Forums » General Gaming

Skyrim vs The Witcher 3

    • 201 posts
    July 26, 2015 3:25 PM EDT
    Sadly no, I Haven't played Red dead redemption. :(
    • 1595 posts
    July 26, 2015 3:51 PM EDT

    Oblivion had mechanics like Spell Making or the ability to reproduce just about every magical effect in the game with Alchemy. Skyrim was a huge step backwards in that department for no apparent reason. Trouble is, playing Oblivion now when you have Skyrim to compare it to is hard, but at the time it was the bollocks  I'd have loved access to mods but sadly I'm a console player.

    Sorry there were spoilers in my reply, I seem to have forgotten how to use spoiler tags. I'll keep an eye on my posts to ensure I don't give too much away, but I will say this: Lambert is awesome

    Can't go wrong with Firefly, either

    • 1595 posts
    July 26, 2015 3:58 PM EDT

    Maybe it's the tone of the story? Mass Effect was high fantasy, about being the big goddam hero and saving the galaxy. It's incredible stuff and makes you feel like the boss. The Witcher 2 and 3 by comparison are much more scaled back. Geralt isn't the most important guy in the setting like Shepard is, rather he's the guy who is friends with the most important person in the setting. The stories tend to be darker, more political and ultimately give you the impression that no matter what you choose something bad will come of it. It's hard to compare the two side by side, but I'd say that Mass Effect is to Star Wars what The Witcher 3 is to Game of Thrones.

    I haven't played the first game, although I understand it has a fan base. I played TW2 but got stuck and frustrated. It Took number 3 to convince me to go back and finish the second game and I'm glad I did.

    • 394 posts
    July 26, 2015 4:05 PM EDT

    Actually I haven't finiahed TW2 either. I got stuck on the final fight then I got Skyrim

    • 288 posts
    July 26, 2015 4:27 PM EDT

    Perhaps you're right. I like Star Wars and can't stand GoT much.

    • 1595 posts
    July 26, 2015 4:30 PM EDT

    Thanks Shaun  Hell, it would take a lot to convince me that any lore beats that of TES's setting. Tamriel really is incredibly unique in the way the lore is delivered and how much digging is needed to find some measure of truth.

    Despite that though, the average gamer could play the games and never realise the truth, firmly believing that The Nine Divines are kind-hearted omnipotent beings who genuinely care like the Lawful Good deities of a D&D setting. In a way, the fundamentals of the world are kept at a distance from the game for the sake of freedom. Wanna believe aedra = good and daedra = bad? Go for it. Want to roleplay your Bosmer like a Tolkien Sindar? The game will let you. This is both a weakness and a strength but it shouldn't be confused with depth. It's a very good sandbox, that's for sure, but everything else is in the player's head.

    Serana, a firm fan favourite, is popular because she is the only character we can have any meaningful dialogue with. Even then she only scratches the surface but it was like water to a thirty man and we lapped it up greedily. That's the sad trade off in Skyrim; meaningful relationships are hard to form outside the bubble of disbelief suspension and that bubble can be fragile as glass sometimes.

    Interesting you liked The Witcher 3's combat, I look forward to keeping track of the number of people for and against it.

    • 641 posts
    July 26, 2015 4:57 PM EDT

    Yeah in Witcher you can get really attached to any character and just want to follow their journey through the world and that really adds to the story and makes it a lot deeper and meaningful but to get the freedom you do in an Elder Scrolls game a lot of that needs to be stripped away.

    As for lore I don't think there is any games that surpass ES but I think the Malazan books do.  

    • 1595 posts
    July 26, 2015 5:07 PM EDT

    Malazan? Not heard of. Please enlighten

    • 641 posts
    July 26, 2015 5:16 PM EDT

    Malazan Books of the Fallen and Malazan Empire are two fantasy book series set in a shared universe by writers Steven Erikson (MBotF) and Ian C Esslemont (ME).

    Malazan Book of the Fallen - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    • 1595 posts
    July 26, 2015 7:57 PM EDT

    Thanks Shaun

    • 649 posts
    July 27, 2015 6:52 AM EDT

    I´ve read all books before touching the game. The first game. Witcher 1 was kinda hard for to me get into, because you play as an amnesiac Geralt. Combat wasn´t that fun, but hey, that story was great. That´s what all Witcher games have in common. Amazing story.

    Another common thing? Brutal world. People are mean there, everybody is trying to screw you (or shag you), people play their little games with others and death and killing is just part of their lives. Ghoul eats your children? Well, make another one. Brutal logic. Much more realistic. That´s what I like about Witcher.

    While Elder Scrolls has more rich Lore, I consider Witcher an Adult Fantasy, while TES not so much. Yeah, you have racism in TES, but never on the same level as Witcher. You don´t like Elves or Argonians? No one ever hangs them just for being another race. Or burned. Or spiked. Nords distrust mages. And? That´s all? People in Witcher are burning these spellslingers.

    Open world? I consider Witcher 3 open world much better. What I don´t like is the level requirement. While the world is open, you really can´t go anywhere. Not immediately, because there are monsters with much higher level than you amids low level monsters. Witcher 1 didn´t have open world - it was more like DA:O. Witcher 2 faired better on that field, but still, you couldn´t go everywhere. Map just forbade you that.

    Character Building? To be honest, I don´t really think it is that versatile as Skyrim. I mean, you have 3 trees + 1 special. In the end, you still completely rely on sword. If you use signs or potions, it is up to you. But my opinion so far is that you´ll end up using everything you can (especially on Deathmarch), while some abilities will stronger because you put points in them.

    To summarize this. I´m enjoying Witcher 3 much more than Skyrim in 11/11/11. For now. I still have to finish the game though and we´ll see if I´ll be in the mood to play it again immediately. Replayability is important for these game too. And let´s be honest, you can play Skyrim as many times as you want, because you don´t have to follow specific storyline. I´m a guy who enjoys stories much more than the games themselves, but even I know that you can enjoy a story only to certain degree.

    • 1595 posts
    July 27, 2015 2:05 PM EDT

    Thanks Karver  What are your opinions on the books? The jury is still out for me, although I've only read two so far. How well do the games translate the characters from the books do you think?

    You're spot on about the harshness of the witcher setting, it's very dark in places and deals with some heavy themes. TES games seem like fairytale lands by comparison.

    The Witcher 3's open world is quite challenging because it doesn't have level scaling like Skyrim does which is both good and bad. As you say, it limits the areas you can explore and adds a level of risk to exploration during the early levels. The main problem is the special armour being level locked. When I downloaded the Skellige Armour dlc I was quite a high level, mid to late 20's if iirc. The armour available to buy was a level 41 set but my character ran out of things to do at level 36.

    The Witcher gear is just as bad, the level requirements seem randomly generated. Something like 10, 15, 20 and 25 would make sense as it reflects what level you'll likely be when you get to the time in the game when you really start wanting it. Instead we get the quest to pick up the armour at level 6 but can't use it until level 17. It makes no sense to me.

    I also agree about the Character Building, although not entirely. For one thing I am playing Death March now and am focussing on seeing if a heavy armour, strong attack tank style is viable. I thought I would need to up my usage of signs but so far I have not needed to put any points into any magic skills.

    There are also skills commonly thought to be useless investments, like anything crossbow related. A little glance at some of those crossbow skills reveals that a dedicated setup which makes heavy use of crossbows could be a viable option thanks to it's ability to disable enemy powers. This could make a Nilfgaardian Agent who uses the dlc armour and Elite Crossbow pack a worthy consideration, especially if he focusses on bombs too. Crossbows and Bombs could be a very viable but unconventional build. Yes you still rely on sword, but your skills and advantages lie elsewhere.

    I am convinced that The Witcher 3 will have some longevity thanks to the expansion packs coming out later in the year and early next year but I doubt it will have a life span as long as Skyrim's because of the story/player freedom paradox. It's good to see another glowing review of this game though

    • 394 posts
    July 27, 2015 3:37 PM EDT

    The levelled areas thing puts me off actually; it sounds like a way of restricting movement and suggests that TW3 isn't really open world, which is disappointing. I loved TW2 but it was too linear, which is largely why I prefer Skyrim. 

    • 649 posts
    July 27, 2015 4:07 PM EDT

    Books are great. Sapkowski is great writer. You just have to count with the thing, that most of the short stories are not canon, although some are. Hunt for the Golden Dragon, Geralt´s last wish, love triangle with Geralt, Yen and some mage. These ones are considered canon. But there is some short story where Geralt marries Yen, everyone is happy, Eskel and Triss get together and stuff like that. Most of the stories are close to being fairy tales, but they are good to set you on path of understanding the relationship between Ciri and Geralt. Child of Destiny.

    The armor requirements were just ridiculous. Quest for Wolf armor is set on level 14, yet main quest on Skellige (that will eventually bring you to Kaer Morhen) is 16 and higher. Also, I remember I found some diagram at level 10 for Harpy sword. Level 34. This could have been done better.

    As far as armor look goes, I was really pleased how authentic it was. Not those Witcher armors. They´re mostly made for witchers, but other armors looked just how they are supposed to. Bulky. I like bulky Geralt

    I just finished my first playthrough. I started on Blood and Bones difficulty. While the beginning was hard, but as soon as my fingers learned how to dance across the keybord, I found it easy. I played pure Sign build, but respeced midgame because it was too easy. Didn´t have to swing a sword once. So I went for hybrid Sword and Signs. Still easy, but more fun.

    Just as you, I´m planning to go tanking Geralt with my next playthrough. Just few points in Heavy Attack, then plain Alchemy. I wasn´t using it that much in my first playthrough. Or maybe I will just continue playing, cause I have completed like 80% of the game. I said to myself, that I will do 100% next time, because at level 30 I suddenly felt an urge to finish the story.

    Also, while I am saying that the story is really amazing, the quality of side quests is amazing too. Not a single quest was like "There are bandits, kill them. Fetch me something and then be on your way." There was always some twist. I understand that witchers never get bored and never die in bed.

    While the side quests were awesome, they made the main story seem somewhat distant at some times.

    Now that I have finished the game, I´ll say one sentence about it. I HAVEN´T PLAYED BETTER RPG UP UNTIL NOW.

    • 1483 posts
    July 27, 2015 4:38 PM EDT

    I remember seeing a Witcher movie quite some time ago. Or maybe it was an episode of the series. Don't remember. Anyone seen that?

    • 641 posts
    July 27, 2015 4:44 PM EDT

    Was it in Polish? I know there is a Polish tv show and movie.

  • July 27, 2015 4:45 PM EDT

    There was a movie, The Hexer (film), and a series, The Hexer (TV series). I've heard the TV series is decent. The movie is terrible though.

    • 1483 posts
    July 27, 2015 4:47 PM EDT

    We get Russian-translated movies here, so it was in Russian  Probably was a series. 

  • July 27, 2015 4:49 PM EDT

    There's a guy on Youtube who has all the Hexer episodes with English subtitles, so I might check that out. It's only 10 episodes.

    • 201 posts
    July 27, 2015 4:58 PM EDT
    @Karver, That entire comment was amazing. That one sentence at the end was beautiful. I agree with every point you made.
    • 649 posts
    July 27, 2015 5:03 PM EDT

    I remember that show running on TV. I managed to find it in Czech, but Czech doesn´t sound much better than Polish.

    Series were more or less made on the short stories. If you don´t want to read that books, The Hexer isn´t a bad idea. But still, the five volume saga is a must, if you ask me.

    • 1595 posts
    July 27, 2015 5:07 PM EDT

    Don't be put off, it adds to the immersion of the world more than detracts. In Skyrim you know and get confident that there is little you can't handle in any location which means your character's personal narrative can continuously move forward. The downside with this is that it reminds you that you are the biggest bad in the realm, that to create immersion if roleplaying you must adjust the way you play or the difficulty settings.

    In TW3 you can come across an area guarded by Cyclops, or some Wraiths which are 10 levels higher than you. It doesn't mean you can't take them on, but the best strategy is to flee and return later. Until you get to higher levels the game reminds you that Geralt is not by any means the toughest being out there.

    So your movement is not restricted and enemies have a zone of agro you can move out of if you get overwhelmed.  

    • 394 posts
    July 27, 2015 5:10 PM EDT

    Thanks Phil

  • July 27, 2015 5:12 PM EDT

    I'd love to read the saga, but I'm not sure how easy it would be to get my hands on all of them (English translation). And I'd rather not read the first two and not be able to read the other ones.

    • 288 posts
    July 27, 2015 5:14 PM EDT

    That is actually a premise for a whole other discussion - the biggest bad vs the not-so-big bad

    For me, personally, it's essential to be the biggest bad, the "hero" of the game, that's a huge part of the charm of gaming as I see it.

    Obviously there are people, who don't mind playing a game as just an "average Joe".