It really shines in the immersion and story, though. The first two times I played it, I was skipping all of the dialog and cutscenes (depression is a bitch), so I missed all the good parts

Once you get into the mindset of "hunting" one of the monsters and selecting the right oils and potions, it can be really fun and feel almost like "strategy". For example, there's a potion that turns your blood poisonous to vampires

[–] winety@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 day ago

I really enjoyed that the setting is more grounded than other games. Personally, I wouldn't describe it as generic.

Gameplay-wise it doesn't do much interesting.

[–] who@feddit.org 1 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (2 children)

IMHO, its gameplay is mediocre at best:

Sluggish controls
Character movement that is unrealistically limited without offering anything to make up for it
Fiddly object interaction problems (e.g. candles often getting in the way of more important things)
Bland combat mechanics
"Open" world populated almost entirely with copy/paste combat encounters
Little reward for exploration, since practically everything worth finding has a map marker
A tiny handful of side quests re-used over and over with different mini-stories to make the quests seem distinct while the tasks to perform are mostly identical

This game's strengths are not the gameplay, but the lore, characters, and story. (All the things that could be had from reading the books, or maybe watching the live action adaptation.)

Oh, and Gwent. Gwent is remarkably well-designed for a mini-game within another game.

[–] TacoSocks@infosec.pub 1 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

What would you suggest for better open world games?

[–] who@feddit.org 1 points 18 minutes ago* (last edited 7 minutes ago)

It depends on what aspects of an open world are important to you.

Exploration is at the top of my list, and Skyrim is a good example of doing it well. Its world is full of unique things/places/characters to find, whether through an NPC's directions, or a roughly sketched map picked up while adventuring, or by following your curiosity toward an area that looks interesting, or simply by wandering off the beaten path.

Map markers appear after you've already been somewhere, so you can find it again, but since most of them remain hidden until then, they don't spoil the experience of discovery.

And, when you find something, it's often genuinely interesting. Not yet another copy/paste monster fight or "hold the button to follow your witcher sense to the lost thing" quest. Not just checking off an item on a task list (or pre-placed map marker) so you can rush to the next one. The experience itself is rewarding.

Mind, I have criticisms of Skyrim as well, but it did environments and exploration very well, and I wish more open world designers would learn from it and build upon its strengths.

EDIT:

I would love to play a game that reached or exceeded Skyrim's bar for exploration and environmental variety, Breath of the Wild's bar for freedom of movement and wildlife, and The Witcher 3's bar for characters and story.

[–] BackgrndNoize@lemmy.world 2 points 11 hours ago

The live action adaptation took a steaming dump on the original story sadly, some episodes are still worth watching but it's not made by people who understand what made Witcher special, no wonder Henry Cavill left

[–] ruko24@programming.dev 1 points 22 hours ago

I played through it once and really liked it but didn't see myself going back because of the generic gameplay. Apparently, the hardest difficulty forces you to use all of your oils and potions depending on the monster/situation. I think that might solve the gameplay problem since that was pretty much optional in easier difficulties. Not to mention make it a lot more immersive since you have to strategize like the witcher