[slimgrin]

After viewing the recent vid there is much to be excited about. But one thing concerns me - focus mode. It sounds an awful lot like Batman's detective mode which was an insult to the player's intelligence. There was no searching for clues, deducing and drawing conclusions. The game did it for you. Indeed, the Flickering Heart quest while not worthy of a Sherlock Holmes story, demanded much more from the player. I don't want to press the magical 'focus' button and have all the clues staring me in the face. I want to have to search and closely observe what may be a very detailed environment. Then I want to go back into town, buy what I think is the right monster compendium and through trial and error, come to a decision. When you say your 'fans' bitched about not knowing what monsters they might encounter, remember that these were the fans not using their heads or willing to take a risk. Not once did a monster quest bother me in TW1 or TW2 because the prospect of setting out into hostile territory brought with it a degree of the unknown.

[cmdr_silverbolt]

How is focus mode different from the Witcher medallion? I have purposely been avoiding the news and interviews to keep from spoilers, but I would appreciate if someone could differentiate between focus mode and the medallion.

[atcgamer]

The medalion simply made lootable things glow and make places of power visible

In the flickering heart quest, you didn't know which corpse were the right one and once you found it, you had to inspect the body via choices then geralt deduces the cause of death himself.

I can see how the focus mod can be an easy button, but if that happens I'll simply not use it

[Costin Moroianu]

Quote

right monster compendium

With Geralt's memory full restored it wouldn't make sense for him to go back to a town to buy this info. Besides he's already had two full games of reading up on monsters, he should bloody remember what he's faced before.

[slimgrin]

Costin Moroianu said:

With Geralt's memory full restored it wouldn't make sense for him to go back to a town to buy this info. Besides he's already had two full games of reading up on monsters, he should bloody remember what he's faced before. ›››

Except when he's facing new monsters. I liked the aspect of going to the local bookstore to read up on what may be lurking in the wilds nearby.

[Costin Moroianu]

One would think that in 100 years Geralt would have heard or read about pretty much every kind of monster.

So I no I find it just silly and a waste of my time and coin.

[Agent Blue]

My concern is it will get old quickly.

Looking back at SKyrim, I now take claims of hundreds of hours of content as a sign of insecurity. What developers meant was:" We're not too sure about the quality of the content, so we're going to you bedazzle you with lots of it." In order to sustain the illusion of perpetual playability they had to come up with procedurally generated content, through the Radiant Story system.

Enough of this. Books, movies, CDs are finite works. Why should games, which are works of fiction, be any different?

As long as this Monster hunting is handcrafted, I'm fine with it. Please don't turn this into a system of infinitely generating side quests which all look alike.

[cmdr_silverbolt]

Costin Moroianu said:

With Geralt's memory full restored it wouldn't make sense for him to go back to a town to buy this info. Besides he's already had two full games of reading up on monsters, he should bloody remember what he's faced before. ›››

You're neglecting the possibility of new monster invasions from different spheres. It's been six months since W2, so maybe some people have done preliminarily research that can be obtained from stores.

But I don't see the harm in having a focus button for other gamers; the player will not be forced to use it.

[Costin Moroianu]

Agent Blue: Well they haven't stated it will be hundreds of hours of content, in fact the only number right now is 100 hours which is quite reasonable for good quality stuff.

Quote

You're neglecting the possibility of new monster invasions from different spheres. It's been six months since W2, so maybe some people have done preliminarily research that can be obtained from stores.

If it's a new monster in the world then how would buying books make any sense if no one's faced it before?

[Agent Blue]

cmdr_flashheart said:

You're neglecting the possibility of new monster invasions from different spheres. It's been six months since W2, so maybe some people have done preliminarily research that can be obtained from stores.

But I don't see the harm in having a focus button for other gamers; the player will not be forced to use it. ›››

Can't say I'm thrilled but I'll surely give them the benefit of the doubt.
So far, the description has bee quite elliptic.

This focus feature can so easily degenerate into a gimmicky game mechanic.
Let's wait till more info surfaces.

[slimgrin]

cmdr_flashheart said:

You're neglecting the possibility of new monster invasions from different spheres. It's been six months since W2, so maybe some people have done preliminarily research that can be obtained from stores.

But I don't see the harm in having a focus button for other gamers; the player will not be forced to use it. ›››

Fair enough if we aren't, but we don't know that yet. Using the button may be required to progress the quest. Like when they said the option to kill both hearts won't appear in game until you gain the requisite knowledge. Maybe this is much ado about nothing but I really hate hand holding mechanics.

[Agent Blue]

Costin Moroianu said:

Agent Blue: Well they haven't stated it will be hundreds of hours of content, in fact the only number right now is 100 hours which is quite reasonable for good quality stuff.



If it's a new monster in the world then how would buying books make any sense if no one's faced it before? ›››

I was talking about SKyrim. Edited my original post to make that clear.

However, the fact we're talking about 100 hours does not change the nature of the problem, potential problem, I'm afraid.

Before you know it, this can so easily degenerate into an easy way out, a filler generator to inflate the world with content. I have the utmost respect for CDProjekt and I'd bet my money on them rather then against them. But if there's one feature that smells fishy it sure is this one. The focus mechanic, in particular, gives off an aroma of fermented salmon.

I'm probably dead wrong though.

[Ward Dragon]

I haven't watched this video (I know I'm going to get the game so I'm trying to avoid story spoilers). Is "focus mode" just like the adrenaline finishers from TW2? Or is it more like how a lot of games have special vision modes to hilight parts of the environment that can be interacted with? Or is it something else entirely?

On a different note, about the "fans bitching about not knowing which monsters they'd face" comment, I kind of felt that way in TW2 with the potion restrictions.

I ended up not really using potions except for really difficult areas where I died and then decided to use potions when I loaded and retried it. I thought it was strange that Geralt couldn't chug potions in battle but could apply sword oil. It would make more sense to me to drink potions during combat (like in Witcher 1) but not be able to apply sword oil. (Or to not be able to do either during combat for that matter.)

There was simply so much combat in TW2 (compared to the books) that I thought it was a bit unfair to apply book restrictions to when Geralt could drink potions. The game could still be played relying on Geralt's other skills aside from potions, so it wasn't a major issue for me, but I definitely did use potions more frequently in TW1 which made the alchemy feel more worthwhile.

Since TW3 is apparently going to put more effort into developing the alchemy system, I really hope that they will handle it in a more complex way like TW1 where more thought had to be put into creating potions (such as the alcohol requirements and the albedo/rubido/negro sub-properties) but the potions themselves are much more useful once created.

I love alchemy in general and I want it to be rewarding enough in the game that I feel like it's worthwhile to spend my time on it

Costin Moroianu said:

With Geralt's memory full restored it wouldn't make sense for him to go back to a town to buy this info. Besides he's already had two full games of reading up on monsters, he should bloody remember what he's faced before. ›››

I was thinking that they would have new types of monsters that he didn't face before in the games. That would give a story-based reason to explain why he would be relatively weak at the beginning and it would leave room to grow stronger if he needs to learn how to fight new types of monsters as the game goes on.

In the books he usually fought monsters one-on-one so even though he's very knowledgeable, I don't take it for granted that he has personal experience fighting every type of monster that exists. I can go along with learning about new types of monsters in the game if it makes for a better gameplay experience where he grows stronger over time and there's a sense of accomplishment for learning new things and gaining new experiences.

[cmdr_silverbolt]

slimgrin said:

Using the button may be required to progress the quest. ›››

That would be awful. I understand they want to appeal to other types of players, but if they compromise the type of quest design for which they've gained renown, that's pretty shitty for the fan base that currently exists. At the very least, they should include a separate game play mode for people who don't want the hand-holding.

To Costin: That's why I mentioned that perhaps other people (lore masters, scholars, hunters etc.) might have collected, and made available, information at the stores while Geralt was not in those areas. He was gone from this world for five years, and hasn't returned to that part of the world for some time, and not just 6 mos as I initially thought.

[slimgrin]

The Divinity series does a good job of requiring the player to closely observe and look for visual clues. I remember being stuck for an hour in one small dungeon in Ego Draconis, racking my brain on how to move on. I finally found it, a tiny switch located on a wooden beam In plain site... well, mostly. From there on out I played differently, scouring each area as I went, and it made the game more enjoyable.


*Btw, CDPR devs should play Divine Divinity if they want to see a great hand crafted world.

[dragonbird]

I'm going to ignore the aspect of "shouldn't Geralt know about the monsters" because I think that's part of a different discussion, but just looking at the mechanics described in the video

The "Focus Mode" during combat reads like a good thing. As I heard it, they're basically giving you a choice - you either go in (relatively) blind and rely entirely on your combat skills, or you spend more time getting information about the monster in which case the fight becomes easier. This seems like a good way of handling player choice, and whether the player would prefer to have a game with very difficult combat or not.

The stuff about preparing correctly for combat seems to directly reflect feedback on the forums regarding the fact that you have to take the potions in advance. It also may mean that we can't just get away with using the same potions for every fight, and will need to think about it more. This also seems like a good thing.

The investigation at the kill site to identify the monsters? I don't like the way that it's described as "detective work", but stripping away the specific language, it sounds like a mix of the current medallion usage (highlighting the "clues") and the guided thought process that was used in Flickering Heart and at Sile's house. Overall, it sounds neither better nor worse than the current methods, just a different way of dealing with it. It doesn't seem like excessive handholding, nor does it really seem like "detective work". I'm neutral.

"Tracking the monster...". Potential big negative here. If this means using the medallion (or similar) to follow a blood trail or monster footprints to a lair, then I'm definitely against it. He may have some clues on location ('They nest in caves', 'it disappeared in THAT direction'), but I don't want too much guidance. If there's going to be a blood trail, I wouldn't want it to be any more helpful than in the search for Cedric.

Oh, and to add...
The description of the "Focus Mode" also seemed to hint on an extension of the mechanic where you need to choose between fast and strong attack styles. This ties in with other interviews on the extension of attack styles. So the more you know about the monster, the better you know which attack style to use. Again, a good thing.

[cmdr_silverbolt]

I think the biggest confusion for people, ironically, will be when to use the medallion or the focus button.

It'll be funny to hear complaints about "dying because I was trying to figure which button to use".

[FoggyFishburne]

I'll reserve all judgement for the mechanic after more information has surfaced but the way I understood it, it's basically like the slow-mo-zandatsu-slashing-awesomesauce-move in MGR Revengeance. Where time slows down and you get to choose where Raiden slashes. Could be wrong. Hell, I'm probably wrong. Just sharing my initial impression of the mechanic and how it might be implemented.

[dragonbird]

FoggyFishburne said:

I'll reserve all judgement for the mechanic after more information has surfaced but the way I understood it, it's basically like the slow-mo-zandatsu-slashing-awesomesauce-move in MGR Revengeance. Where time slows down and you get to choose where Raiden slashes. Could be wrong. Hell, I'm probably wrong. Just sharing my initial impression of the mechanic and how it might be implemented. ›››

Yup, it's definitely too vague to be sure. I interpreted it more as a "slo-mo to pick whether you're going slash or stab or behead or some other fighting style" rather than "slo-mo to pick target body part", but it could be either. It's definitely going to be interesting to see some real gameplay.

[Umair2012]

Agree with OP .