want to play an RPG because irrespective of the types of gameplay for the most part a story in whatever form that is imperative in an RPG.

[eschatological]

See, the only way I made it through the ES games was to be a mage and just chuck spells from far away. Don't know how people made it through that game as a melee character.