Topic: The Witcher 2

[Xessive]

Hello zero item weight mod.  I'll be installing that bitch for sure.

Ok, I'll try the Increased Capacity mod and we'll compare notes

[Xessive]

Patch delayed...

The good news is that the patch is ready. The bad news is that we have encountered some problems with the server infrastructure, making downloading DLCs impossible. We want to apologize to our fans for not meeting our target of delivering the patch last night. We will update you when we know more.

Don't care much about the DLC right now, just want the patch. They can patch in the DLC later! hehe

[MysterD]

Yeah, they should do some DLC to allow us to STORE stuff in a house filled w/ a bunch of CHESTS.
Seriously - this game has so much stuff you can pick up - and since there's a crafting system, you can put a lot of this junk to use.

EDIT:
Penny Arcade comic on TW2

[MysterD]

Patch 1.1. Released.
For those w/ versions that have DRM, your DRM check has been removed w/ the newest patch.

EDIT:
G4TV -> Feedback - Talking about TW2 around 33 mins and 54 sec into it and praising it.

[idolminds]

DRM removed already? Damn I love those guys.

[MysterD]

DRM removed already? Damn I love those guys.

Yup.
And people are reporting anywhere from 5-30% better performance, since the new patch w/out DRM.

[Xessive]

Cool, I have to download the GOG.com-specific patch

[MysterD]

Cool, I have to download the GOG.com-specific patch

It's too bad that the ENTIRE NumPad can't be remapped to the KB controls, even though this patch was supposed to fix that.
There's A LOT of keys the can't STILL be allowed for remapping purposes.

[idolminds]

I hear this patch sucks for Steam users. Apparently it wants to download 9GB instead of the 9-15MB the actual patch is. Seems to be an issue with how Steam works. Witcher 2 has a 9GB archive file that holds most of the games data and the patch goes in and modifies files within it, but all Steam sees is that this archive has changed so it has to redownload it in its entirety.

[MysterD]

Also, I'm hearing since Patch 1.1 on GOG boards, people having problems w/ Right Analog stick working on X360 Gamepad now...

[Xessive]

Also, I'm hearing since Patch 1.1 on GOG boards, people having problems w/ Right Analog stick working on X360 Gamepad now...

I'll test that out.

On the bright side I'm seeing a huge increase in performance!

Also, according to the PC Gamer Tweak Guide, they recommended leaving SSAO on to get more frames per sec!! That must be a typo because SSAO robs me of a good chunk of frames! If I switch it off I easily get another 5-10fps! Either way Ambient Occlusion of all sorts is performance heavy so I'm not sure why they'd recommend leaving it on.

[MysterD]

I had no problems w/ the 360 controller w/ the right stick, actually w/ Patch 1.1.... *shrug*

I'm still sticking w/ the KB/mouse, since they fixed it enough for me to stick w/ that. I'd really like for them to make especially the NumPad mappable - along w/ many of the other keys - i.e. bracket keys, delete key, semi-colon, slash, backslash, period, apostrophe, dash key, plus key, etc etc.

[Xessive]

Game: playthrough 1 complete.

Fun factor: maximum.

Replay: already started a new game.

It was awesome. A great story in an engrossing world. Admittedly it is shorter than the its predecessor but it is more intense.

Now that I've got a hang of the controls and combat I wonder how I'll fair in the prologue.

[MysterD]

You know what's really different in this game compared to many single-character RPG's?

They sometimes....

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WILL make you play as other characters for one scene or so and make decisions as them.
That's really interesting.

[MysterD]

Escapist Magazine -> Polish Prime Minister gives US Pres. Obama an awesome gift - The Witcher 2.

[Xessive]

The Witcher 2: How good is it? Presidential.

It really is a work of art!

[MysterD]

The Witcher 2: How good is it? Presidential.

It really is a work of art!

I wanna know what kind of powerful beast of a PC that Mr. Obama is running this thing on.
Probably got everything cranked up all the way w/ Ubersampling on.

[MysterD]

Looks like The Witcher is going porno-spoof, too - The Bitcher.
LMAO! The Witcher's now pop-culture I guess - first Obama got a copy of TW2, now this....

[MysterD]

Chapter 2

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WTF at lack of auto-save right before Battle w/ Big Draug.
Hell, even if it was right before Standard Bearer, this would be much better.

[shock]

That article is great.  It also helps me feel better because I'm getting my ass handed to me right now in the Prologue.

[Xessive]

Chapter 2

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WTF at lack of auto-save right before Battle w/ Big Draug.
Hell, even if it was right before Standard Bearer, this would be much better.

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The game autosaved at the Seltkirk segment, had to go through it that part again when the Draug got me.

The first time I fought him he was tough and I died, second time I beat him in 30 seconds. The difficulty ramps up and down wildly.

[MysterD]

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The game autosaved at the Seltkirk segment, had to go through it that part again when the Draug got me.

The first time I fought him he was tough and I died, second time I beat him in 30 seconds. The difficulty ramps up and down wildly.

Took a bit time to get through that Chapter 2 Boss Battle, but was kinda' easy once I got the pattern down.
Very similar to the other fight...

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...The fight w/ the flagbearer just right before him.
Spam The Trap sign and Quen to death.
When he's trapped from the Trap sign, swing strong and pound 'em.
Just gotta' make sure Quen's ready when he summons the archers and treb's.
And rolling a lot helps, too.

[shock]

Chapter 1

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This fucking Letho boss fight is going to be the end of me.  I have been at it for hours and the best I have done so far is to get him to about 60%.  I'm using all of the potions I can in addition to the blade oil.

Stratwise, I basically just throw on Quen and roll around.  I can get 1-2 hits in before he blocks.  When he does, I insta-roll away.  This would be tough but doable.  What always fucks me over is when he puts up his Quen.  Then, whenever I get a hit, I get recoiled and I take a hit.  I can't find a way around this.  Couple this with the bombs, pushback, and incinerate signs he casts and I'm done for.

Any tips?  I've tried using other signs, but then I inevitably get caught with no power and with my Quen down.  The trap sign is useful for taking down his shield (although for the whole stun duration, you don't get one bit of damage on him, just remove the shield).  Seems to do a bit of damage when he is unshielded too.  Stun/Incinerate seem mostly worthless on this fight.

[Xessive]

Chapter 1

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This fucking Letho boss fight is going to be the end of me.  I have been at it for hours and the best I have done so far is to get him to about 60%.  I'm using all of the potions I can in addition to the blade oil.

Stratwise, I basically just throw on Quen and roll around.  I can get 1-2 hits in before he blocks.  When he does, I insta-roll away.  This would be tough but doable.  What always fucks me over is when he puts up his Quen.  Then, whenever I get a hit, I get recoiled and I take a hit.  I can't find a way around this.  Couple this with the bombs, pushback, and incinerate signs he casts and I'm done for.

Any tips?  I've tried using other signs, but then I inevitably get caught with no power and with my Quen down.  The trap sign is useful for taking down his shield (although for the whole stun duration, you don't get one bit of damage on him, just remove the shield).  Seems to do a bit of damage when he is unshielded too.  Stun/Incinerate seem mostly worthless on this fight.

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Yeha, that was arguable the toughest fight for me as well. Quen was useful at times but I found Yrden (trap) to be the single most useful sign against bosses since it makes them temporarily vulnerable. My advice is set a trap, let Letho get caught in it then circle around hit him from the back (scoring some more massive damage). If he has his Quen shield on use quick attacks to wither it down when he's trapped, then roll out set a new trap and try to get him caught before he reactivate another Quen shield.

Don't forget that you can block his basic attacks if you can't roll away. You can also score a hit with a quick counter when you successfully block.

[MysterD]

Chapter 1, Boss Battle At The Bath

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Pretty much, what Xessive said.
More advice - equip as many throwing knives as you can, also.
Throwing Knives are overly powerful in this game.

[shock]

Thanks.  I finally beat him and I'm well into Chapter 2.  Got a lot of gear upgrades (thank God).  Now I'm rolling over people.

Wheeee

[MysterD]

Joystiq -> The Witcher 2 is going to the X360 by End of 2011.

GOG -> The Witcher 2 PC - Patch 1.2 on the PC coming tomorrow (June 3rd).
50+ changes and improvements include...balance tweaks; more keymappings; target locking combat tweaks; containers exploit fix; TW1 save import fixes.
ALL Retailer-Exclusive DLC's included in Patch 1.2 for EVERYBODY.
NEW FREE DLC in Patch 1.2 - Barbers and Coiffeuses DLC -> change Geralt's haircut w/ 5 different styles (including the OLD look from TW1).


EDIT:
Here's the extensive change-log on upcoming Patch 1.2 for The Witcher 2 PC.
Also includes - Save files are compressed more; auto-save added right before Draug fight; save deletion allowed in the in-game menus.

[Xessive]

Nice!

UPDATE:
The game launcher automatically updated the game. I didn't need to get the GOG.com version or anything like that. There seems to be some performance improvement as well as the noted fixes and changes.

Gonna check out the hairstyles.

[MysterD]

Nice!

UPDATE:
The game launcher automatically updated the game. I didn't need to get the GOG.com version or anything like that. There seems to be some performance improvement as well as the noted fixes and changes.

Gonna check out the hairstyles.

It did the download, but wouldn't install - it just said "Patch 1.2 is ready to install" and sat there idle.
Then, I ran TW2 under Admin Mode - it auto-installed itself.

[MysterD]

Finished my first playthrough.

END SPOILERS

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...I can't help but feeling at the end wanting to know more about Yennefer, after so much is talked about on her w/ Letho and Geralt at the end about her. Also - want to know more about this Emperor and where this storyline thread will be headed, since they feel they are just being introduced in the last Chapter and Epilogue.

One hell of a game, though. 

[shock]

Finished my first playthrough as well.

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I found Chapter 3 and the ending quite disappointing. They went WAY too fast. The rest of the game does a fantastic job of bringing you into the story and has near perfect pacing. I hadn't even played Witcher 1 but I was engrossed in it all. But Chapter 3 was a rush to the finish. I ended up doing no side quests at all because I assumed there would be a lot of additional time to do them. After all, Chapter 2 went on and on. In Chapter 3, a lot of different plot twists were thrown together haphazardly, and before you know it, the credits are rolling and I'm sitting here wondering what the hell happened.

Finally, I hate the cliffhanger stuff at the end of video games/movies/books. As some others said, they might as well have put "to be continued" on the last screen. I honestly had no idea that the game was going to end when it did because they opened up a huge plot line. Letho became a sidestory to the more compelling invasion by the end of the game. That should have been concluded in some way. It felt very incomplete to leave things as they were.

Other gripes: balance issues throughout the game (way too hard at start, way too easy at end), crafting and alchemy (read: worthless), and some bugs.

This game has amazing potential and really sucked me in at times, but also had some serious flaws. I may play through to side with Iorveth instead of Roche, but I know I'll likely still be disappointed with it.

[MysterD]

Zero Punctuation takes on The Witcher 2 PC.

[gpw11]

I still contest that ZP is stale, but I did laugh pretty hard with the potion in a paper bag comment.  Funny and on point. 


Although the boss cut-scene is totally skipable.

[MysterD]

I still contest that ZP is stale, but I did laugh pretty hard with the potion in a paper bag comment.  Funny and on point. 


Although the boss cut-scene is totally skipable.

The auto-save should've been AFTER the cut-scene, if you ask me.
Skipping it every time is annoying.

[Xessive]

Hmm, I'm still curious as to why there's no quickload button.

[MysterD]

Hmm, I'm still curious as to why there's no quickload button.

Agreed.

EDIT:
Polish and English language audio packs released.

[MysterD]

GameBanshee -> Interview w/ Tomasz Gop on The Witcher 2 post-release.

GB: Beyond the Troll Trouble DLC, what other downloadable content are you working on for the game? How many add-ons do you intend to release for it, and have you decided whether or not you'll pursue a full-on expansion pack?

Tomasz: As you might expect, since we plan to release our DLCs over time, our basic plan is to announce them individually. What we can say right now is that we have a couple more coming within the next few weeks, and also that we will have more after that. And they will all be DLC 4 Free, meaning no charge to registered users.

RPGWatch -> Tomasz Gop has left CD Projekt RED.

[gpw11]

So, I finished the game.  When "Epilogue" scrolled across my screen I was all like "What the fuck kind of ending was that? Didn't even feel like a climax."  The epilogue was a bit better, but really?  Great game, but CDPR seem to be taking cues from Lost.

[Xessive]

Yeah, that was a bit of a let-down. Still, the rest of the content made the game a gem.

Admittedly, The Witcher 1 was a longer game with a lot more stuff going on but The Witcher 2 felt a bit more refined and focused on one plot (albeit with a load of hints at some overarching stories). I found myself way more interested in uncovering Geralt's past, his relationship with Yennefer, and what happened to her.

[MysterD]

Yeah, that was a bit of a let-down. Still, the rest of the content made the game a gem.

Admittedly, The Witcher 1 was a longer game with a lot more stuff going on but The Witcher 2 felt a bit more refined and focused on one plot (albeit with a load of hints at some overarching stories). I found myself way more interested in uncovering Geralt's past, his relationship with Yennefer, and what happened to her.

I really liked the relationship w/ Triss...

Epilogue Spoilers

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But Yennefer?!??
They don't get really too much into here until WAY later - and that is one of the biggest cliffhangers in the game.
They really get into that in The Epilogue (when Kingslayer spills most of the beans).
I'm really interested in where that might go, w/ TW3.