Cjail, i don't agree as for me RPG means Role Playing Game. It's up to game master (CDPR) to tell you who you play as and what adventures you might encounter, just like in real world RPG. When I was young during my secondary school days I often played RPG (rules book and cards + dice) with my mates and ejoyed it great deal. Computer games recently made it look like RPG is all about band of characters smashing things, but it really should be about journey.
Btw I too do enjoy leveling up in games and that is what kept me grinding in Skyrim. Luckily for me it's not a required feature and with limited time I can spend on gaming nowdays I treasure good games as much as possible.
TW3 is definitely an action game; there is character progression but it doesn't make it a RPG.
IMO TW3 lacks one fundamental quality found in all RPG: variety.
We are not able to choose "what we like to be" and assume many roles/archetypes as in Skyrim or Dragon's Dogma, nor we can control a variety of characters with different abilities like in Final Fantasy or D&D, we are limited to play as Geralt and he can't even do much compared to recent action game characters.
That doesn't make it less of an RPG though. Geralt has several skills and specialities to choose from, and your decisions certainly influence the world around you, and other characters. More so than in other games. Very renowned games... Geralt is the main character, it's based on a book. Maybe in the future a new witcher game -this is the last game with Geralt as main character- will change that, your character will be a witcher with a background that's in your imagination, which is something TES games do very well. I had a lot of laughs playing Skyrim and roleplaying about the characters I created and telling my best friend at the time about them. I shared some of those stories in the Skyrim thread of this forum.
For me roleplaying is something like this, one of my favourite videos of a RPG. The guy is hilarious in his geekiness , but he uses poisoned apples because he disagrees with Chorrol politics and want the count and countess to suffer.
It's not Skyrim, but no game is Skyrim --one of the best games evder made, imho, in my top 5. It's just that the comparison is unfair because of that, just like the comparison would be unfair to Skyrim if you compare the vegetation and the shadows or character's art quality of The Witcher 3.
That's only partly true in Novigrad, I think. The other day ...
I killed the whoreson, couldn't sand him, Ciri appeared, more whoreson, went out, got interrupted when I was minding my own things, Radovid's guards stopped me, had to talk to him, went after Philippa, in my way out a messenger appeared, again interrupting the quest, I lied to Radovid to protect Philippa
went to Novigrad, guards stopped me because they wanted my papers to know if I was a mage, then I was again minding my business and I was close to Zoltan, which suddenly broke the rhythm of the quest to tell me something about a personal issue. In the end Geralt spent more than an hour in cutscenes rather than improving his skills. Yesterday some fishermen appeared out of the blue in Novigrad, and it was the same.
Something similar happened with Skyrim, it needed to address little issues here and there. The Witcher 3 is an amazing game overall, one of the best RPGs I played and one of those games I am proud to have. It is truly worth it.
Where it needs work is in the UI, it'd be so easy to create a better system to handle the elements under the panes of different kind of items. Plus, it is slow and very very laggy, both the UI and the map. Controls are responsive in combat overall, but are laggy and unresponsive sometimes when picking up items.
Other than that, kudos to CD Projekt for making their first open world game -TW1 was kinda open at times, but not the same- and making it turn out so great at that. It0s a radical change, and a challenge and some of the world and vistas are breathtaking.
We are not able to choose "what we like to be" and assume many roles/archetypes as in Skyrim or Dragon's Dogma, nor we can control a variety of characters with different abilities like in Final Fantasy or D&D, we are limited to play as Geralt and he can't even do much compared to recent action game characters
This may be the description of the type of RPGs you like, but it's not a description for video game RPGs in any possible way. Role Playing Games are games where you assume the role of a character and you have the freedom to make choices (within the confinements of the dungeon master, or in this case, the developer) that will alter your character and the world around your character. You can develop Geralt to be an adept of attack, defense or healing magic. You can develop his skills in alchemy. Or you can make him really good at sword fighting and kill everything with a sword through the head.
RPGs have never been defined by variety of playable characters.
The Witcher series are RPGs. You may not like this specific type of RPG, but you're definitely not entitled to say they don't belong in the genre.
It gives certain experience. And Gwent is so great and so fun! Trust me on this one. You've completed the game and maybe some of the characters won't be there all the time to give you some of the cards, but please give it a chance. Only rule of thumb is -recommended by the game too- to have a 22 cards deck, then you will figure it out for yourself, playing your own style. Once you play the weakest opponents and your deck grows the addiction....
I haven't completed all the decks -really interested in the monster cards deck-, but my Northern Realms deck is really good.
Back into The Witcher 3 overall, I spent many hours playing it, level 16 already, and it says a lot about this game. It was worth every pennie. I expected Far Cry 4 to be a great game and sadly spent 50€ on it, I liked it for the first minutes, and I deleted it from my HD after 10 hours of gameplay when I realised how bad Ubisoft philosophy of making you collect posters and inane things to create extra hours of gameplay is.
I plan on buying the expansion of The Witcher 3, hopefully I will complete the game by then, and Geralt is happily married to Yen .
CD Projekt have denied there is a downgrade in the patch 1.4 for consoles. Plus it asks X1 owners to be patient before patch 1.4 is released, it needs a certification process -the thread can only be accessed if you are logged in-
No. Lots of riding around (and fast travel) and lots of talking. I also pick a lot of flowers. The movement on foot and horse is very janky, with that GTA momentum that is really annoying in small spaces. Nice world and voice acting, but so little gameplay (unless you count walking and riding) for my taste.
What did you do when playing Skyrim.. or GTA 5 for that matter? You expect an MMO where monsters are immediately outside the town and there is no voice for quests, just reading text on bubble? "I need you to kill X rats that have plagued my house."
btw CDPR tried to mix gameplay with story a few times in W3. Too bad they never gone full with their effort.
the best and worse offender is the random guy in "The Arena". Its a nice example of a story that emerge from gameplay AND goes nowhere. Like the developer suddenly forgot with it.
EDIT:
btw its not only CDPR that badly understood "emergent story" from gameplay. Even Bungie with lots of budget and experience still unable to have proper "emergent story" that arise from gameplay.
developers always love to make sure video game player stay in the path, within the original vision/design. Must not let the players stray.
This may be the description of the type of RPGs you like, but it's not a description for video game RPGs in any possible way. Role Playing Games are games where you assume the role of a character and you have the freedom to make choices (within the confinements of the dungeon master, or in this case, the developer) that will alter your character and the world around your character. You can develop Geralt to be an adept of attack, defense or healing magic. You can develop his skills in alchemy. Or you can make him really good at sword fighting and kill everything with a sword through the head.
RPGs have never been defined by variety of playable characters.
In countless of games we "assume the role of a character and make choices that alter you character and the world around it" and in all games with have limitations and possibilities decided by the developer.
That is really not unique to a genere or the RPG genere.
Character development is as well not unique to RPG.
The Witcher series are RPGs. You may not like this specific type of RPG, but you're definitely not entitled to say they don't belong in the genre.
I am "not entitled" to my opinion?!
I just don't find that W3 is to the core an RPG, like it was said.
IMO W3 to the core is an action game and they added few RPG elements on top of it.
I really don't feel that the RPG elements in W3 set it apart from many recent action games.
The various skills/abilities IMO don't really add much variety to the gameplay nor give me a sense of progression.
I upgraded attacks and signs but I am doing the same things I was doing when I started, no more no less, and I can still use potions and bombs anyway so I am not really limited to play as a class/archetype.
Sure there is emphasis on stats in W3, unlike in pure action games like Batman or Shadow of Mordor, but nothing really as meaningful as in Dragon's Dogma or Bloodborne.
In a way the W3 reminds me most of Red Dead Redemption. I'm only level 6, so I expect it will pick up soon, but for now the combat is shallow and there is too much dialog and traveling.
In countless of games we "assume the role of a character and make choices that alter you character and the world around it" and in all games with have limitations and possibilities decided by the developer.
That is really not unique to a genere or the RPG genere.
Character development is as well not unique to RPG.
Story-changing choices alone doesn't make a RPG. Character development alone doesn't make a RPG. Though both would induce RPG elements in the game.
Both story-changing choices and character development at the same time, does make a RPG.
Of course you're entitled to an opinion!
You're just not entitled to change the definition of what a videogame RPG is, based on your personal taste. You're entitled to the opinion of e.g. thinking that Sun is a stupid name to give to our planetary system's star. But you're not entitled to dictate "from now on, the Sun will change its name to Toilet-Paper". Freedom of Expression is not the same as Freedom of Dictating Stuff for Other People.
So like it or not, the Witcher, Deus Ex: HR and Zelda games are all RPGs, and there's hardly any character diversity in them either.
Story-changing choices alone doesn't make a RPG. Character development alone doesn't make a RPG. Though both would induce RPG elements in the game.
Both story-changing choices and character development at the same time, does make a RPG.
Of course you're entitled to an opinion!
You're just not entitled to change the definition of what a videogame RPG is, based on your personal taste. You're entitled to the opinion of e.g. thinking that Sun is a stupid name to give to our planetary system's star. But you're not entitled to dictate "from now on, the Sun will change its name to Toilet-Paper". Freedom of Expression is not the same as Freedom of Dictating Stuff for Other People.
So like it or not, the Witcher, Deus Ex: HR and Zelda games are all RPGs, and there's hardly any character diversity in them either.
I wasn't dictating anything to anyone.
We disagree on the fact that the Witcher 3 is to the core a RPG, and I tried to explain why, but I am not trying to force my view on anyone.
But hey feel free to report my post to the moderators and let them decide if I was "dictating" on you guys.
Sounded right like an imposition to me...
All I'm saying is:
1 - Character diversity doesn't determine if the game is a RPG or not.
2 - Witcher and many, many other games with no character diversity are RPGs.
If factual inaccuracies were moderation-worthy, then first I'd have to beg the mods to ban me for life for all the ignorant crap I wrote throughout the years
In a way the W3 reminds me most of Red Dead Redemption. I'm only level 6, so I expect it will pick up soon, but for now the combat is shallow and there is too much dialog and traveling.
I also got the Red Dead Redemption (RDR) vibe early on. I'm wondering what you expected from the game though as CDPR made big on the huge open world and the 30,000 lines of dialogue so I would have thought travelling around and lots of dialogue were a given! It may look like RDR but that similarity is entirely superficial.
The definition of RPGs changed so many times over the years...
In a very strict sense, very few modern RPGs would be considered "true RPGs" if we had to compare them with old cRPGs and with PnP RPGs.
I remember back in the day, Baldurs Gate was considered by most PnP wackos (some of them my friends to this day) an adventure game with stats...
In the same sense, the first Mass Effect, was an action adventure game, with a few choices, some stats, three classes, and a lot of very bad combat mechanics.
To a hardcore RPG gamer, it wasn't an RPG in any way possible.
To my brother that likes driving games and occasionally might play some GTA , was, "very complicated", therefore, it must be an RPG...
Even Bethesda, cuts through features with every new ES installment.
Daggerfall and Skyrim have so little in common.
The lines are blurred.
For today's standards, GTA (SA if I remember correctly) might be considered an RPG, with all those stats.
Some sports games, have more stats than most RPGs combined.
When a hardcore RPG gamer friend of mine saw me play Mass Effect, he immediately told me it wasn't an RPG.
He might be right.
What it certainly is though, is a good game.
The same can be said for the Witcher 3 as well.
In my opinion, The Witcher is the best current RPG series. You play a character who shape the story, make choices and suffer the consequences. Most quests have multiple paths. And I mean multiple paths inside the quests, not just the ability to do quest A before quest B.
The best example is Witcher 2 and the whole chapter 2 which is completely different depending on your allies.
Most witcher 3 quests are awesome, with hard decisions, and not just "click here for paragon, here for renegade".
I couldn't care less about the stats, grinding levels or the combat gameplay, they could remove it and replace it by a random "you win/lose" dialog and I'd still be happy
I think "Choices & Consequences" is really the core of what an RPG is. Looking through this lens, we have:
Deus Ex: multiple paths during the story, multiple ends, It definitely has RPG elements.
Final Fantasy: action strategy on rails
Bloodborne: action beat-them-all, the only small meaningful choice is at the very end before the last fight.
Mass Effect: Some RPG elements, but they diminish after each release.
Skyrim: RPG simulator, you think you have choices, but none of them have consequences. The world will never get shaped according to you
Diablo 3: Click them all
GTA 5: action. I don't remember quests with multiple paths and/or multiple outcomes.
I really wish people would stop thinking "stats = RPG"
I agree with your post but the entire final mission in GTA V was a choice with very different consequences of life and death. In addition there were smaller decisions that opened or limited choices in some way like you could bump into Pakcie from GTA IV and chose to help him, or kill him, which had consequences for the heist missions. Finally of course the different approaches to the jobs could result in slightly different outcomes as could the choice of the crew.
GTA V was an action driving game with light RPG elements.
I agree with your post but the entire final mission in GTA V was a choice with very different consequences of life and death. In addition there were smaller decisions that opened or limited choices in some way like you could bump into Pakcie from GTA IV and chose to help him, or kill him, which had consequences for the heist missions. Finally of course the different approaches to the jobs could result in slightly different outcomes as could the choice of the crew.
GTA V was an action driving game with light RPG elements.
You're right, I forgot about those, especially the last mission. It was definitely a world-changing choice to make.
Now put this event and a few more at the middle of the game, you'd get a full blown RPG
In my opinion, The Witcher is the best current RPG series. You play a character who shape the story, make choices and suffer the consequences. Most quests have multiple paths. And I mean multiple paths inside the quests, not just the ability to do quest A before quest B.
The best example is Witcher 2 and the whole chapter 2 which is completely different depending on your allies.
Most witcher 3 quests are awesome, with hard decisions, and not just "click here for paragon, here for renegade".
I couldn't care less about the stats, grinding levels or the combat gameplay, they could remove it and replace it by a random "you win/lose" dialog and I'd still be happy
I think "Choices & Consequences" is really the core of what an RPG is. Looking through this lens, we have:
Deus Ex: multiple paths during the story, multiple ends, It definitely has RPG elements.
Final Fantasy: action strategy on rails
Bloodborne: action beat-them-all, the only small meaningful choice is at the very end before the last fight.
Mass Effect: Some RPG elements, but they diminish after each release.
Skyrim: RPG simulator, you think you have choices, but none of them have consequences. The world will never get shaped according to you
Diablo 3: Click them all
GTA 5: action. I don't remember quests with multiple paths and/or multiple outcomes.
I really wish people would stop thinking "stats = RPG"
I almost completely agree with you, except for Skyrim. Skyrim is the perfect definition of a ROLEplaying game. It was a game that let your imagination run away with you. That's very important in an RPG.
I for one started several characterrs with their own backtround, even transformed one into a vampire at level 1 and called her Sarah, then I thought of her as a good vampire. My character lived like a vampire. Usually waiting until night and peacefully feeding on people, until I learnt abd nastered the method of using your companion for that.
The consequences of your choices could be deeper, I agree, but even in its lightness, some choices made a difference for the people around.
What I truly dislike -hate actually- is the icons telling you what's the evil reply, the good one, or the amorous one. It feels like they are treating one like a stupid. Just let me be! You don't need to feel devil because o f some responses.
In that sense, I love the ambiguous choices of The Witcher 3. You are not treated as a crooked killa or worse, because of some decisions. The most logical ones vs the illogical ones, or what's logic for you. (hope I've made myself undersood, I feel so drowsy I can barely type)
New free DLC this week (those Gwent card will be mine!!):
I almost completely agree with you, except for Skyrim. Skyrim is the perfect definition of a ROLEplaying game. It was a game that let your imagination run away with you. That's very important in an RPG.
Skyrim and other Elder Scrolls and Fallout games were truly open sandboxes but it fell apart because the game's populace did not recognise who and what you were. E.g. there were random dialogue options thrown in to recognise you'd saved the world in Oblivion or were the Dragonborn in Skyrim but these were superficial. Characters did not react to a player who was playing a rogue-like assassin who was the Head of the Dark Brotherhood any different to a player was playing a mage, whereas you would expect this.
Because you could be anything, the characters treated you like you were nothing in particular all. This is obviously a harder problem to crack but it needs to be addresses because it breaks the immersion.
It gives certain experience. And Gwent is so great and so fun! Trust me on this one. You've completed the game and maybe some of the characters won't be there all the time to give you some of the cards, but please give it a chance. Only rule of thumb is -recommended by the game too- to have a 22 cards deck, then you will figure it out for yourself, playing your own style. Once you play the weakest opponents and your deck grows the addiction....
It may look like RDR but that similarity is entirely superficial.
