I’m about to start the Witcher series from scratch. What should I expect?

Awful pacing. Just read the wiki for the story and call it a night.

w1 - Clunky Neverwinter Nights 2 mod where you play as 1 character instead of 4. Best storylines, dialogue choices effect things, most interesting areas. Only game that actually tries to make you use potions aka be a witcher

w2 - worst game in the series. immediatly after W1s success CDprojekt said "we want the console audience" and made this game. Quick time events, press a button see something awesome finishers, and the most abusive magic in the series. Very few real consequences from choices other than choosing between dwarf land and war land, which is where all the budget went. Letho is the only thing that makes this game bearable, weak individual stories but probably the best overarching plot of the series aside from Geralt some how deciding to fuck around with kings again

W3 - see image

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>no arguments whatosever - the post
Console "Witcher" fans, ladies & gents.

Have sex.

It's not a CRPG, there are no real "pleb" filters unless you count "tedium" as a pleb filter (which is a really stupid attitude) and mechanically it's probably the most flawed in the series.

it's worth playing, but you are deluding yourself something FIERCE if you can't honestly and openly admit and adress all the serious issues the game does without a question have,

it gets worse after 1

My favorite pleb filter when you have to follow the quest arrow to progress the game.

official witcher 3 review.

all non-quest related things you can find on the world are copy paste boring shit
no one will talk to you unless they are quest related and you have the quest that requires them
awful ui made for consoles and only 2 consumable slots, making alch spec a chore
no resource management, you just instantly get all your potions back for whats essentiallly free
enemys have 1, maybe 2, attack that they repeat over and over, making fights absolutely boring after an hour
level system only works to the games detriment, as youll quickly outlevel everything you have to do and it will all be easier than the game already is
coming across a SKULL WARNING SIGN monster should be exciting but it's not, because you know it fights exactly the same as all the others of its kind, only with more hp.
"cinematic" controls that ignore accuracy in favor of looking more natural
even death march is easy as fuck due to a lack of enemy attack variety and every ability you can spec into being way too strong
ciri sections are boring and unneeded and only serve to rob you of what could have been the one interesting boss fight in the game.
the final moments of the story seem rushed as fuck, from oh hi crones now we fight, to im eredin i have a secret, im dying my secret is this guy tricked us and i had no plan to deal with it, to oh actually geralt i didnt trick you
majority of loot is randomized and scales to your level. Nothing you find really excites you.
all enemies have an extremely short tether that you will cross unintentionally more often than not. At this point they ignore you and start walking back to the center of the area or hang around to get hit easily
witcher senses are only ever used when the quest requires it and is just hold right click to follow quest arrow. you cant actually track monsters or anything out in the world(and why would you need to? theyre all tethered to a small location and never move away)

6/10 game. Had potential, wasted it.

5 chapters of absolute tedium with literally whos

>most abusive magic in the series
that's 3. I agree with your post otherwise

>It's not a CRPG
It is a computer-exclusive game, runs on a computer-exclusive computer-RPG's engine, and in no way does not fall under ARPG category.
It's CRPG, you little zoomer.

>no real "pleb" filters
The whole game is one bit one, and you clearly got stuck in it.

>you are deluding yourself something FIERCE if you can't honestly and openly admit and adress all the serious issues the game does without a question have
Such as?
From where I'm standing, it is waaay less flawed game than its causalized sequels.

you should except to hate portals :^)

I'd strongly recommend familiarizing yourself with the books' story first, even if it's just reading wikipedia plot summaries or something like that. I found 1's combat to be charming, but it is objectively the worst in the series. Just keep that in mind

boredom and despair, a lot of pretending should kick in and you will try to hold on, you will drop it like 90% of normal people

I like Witcher 1 the most purely because of its comfy charm and nostalgia.

The meaning of brotherhood

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I finished Witcher 1 and 2
What's your excuse Boomer?

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TW1 is better than TW2 or 3.
It doesn't rush you along and the environments and atmosphere was just much better. You want to explore every thing.
In TW2, it seems like CDPR tried to make it a cinematic experience, the gameplay wasn't as smooth. I don't know about anyone else but I also preferred the combat in TW1 more. It felt very fluid and the different stances were nice to use.

he's no boomer. Clearly a pure-bred zoomer with attention-span issues.

a really great diamond in the rough, a disappointing sequel, and a great end to the series (with two of the best dlc expansions ever made)

A great game with a slow start. Once you get into the story you'll start to love it.
Although 3 is the best in the series.

going from tw1 into tw2, i wanted to kill myself the entire time because of the QTEs, the awful console limitations, bad UI (worst UI in living memory, the ui in tw1 was perfect in comparison), and just some really terrible design when it comes to how alchemy and combat works.

You're talking with a zoomer my man, now that I have your attention i'll rant how every youtuber faggot says
>It's outdated, don't play it
The amount of good old games they are ignoriong by following that statement is amazing

>It's CRPG, you little zoomer.
I'm 30 you idiot, and CRPG means character-focused (or "classic" RPG), meaning that it's design primarily harkons back to the design of old pen-and-paper ones, wher your character problem solving far-extended combat, and involved almost all interactions. In other words, you character build and RPG mechanics directly affected how you went around solving your issues.
The Witcher - all of them, the first one including, is a textbook ARPG: an RPG where the character stats ONLY actually play a role in relationship to combat and where the absolute majority of problem-solving mechanic are strictly combat oriented.

Fallout 1/2 are cRPG. Arcanum is a cRPG. Fallout New Vegas is a cRPG. Games that allow you to do no-kill runs, that allow you to use your particular build qualities to completely circument combat or part of it by being employed elsewhere - those are cRPG.
TW1, as much as I love it, has none of that.

>The whole game is one bit one, and you clearly got stuck in it.
If finished it for the first time without help when I was 14, you mongoloid. The game is easy as fuck. Even on hardest difficulty. There is LITERALLY ONE DIFFICULT scenario in the entire game.
A lot of it is tedious and very poorly paced. Worth perservering, but poorly paced non-the less. But it sure as fuck isn't hard or complex in any way, shape or form.

>Such as?
I listed the issues above. Bad combat, bad pacing, some serious progression issues, lack of complexity or depth.

>From where I'm standing, it is waaay less flawed game than its causalized sequels.
You are an attention and status-seeking where, a shitstain that does not actually appreciate games for what they are: you just desperately screech bullshit for approval.

All TW games are flawed, each in it's unique way. And all are amazing, each in it's unique way. You are not interested in them, or what makes them good, or what mistakes they make.
You seek hipster credit. Fucking. Whore.

Unpopular opinion: Combat system of Witcher 1 was waaay better than Witcher 2. I haven't played W3 because 2 sucked compared to 1.

Kino and a witch fetish

Same.
I was hype as fuck for 2, since it was praised everywhere as the GOTYAY title, and I'd been positively surprised by the 1st game just moments earlier, as I hate playing or watching series out of order.
What I found was instead the biggest buyer's remorse up to that point, and a game I barely managed to push myself to beat on my first run.

>Unpopular opinion:

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1 is a CRPG masterpiece
2 is a fun action flick
3 is a story driven kino with Skyrim tier combat

this is too perfect for this not be a joke

Sorry kid, but I'm 100% straight and honest here.
Go have sex, maybe you'll learn to appreciate superior games.

It was so kino that the writers had absolutely no idea what to do after the Kaer Morhen siege. The second that event is over the writing just fucking goes full speed downhill into an unsatisfying clusterfuck that proposes problems as quickly as it solves them

1. was a an awkward and in really poorly thoguh-through simple action RPG that happend to have honest-to-god some of the best settings, characters, stories and quests in the history of RPG's. Plus great music and all around great atmosphere.
2. attempted to be this big political drama, actually making the gameplay interesting this time around and having some depth to it's mechanics, plus impressive set-pieces: but clearly, the budget constraints, lack of experience and poor management shot the game in the foot REALLY badly, ending up a mess with some great ideas and ambitions, but really weak execution.
3. is the best of both worlds - for the most part. With atmosphere and characters almost on par with 1, and gameplay much like what 2 was going for except not broken. Still though, the scope took it's tole and some things have been sacrificied, or rushed. Sadly namely the main story which actually sucks.

reply to the other guys post then

>It was so kino that the writers had absolutely no idea what to do after the Kaer Morhen siege.
Oh, they knew all well what to do.
They just had to throw it all out of the window and massively rush the whole final part because the development was in shambles. The way in which you can see TW3 being rushed are painful.

You won't be able to stomach the utter shit combat, animations and graphics of the first game. Just check the wiki for the story of the first game, play the second and the third one.

What other post?

>don't look up decision guides, try to do what you think is best

this above all else

Leave a gap between witcher 1 and 2.
2 is an ok game but will seem really bad coming straight out of witcher 1 because it goes for a very different approach.

slow burn but great series

The difference of the approach really isn't the issue. It's that TW2 is mechanically really not very well managed. They tried a lot of new things, but did not know how to do them properly.

part of me feels like skellige should've been a final act thing. i mean so much of the game takes place there at the end anyway so why not introduce it later and cut it down a bit to make it less unfocused.

Swamp.
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Ignore the niggers saying the series has bad combat.
That is only true for the first game, and not for the series as a whole. There is nothing wrong with combat in 2 and 3, it's on par or even better than similar WRPG like Skyrim or Gothic.

gothic is miles beyond witcher shit mechanically

I love Gothic, but come on. All you did with this comment is convince everybody to ignore what you have to say about anything.

witcher 3's combat is just batman arkham trash plus broken spells, witcher 2 is a failed batman combat system. 3 especially took away the best aspect of witcher's combat, the preparation and commitment to potion types (2 did this to a degree as well but not nearly as bad as the potion chugging in 3)

>par or even better than similar WRPG like Skyrim or Gothic.
extremely low bar

Don't bother romancing best girl. She will be completely forgotten until an addon for 3.

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Nah. Learn to play gothic you fucking retard.

>extremely low bar
That's part of my point really. Nobody talks about how the combat is bad in those games though, yet when it comes to the witcher, complaints about combat gets blown way out of proportion and it's hard not to call the double-standard out.
I will just ignore your nonsense about witcher 2 and 3 being batman combat, there is nothing even remotely similar between 2/3 and arkham games.

Already have, point still stands.

>Nobody talks about how the combat is bad in those games though
skyrim's combat is one of the most modded things about it. Nobody talks about gothic's combat because nobody talks about gothic

This is a straight up fucking lie man and you know it
Gothic 1 and 2 are great but by no means is the combat good
See: that last fight with the spider dude n shit

3 > 1 > 2

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It's pretty sad we can't have a normal TW discussion anymore because of all the pseudo-hipsters praising 1 without even a slightest honesty, and shitting on 2 and 3 equally as dishonestly.
It's fucking PATHETIC how this board (or this industry) just reduces people to drooling tribalistic idiots screeching insults at whatever they currently precieve as will result in them gaining more "prestige cred". On a fucking anonymous site none the less. God damn it.

TW3's combat is a lot things (and not many of them are good), but not like Batman. This is precisely the kind of bullshit that ruins ANY possiblity of a reasonable TW discussion. You people just screech percieved insults because "that is what you do".
Fuck. We could just cut the god damn games out of the formula already. Go right for the platform or political identity screeching instead. Hell, half of the threads are aleady doing it anyway.

Games themselves have became a completely superficial and vestigal feature of this board. It's now just shitheads screeching at other people to be part of the cooler tribe. Fuck you all.
Good games are a fucking WASTE on you shit heads. if you want to know why the industry is fucked: you are the reason.

TW3 has the same exact movement, parry, and takedown systems as batman, there just isn't a huge indicator above your head and it's a massively telegraphed sword swing instead. It also has similar mob AI where most enemies will just circle around you while 1/2 attack you at one time

>plays through gothic
>never learns how the combat works

youre a witcher fan alright

maybe you should get better taste in games

Get the tattoo in 2.

feel free to skip witcher 1, it's garbage

sorry dude, witcher 1 is better than 3 in most ways

noob

Skip 1 and 2 they’re shit, proceed straight to 3 for an OK game

W1 combat is basically KotOR, I don't get why you shit on it so much.

Have you played either of the games?
Because this is a STRAIGHT up lie. Batman's combat places ZERO emphasis on positioning. All animations are pre-canned and Batman fully snaps to enemies while attacking. You can't miss an attack in batman, actually. Also, Batman is ENTIRELY about repostes - presing the block button when it flashes to actually deal the bulk of the damage. It has no dodge (only roll), massive targeting bias, the rythm is completely different, hell, even the camera is different.
Having the option to move, parry and enemies telegraphing attacks is not exactly fucking Batman's invention you drooling mongoloid, those are features of just about every melee combat game.
Jesus, how far are you people willing to go for a stretch shit argument is pathetic. And the worst part it, there is a plent of legitimate issues with TW3 combat that you literally can't address because you are too busy LYING ABOUT GAMES YOU CLEARLY HAVEN'T EVEN PLAYED FOR SOME IMAGINARY STREET CRED.
This is precisely the problem I'm talking about. Why Yea Forums is shit. Nothing that you say in any way connects to any kind of actual reality. The games: they don't matter. You either don't play them, or you actually don't pay ANY attention to them what so ever. Most basic mechanics fly completely over your head: the only thing you are interested in having bullshit stuff to bitch and whine about later.
God I hate you people so fucking much.

Because KOTOR had party and auto-attack, both changing the dynamics drastically. How can you be so god damn clueless about basic game design?

I don’t usually say this but: Have sex.

hmmm.. a nigger.... gotta be

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If you mean knights or the old republic then the comparison you're making is really innaccurate

Some faggy console kiddie tried it back in 2010 and shitposted about it so much all the other scrubs joined the bandwagon.

>positioning mattering at all in W3

Top tier atmosphere and great characters

It's a story driven action game more than it is an open world RPG

good prologue
SHIT swamp starter area, will take a strong will not to drop the game
W2 and W3 are great though