One giant reason Witcher 2 is better than 3 (and why linear worlds and smaller hubs are smarter almost every time)

Witcher 3 has so many quests that you become overwhelmed and the story loses all urgency. Sense of time gets thrown out of whack. Walk a few paces, a troll shouts for help, another quest. Funniest moment was when I searched the Barron's bedroom for signs of what happened to his wife and daughter. Couldn't figure out what else I was supposed to look at, got distracted, did another mission, ended up doing several more, came back in-game days later, Barron still sat there waiting by the bedroom door, Gerralt told him he was still checking the room, lol. Most of the quests aren't even that interesting. You think they are because they are voice-acted and have dialogue options, but the objectives are usually pretty simple and unimaginative. The game deserves the praise it gets for many of its quests, but those special ones are still a minority. It's really irresponsible game design to bury the player in so much and undermine your own story. Linear worlds and smaller hubs are far more effective almost every time. How important is being immersed in a big open world to you really?

Witcher 2 is definitely better game. the hub or smaller open world is more akin to Deus Ex. TW3 is ubisoft open world the game.

beside entire series is mediocre. CDPR doesnot know how to make a video game. just want to deliver cinematic story experience or lore.

Both in my top 5 games,I enjoyed the bigger game,more witchering

quickly learning to associate Warm_Gun threads with bad takes.

you can just do the main story quests and prominent side quests you get from the main story characters in the Witcher 3 (that end up tying back in with the main story anyways) and you end up with probably 2-3x the amount of great stuff than is in Witcher 2.

don't get me wrong, I actually liked the Witcher 2, but its probably the weakest game in the trilogy

@warm_gun: not a big fan of Witcher. But I played 2 and 3. Thought 3 was more enjoyable than 2 myself. I tend to like linear designs more than open world. Funny you brought up the Barron quest. Seeing that botched abortion baby you have to fight was one of the more memorable quests for me lol

Overall tho I think the series is overated. 3 was less janky. Think that helped it's success more than just being open world.

W3, W1 and then W2.

Both are flawed games. TW2 is the only witcher game i beat, and its a 8/10 game at best. If it wasn't for its visuals at that time, i think i would've lost interest.

Have not played Witcher, but generally agree. Hubs tend to give games better pacing, allow some exploration while keeping things focused and more interconnected.

I just recently played through Witcher 1 and Witcher 2 Enhanced edition both on Steam so this is very fresh in my mind.

Witcher 1 was a very good game, but it was in bad need of an editor. Some places drag on and on, and it was easy to do a lot of things out of order and made a game with very deep lore more confusing than need be. All in all, it seemed like a game that needed to be about 20 hours shorter, or 20 hours longer, if that makes sense. All said though, it is a really great game, especially for the time.

Witcher 2 is absolutely fantastic. It takes all the potential of Witcher 1, and polishes it to a shine. The game is fantastic top to bottom, everything matters, and it has very fast combat and thoughtful character progression.

I really, really loved Witcher 2.

By the way…. (Minor spoilers for a 12 year old game). Dethmold’s death scene with Vernon Roche has to be the most brutal thing I have ever seen in a video game.

Witcher 3 is a good game just to big and full of unnecessary side quests, treasure hunts and question mark location to explore and lets not forget to many potions and other crap, is what really ruined the game for me, i did enjoy witcher 1 and 2 more

In general, I agree with the sentiment: smaller, but open games are generally better by design than open world. If you have something delicately crafted with enough options to keep a player engaged, you get get a lot of milage out of smaller levels.

Think MGS3, with how many options you have… With how many ways there are to handle any given situation. Did the open world in MGS 5 really add anything? I don’t think so, other than being able to approach a mission from any angle, which is something you can still achieve in a smaller, mission based, more linear game.

I don’t think the sentiment is universally true, however. Morrowind would be a worse game if it weren’t as open. I don’t want to imagine games like Subnautica or Minecraft in a more linear sense, either.

If a game is going to be open world, it needs to play to the strengths of open world design. You can’t just take a linear game and add boring empty fields in between all of the good stuff and call it a day.

Nah, TW3 is definitely better. TW2 was an alright game with an even more awful combat than TW3.

@Juub1990:

Strongly disagree about the combat. Witcher 2 is better, faster, and more tactical in my opinion.

Gear, crafting, and proper use of potions and character build are much more important in Witcher 2. However that’s by design, with Witcher 3 being a open world game.

Witcher 1 and 2 are not linear, but the chapters are hard locks on where you can go at any point in the story.

@evilross: Witcher 2 most definitely isn’t faster and the combat is floatier. The hit detection and reaction is awful. At times you’re not even sure whether or not you’ve landed a hit.

Don’t try to make it more grandiose than it is with the "tactical bit". Both games have shit combat, TW3 less so.

@Juub1990:

You may not have played Witcher 2 in a while, combat abilities, sword combos, and movement are much faster in Witcher 2.

There is a lot of tactical depth to Witcher 2, especially on the higher difficulty levels. Also the game mechanic that you can’t drink potions outside of meditation. I agree that movement can be “floaty” at times, and the lock on system doesn’t work as well as it should.

We can disagree on liking the combat or not, however all of the things I just mentioned are fact.

I haven't played it in like 7 years. I remember the combat being awful, floaty, and slow. Mind you, The Witcher 3 isn't a tier above or anything, it just isn't as bad. At least not to my recollection.

I love all the Witcher games (yes, even the first one), but I have to agree; the second has the better world design, and the story benefits.

I'm a big fan of the instanced, focused level design.

People talk a lot of crap about it, but Dragon Age: Inquisition did this really well I thought. They had a central hub with a bunch of large, well-developed instances to explore in the land. It was the perfect mix of focused level design combined with just enough freedom of exploration to not feel limiting. You could backtrack for side quests and explore more, or your could continue with the story in a more linear fashion.

The Witcher 3 was too much watching and listening to hours of dialogue and cutscenes.

I agree with the sentiment about world/quest structure in this case, but Witcher 2 combat is awful. W3 is a waypoint simulator.

Not a great series overall in terms of game play, IMO. World-building, characters, and lore are great, but they all feel pretty bad to play. I wanted to like W2/3 a lot more than ended up. That's just my take I put a lot of time into both and beat them.

@pyro1245: I was shocked how much reviews ignored the actual gameplay.

Overall I agree that hub areas > open worlds. Better level design and more focused experience story-wise.

Open world games when done right offer more satisfying exploration. TW3 is a good example.

I was way more immersed in TW2's story. Loved the branching storyline and the warring factions. OST was also quite memorable.

Witcher II has one of the most convoluted combat systems I have ever played. Would rather play 3 by far...

Witcher 3 shits all over witcher 2 completed both 100%.

What an awful take.

Yeah... we're going to have to agree to disagree on that one.

this warmie filling the spot of other warmie.

The only thing witcher 2 has over 3 is Iorveth

Yeah, I really wish Witcher was a more fun game series. It's an interesting world. Became so bored with 3 I had to stop after ~20 hours. Been thinking about going back to it and just power through the main quest, but.. nah. Not worth it. Don't feel like wasting time looking and listening to people talking for hours on end when I could be playing shit.

Witcher 1 is still my favorite Witcher game. Everyone shits on it, but hey. I don't argue with what I like the most. In the first game, the shortcomings at least were acceptable to me. W3 had no right to be so boring.

Witcher 1 is absolute worst in series. the game had laughably bad gameplay. PC gamers back in days praise it when bash something like mass effect or fallout any RPG on console when this game is far worse and broken game than any of those.

@ghosts4ever: yep, the game was simply out-dated when it came out. It belonged in the Gothic, KOTOR and the like category.

I prefer shorter, more linear games but come on lol, The Witcher 2 does not hold a candle to The Witcher 3. I never even bothered finishing TW2.

Didn't like Gerald, projecting white privilege.

I also preferred Witcher 2 over Witcher 3. Linear game design is more fun than open world most of the time. Witcher 2 also had a visual novel like non-linear branching story, whereas Witcher 3 went back to a more traditional linear story. That's one thing I also liked about TW2's story over TW3.

Geralt is basically medieval Solid Snake.

Literally.

Let's have' an RPG where you communicate for hours on end but give him the personality of Spock without the intelligence and the design of "gruff man 101".

YaWn.

Always found it BS that Geralt lost his emotions from the mutations. He is stoic, but you can see his emotions.

@with_teeth26: Resident Evil 2 made by baka gaijen, probably:

Police station made far bigger for no reason, huge landscape added around, NPCs with busywork everywhere.

Player keeps telling self that whatever they might have for Leon or Claire to do might be reward. Keeps telling self there's no harm, not punished for sidetracking so much.

Adventure that was supposed to last one night ends up 70 hours. Sense of urgency gone, story comical.

with_teeth26, probably: "10/10 GOTY"

comparing a tight survival horror game to a huge RPG, a genre that has traditionally had sprawling stories with lots of opportunities baked in for side quests and exploration.

yup, not detecting any logic issues there /s

warmie, is there any game you ever liked?

just asking.

@ghosts4ever: No. Next question.

@with_teeth26: If you can't see the parallels between this hypothetical and what you said about the irresponsible amount of busywork being optional, you are lost.

ok. so why you are on gaming forums when you are not into gaming?

why you build gaming PC when you are not into gaming?

if you chose to "role play" as a Geralt who wanders off in the middle of a story quest due to a short attention span, then blame the game for it, sounds like you are quite literally the lost one here mate

the game doesn't force you to engage in any of that 'busywork.' its entirely optional. The trick to enjoying open world games: just do the stuff you enjoy.

@ghosts4ever: Thank you for mentioning those signs of me liking games. Yeah, someone doesn't buy an AMD 6800 just to watch movies. I guess with this revelation you can stop pestering me with the troll attempts now.

my friend, I respect you but but I never seen you liking or praising any game even decades ago back in GT. you even criticize FEAR which is mechanically perfect game. or you mention oncec a certain game have story told through journals you discard the entire game based on that.

I wish I had 6800 AMD.

@ghosts4ever: So you just lie. Okay.

Open world games are mostly good at one thing .... wasting the player's time.

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