1eyedking Witcher 3 is a step below Risen in every way except story

[sullynathan]

Someone make a game combining Souls combat with Gothic exploration, faction system and character development.

you know what, you might actually get that. Try Breath of the Wild.

 

[United Nations]

Risen is better in everything except production value and probably story, combat is much more straightforward and works better, limitless inventory space makes gameplay less tedious and enemies drop enough xp to effectively level up.Risen is considered to be a terrible game to the masses, I don't think it's as bad as many people make it out to be but it's definitely not the best, Witcher 3 though is a step below it and feels very similar to play to be honest.
A minor pet peeve and I get that this game isn't going for it but I tend to prefer character creation in my rpg games. I was willing to give Witcher 3 a chance despite this but nope...

I loved Risen but hated The Witcher #1.

Can't vouch for TW3 though.

 

[United Nations]

Someone make a game combining Souls combat with Gothic exploration, faction system and character development.

Souls #1 was shit, sorry.

 

[Makabb]

The potato smell ITT

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Oh righ

The potato smell ITT

Accusations of fanboying from a Nu-male's Sky shill.

 

[Makabb]

Someone make a game combining Souls combat with Gothic exploration, faction system and character development.

Souls #1 was shit, sorry.

Dark souls 1 is the only really good souls

 

[KyivAfter12am]

Risen is a good game. Witcher 3 is better.

 

[Taxnomore]

Loved Witcher 3. The game has stunning visuals and great writing. The sense of exploration is awesome...

Yet. After a while you start to realize the game offers no challenge at all and all that you do is going to different points in the world map to see the new cutscene in a non linear fashion . There is zero gameplay in this game that actually feels like a medieval Assassins Creed in its concept.

The combat is abysmal. I finished the game in its hardest difficulty spamming spamming the same spells and actions without adjusting my strategy ever. The story, world, and writing are enough to make you forget the game has literally no gameplay for a good while but even that does not last forever.

 

[Makabb]

Yet. After a while you start to realize the game offers no challenge at all and all that you do is going to different points in the world map to see the new cutscene in a non linear fashion .

I knew that after first few minutes, that's why I refuse to play it, because i see can see behind the veil and behind the beautifull presentation is shit.

Only the blind praise Shitcher 3, because they cannot see.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Yet. After a while you start to realize the game offers no challenge at all and all that you do is going to different points in the world map to see the new cutscene in a non linear fashion .

I knew that after first few minutes, that's why I refuse to play it, because i see can see behind the veil and behind the beautifull presentation is shit.

Only the blind praise Shitcher 3, because they cannot see.

The blind praise Shitcher 3, while the blindly retarded praise No Man's Sky.

 

[Makabb]

Yet. After a while you start to realize the game offers no challenge at all and all that you do is going to different points in the world map to see the new cutscene in a non linear fashion .

I knew that after first few minutes, that's why I refuse to play it, because i see can see behind the veil and behind the beautifull presentation is shit.

Only the blind praise Shitcher 3, because they cannot see.

The blind praise Shitcher 3, while the blindly retarded praise No Man's Sky.

I did not praise NMS, i only hyped it before release, there is a difference

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Like that's any better Mak.

 

[ilitarist]

Maybe, if you don't count graphics/music/animation and all the other UX stuff, size of the world, quantity of content and post-launch support.

I really like Risen but it's not even close to Witcher 3 in terms of scale and quality. Played it after W3 by the way.

 

[Gepeu]

Risen at least has an actual gameplay.

 

[Makabb]

Maybe, if you don't count graphics/music/animation and all the other UX stuff, size of the world, quantity of content and post-launch support.

I really like Risen but it's not even close to Witcher 3 in terms of scale and quality. Played it after W3 by the way.

And all of that means nothing if there is no gameplay.

 

[ilitarist]

And all of that means nothing if there is no gameplay.

Of course there is gameplay in Witcher 3, didn't you play Gwent?

 

[J_C]

Risen at least has an actual gameplay.

If you think TW3 has no gameplay, than Risen has no gameplay either.

 

[Makabb]

Risen at least has an actual gameplay.

If you think TW3 has no gameplay, than Risen has no gameplay either.

In witcher 3 you don't get XP for combat.

They introduced level scaling monsters in later patches, acknowledging that their monster placement is garbage.

 

[RuySan]

Loved Witcher 3. The game has stunning visuals and great writing. The sense of exploration is awesome...

Yet. After a while you start to realize the game offers no challenge at all and all that you do is going to different points in the world map to see the new cutscene in a non linear fashion . There is zero gameplay in this game that actually feels like a medieval Assassins Creed in its concept.

The combat is abysmal. I finished the game in its hardest difficulty spamming spamming the same spells and actions without adjusting my strategy ever. The story, world, and writing are enough to make you forget the game has literally no gameplay for a good while but even that does not last forever.

In the early game, playing "Hard" makes the combat hard indeed and quite awesome. It feels really good to anticipate the enemies movements and dodge. It feels just like what Witcher combat should be. Full of grace.

Then it becomes to easy by the mid-point, but then there's also another difficulty option above Hard, so there's no big deal.

TW3 combat might be lacking when compared to dark souls, but when compared to every other Action RPG (specially Risen) it's actually quite good. And I absolutely loved Risen, but combat isn't its strong suit.

 

[ilitarist]

In the early game, playing "Hard" makes the combat hard indeed and quite awesome. It feels really good to anticipate the enemies movements and dodge. It feels just like what Witcher combat should be. Full of grace.

Difficulty is bad in Witcher 3. That much is true.

Hard is, I think, the way it's supposed to be player. It makes so that you can't regenerate health automatically which is at least some gameplay challenge. If you switch to highest difficulty level all it does is make everybody a bulletsponge. First it breaks the immersion: even the Drowners, low level guys that peasants mostly can handle on their own, require a dozen of attacks by a freaking dragon-killer with a magical anti-monster sword. And a lowly tavern drunk is stronger and healthier than superhuman mutant buffed by magic potions. Second it becomes boring. You do not change tactics compared to lower difficulties, you don't have to use more available tools. You just roll and cast recommended spell all the time.

I liked Risen combat much more, it required me to learn timings and behaviour of every enemy. Skill progression gave new movements changing the way I fight. In Witcher 3, on the other hand, you fight on level 1 the same way as on level 30. Maybe you have additional oils to apply in pause menu or faster healing potions - but you still roll, attack with preferable sport, cast preferable spell that your bestiary recommends. If you are hardcore and switch to higher difficulty you do it longer.

Small addition: second expansion, Blood & Wine, actually added some more interesting encounters. Still not great, especially with basic game suggesting you should explore the world and get into all of this repetitive combat.

 

[J_C]

Risen at least has an actual gameplay.

If you think TW3 has no gameplay, than Risen has no gameplay either.

In witcher 3 you don't get XP for combat.

So what? Other games have used this formula.

They introduced level scaling monsters in later patches, acknowledging that their monster placement is garbage.

Monsters have been unbalanced, that doesn't mean that the game has no gameplay.

 

[Gepeu]

No Man's Sky has gameplay too. So it's good, there's no need to sweat it.

 

[Haplo]

Let's not lump Risen combat with Gothic 1/2 combat, which inevitably happens in these threads. While they are similar in some ways, with Risen combat based on Gothic 1/2 combat, Risen changed it in certain ways that completely changed the quality of the result.

In Gothic 1/2, combat was elegant once you understood it (which many people did not). You would watch the humanoid enemy for signs of their attack, and then parry in split-seconds. If you timed it right, you would parry successfully and counter-attack without taking damage. This was stringed together many times into a beautiful flow, reminiscent of classic movie sword-fighting scenes. To this day, it is one of the better implemented melee combats in RPGs.

In Risen, they started with the same idea, but they made two key changes that changed everything. One, enemy attacks became completely unpredictable, since the enemies would sometimes attack right away, sometimes pause and attack, and other times, attack in between. On top of that, their attacks and animations were too fast to react to in time, so by the time you saw the attack, it was too late. Two, parries became spammable, as you could easily chain parries together endlessly, more so than in Gothic games. Combine these two things together, and instead of an elegant system where you parry and react, in Risen, you had a system where you were forced to spam parries until the enemy hit into it, which requires no skill, and is only a small step above Oblivion's pointless hold block function.

I agree with this analysis.

I'd rate the combat in Risen roughly on par with the Witcher 3. Neither is particularly good at fencing. Magic terribly sucks in Risen, in Witcher 3 it's better developed (still not great, but fit-for-purpose). Plus Witcher has Bombs and such. Risen is better in enemy AI and enemy/combat style variety. Which are admittedly important.
Both lack the simple elegance of Gothic 2. And the development of skill reflected by the progressively smoother animations and longer attack chains.

The Witcher 3 is far superior in other areas: world building, atmosphere, size, scope, quests, dialogues, narrative, graphics.
Admittedly it is dragged down by retarded design decisions, such as level scaled damage depending on you/enemy level, thus level gated access to certain areas, MMO power creep, shit-tier itemization, level scaled quest experience. Pretty poor character development - not that its much better in Risen.
But still, The Witcher 3 is objectively the far superior game. And, as mentioned, it doesn't fall apart in the second half.

Now if you compared it with the Gothics, it would be a far more difficult verdict.

 

[Makabb]

So what? Other games have used this formula.
.

flies love turds, means people should also love turds

 

[Carrion]

Well, Risen is a decent game, while W3 is an AAA console open world action rpg. So... more news at 11?

So... the difference is that TW3 is AAA and Risen is not?

In witcher 3 you don't get XP for combat.

You do, actually. Not that it has anything to do with "the argument" at hand.

Hard is, I think, the way it's supposed to be player. It makes so that you can't regenerate health automatically which is at least some gameplay challenge. If you switch to highest difficulty level all it does is make everybody a bulletsponge. First it breaks the immersion: even the Drowners, low level guys that peasants mostly can handle on their own, require a dozen of attacks by a freaking dragon-killer with a magical anti-monster sword. And a lowly tavern drunk is stronger and healthier than superhuman mutant buffed by magic potions. Second it becomes boring. You do not change tactics compared to lower difficulties, you don't have to use more available tools. You just roll and cast recommended spell all the time.

I don't know where this notion comes from. To my experience the enemies are hardly any more bullet-spongy on the hardest difficulty level than the one below it, and you should definitely play on that until you want to become invulnerable after the first major area of the game. The game will still become pretty easy soon because of all of your stats skyrocketing, but at least you'll still be able to die.

The real problem is the leveling system which indeed leads to these fucked-up situations where some random harbor thug is more dangerous than a giant or a higher vampire. Pretty soon you'll also outlevel the main content so that it's hard to find a challenging encounter anywhere, unless you go for stuff that you really shouldn't be able to do yet in the game. I guess it's fitting for this thread that the leveling system and the lack of level-scaling (except random equipment, that is) is one area where they cited Gothic as one of their influences, but they really botched the execution and ended up with this weird system where enemy level is much more important than their type and you'll run into one of the toughest monster contracts in the game five minutes after arriving to Velen. It's even weirder because there are no places where level-gating would be actually necessary, as even the main quest is structured a bit like a BioWare game where you can do stuff in any order you like, but the leveling system pushes you down a very specific path every time. Don't know how Risen handled this, but for me Gothic is in many ways the blueprint on how to create an open-world RPG mechanics-wise, whereas TW3 is more or less a total clusterfuck in this regard. On the other hand TW3's world looks better than in any other open world game (RPG or not) that I can think of, and the level of detail combined with the size of the world is pretty much unmatched. If only the mechanics were on the same level and not so nonsensical.