The Witcher 2 Has Gone Gold, Releases In 3 Weeks

Page 11 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

bargetrav

Banned
Apr 2, 2009
195
0
0
Game is harder than I could have imagined, made Dragon Age 2 look like pong in comparison, this is on normal for me.

I'm playing many battles 4-5 times just to figure out the best manner to get through.
 

PUN

Golden Member
Dec 5, 1999
1,590
16
81
I Started with Monastery (didn't know I had to start off with the ballista) under normal difficulty. It was impossible to get the 3 guards at the tower. Backed down to Easy mode with Ballista mission and forward. Easy slash move on.
 

vshah

Lifer
Sep 20, 2003
19,003
24
81
took me a while to figure out that I had signs other than the shove one from the start. fire and trap ones helped a lot.
 

Mem

Lifer
Apr 23, 2000
21,476
13
81
I Started with Monastery (didn't know I had to start off with the ballista) under normal difficulty. It was impossible to get the 3 guards at the tower. Backed down to Easy mode with Ballista mission and forward. Easy slash move on.



I would not be surprised if they bring out a patch to lower the difficulty slightly on normal mode,W2 is way harder then W1 on normal mode,btw guys I finally got into the game and was surprised it ran quite well on my 6 year old rig with fine tuning of the graphic settings even @1920x1080 .


I hear they are bringing out a hotfix patch so you can use the arrows keys for movement,I'm old school and find the WASD keys awkward.

I did try the user file hack ie this one

[InputQWERTY]
IK_Up=(Gamekey=GI_AxisLeftY,Value=1.000000)
IK_Down=(Gamekey=GI_AxisLeftY,Value=-1.000000)
IK_Left=(Gamekey=GI_AxisLeftX,Value=-1.000000)
IK_Right=(Gamekey=GI_AxisLeftX,Value=1.000000)

make sure you delete any existing entries for IK_Up, IK_Down etc..

It did not work and yes I used the user file in documents folder.
 
Apr 28, 2010
114
0
0
I would not be surprised if they bring out a patch to lower the difficulty slightly on normal mode,W2 is way harder then W1 on normal mode,btw guys I finally got into the game and was surprised it ran quite well on my 6 year old rig with fine tuning of the graphic settings even @1920x1080 .


I hear they are bringing out a hotfix patch so you can use the arrows keys for movement,I'm old school and find the WASD keys awkward.

I did try the user file hack ie this one



It did not work and yes I used the user file in documents folder.

I personally love the difficulty. I'm playing on hard and don't mind dying now and then. If I don't get challenged, I usually get bored.

What I learned early, is that being very aggressive (worked in the first game) really doesn't work here. You don't want to get trapped with anything behind you. You'll receive extra damage from backstabs, and you can't get out of it by easily jumping over enemies, as you could in the first game.

I usually play very defensive, by falling back, keeping everything infront of me and try to find narrow spots where I can take the enemies down 1 by 1. Alternative, if the terrain doesn't suit such a strategy, is to lock on to the weakest enemy, and circle kite 'em.

Positioning is very important. I'm not getting much use out of the parry ability, but I use the manual dodge all the time. I strike, dodge, strike, dogde.

A lot of the time you're also able to "leash" the enemies. If the fight is going south, run away. Heal up, and then return :p
 

Demo24

Diamond Member
Aug 5, 2004
8,356
9
81
Is there someway to heal up without just running away and waiting on the bar? Since you can't drink potions in action anymore that sort of takes away from that.


The one oddity that I found is that the journal is written by a narrator and no longer by your character, makes the game feel sort of odd.
 

CVSiN

Diamond Member
Jul 19, 2004
9,289
1
0
super duper hard on normal.. keep getting flambe'd by the dragon fire while killing the guards.. cant seem to find out how to avoid it.
the DOT just kills me every time..
 

JeffNY35

Senior member
Dec 16, 2009
294
2
76
Just some hints:

Meditate and use potions before hard fight.
Kite and shoot your signs.

Do not expect to just mash attack multiple enemies. You need to hit and move.

Use strong attack for heavy armor quick attack otherwise. Mix of the 2 works good in cases.

Once enemies are wounded they are more vulnerable to stun which means easy kill.

If you get surrounded, you are probably screwed.
 

JumBie

Golden Member
May 2, 2011
1,645
1
71
So far the game is great, I find my self coming up to huge fights and scouting how I can make it a lot easier. On the retry I set up ALOT of traps and get my skills and bombs ready, makes a highly difficult fight, turn into a breeze.
 

mooncancook

Platinum Member
May 28, 2003
2,874
50
91
I Started with Monastery (didn't know I had to start off with the ballista) under normal difficulty. It was impossible to get the 3 guards at the tower. Backed down to Easy mode with Ballista mission and forward. Easy slash move on.

Took me several tries at normal. I pick off the easy ones first, then lure one of the the knight out first. If both come after you just run away and they won't chase you all the way. One on one is easy with use of blocking. Later there was a group of tougher enemies with 3 knights and 3 regulars, took me many tries and I had to use the trap sign to lay traps and keep dodging and running, and wait for opportunities to strike when I'm not surrounded.
 

Demo24

Diamond Member
Aug 5, 2004
8,356
9
81
BTW, for those who bought on steam and want the bonus content. Look under the 'tools' section in your library, and then at the bottom you can download it. Just went live recently and its 900mb.
 

StinkyPinky

Diamond Member
Jul 6, 2002
6,956
1,268
126
I like that this game doesn't hold your hand.

Combat is interesting. Quite difficult at times. Prep is key and you simply cannot go toe to toe with a mob. They'll own you. Move, use traps and bombs, and use your signs.
 

Merad

Platinum Member
May 31, 2010
2,586
19
81
Just got really into the game tonight. LOVE it so far. Graphics are orgasmic. Not far into the story yet, but seems interesting so far. Combat is challenging, and fun.

RE combat: You have to remember that witchers are more like ninjas or maybe fencers. They don't wear armor, they stay alive by not being hit. The game did most of the dodging and parrying automagically for you in TW1 - now, it's up to you.

The key is to keep them off balance. If you're fighting one or two weaker enemies where you can press the attack, alternate your strong and weak strikes to keep them from recovering. Against groups, use aard, yrden and bombs to stagger the stronger enemies. Then make a strike or two at the weaker guys and dodge away as the group recovers and starts to swing at you. Once you get down to the shield guys or heavy knights, you can use block to stagger then make a few strikes before you recover.

You definitely can't go rambo, or you'll be dead in 5 seconds.

Some screens (1920x1200, max settings except for AA and ultrasampling):

1DA7CC18D36FD12F1A40EAB80BAF0C49345906AB


4F6C7952387B2DC264A1561B173DD28E49B04F86


C0E342233BC6DDBAB5E52D091E93AE306EC1960F


8A4FC3339C4B86F14D648FF0F0E5E7892BCA75F1


933F48CCC397E9A8352DC63B62A4626F99F8469C
 

coloumb

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
4,069
0
81
Game is hard, or I just really suck.

Combat is..interesting. I personally liked how combat worked in Witcher 1. I'm definitely switching to easy mode as I'm more interested in the story rather than annoyingly difficult combat [at least for me].
 

Dumac

Diamond Member
Dec 31, 2005
9,391
1
0
Damn, this game is outright amazing. Topping the witcher 1 so far. We'll see how the story shapes up.
 

PUN

Golden Member
Dec 5, 1999
1,590
16
81
I am running 2560x1600 under Ultra except Ubersampling.
Absolutely gorgeous. Great Storyline so far (2hrs into it)
 

pathos

Senior member
Aug 12, 2009
461
0
0
I hear they are bringing out a hotfix patch so you can use the arrows keys for movement,I'm old school and find the WASD keys awkward.

I've been using dscf since like, quake 1, for every game. And, this game won't let me remap c for whatever reason :( I'm way to old to go relearning new key configurations now.

I think I'm going to have to go and look into that user file hack to see if It will let me remap my c key
 

sigurros81

Platinum Member
Nov 30, 2010
2,371
0
0
I'm glad that they have the options to turn off all the various depth of field effects, because don't you guys think they went a little overboard. I can understand the usage of a shallow DOF effect when the camera is zoomed in on something, but man when you're running around normally with the camera all wide, you still get blurriness in the background. Very weird....European game makers....
 

Edge1

Senior member
Feb 17, 2007
439
0
0
The length and content of this (and the other) thread looks like a testament to how good this game is. Not often people are talking about this kind of depth and difficulty in today's console world. Reinstalling TW1 now so I can finally finish it, in order to move onto TW2.
 

HunterDT

Member
Oct 5, 2001
86
0
0
Had one of the most fulfilling combat experiences this morning before work. Decided to try to take out one of the Endragia Queens. (playing on Hard) The fight took a good 5 minutes! I used up my bombs, throwing knives and traps. Was an epic fight. My heart was pounding the whole time.
 

Mem

Lifer
Apr 23, 2000
21,476
13
81
That Kayran was a tough fight took me about 5 or 6 attempts,at one point thought I would never kill it.

I'm glad I imported my Witcher 1 save so I got the best armour and silver sword in W2.