SAILERIUS'S PROFILE

author=Feldschlacht IV
Sailerius is criminally wrong in almost literally everything he says but he's right about that; Quen is a fucking monster, and is, compared to everything else, the most amazing thing since sliced bread.

However, true to form of being wrong about shit, I'd say you're wrong in the application of how Quen is the best ability; this is assuming you do nothing but pump all of your points into Quen and only Quen, and it does take a while for Quen to get the abilities it does; you don't start the game off with it being able to absorb and reflect damage and taking multiple hits.

So technically yes, you can cheese through the entire game with Quen. In practice, however, it takes time and deliberate work on your end for you to do that, ignoring the multitude of easier, more fun, and more accessible ways to play through the game, and if you do power through the game with Quen at the expense of everything else that's your own damn fault.

I agree that it's not a fun way to play the game, but it is an easy and fast one. It's a good example of the principle of the burden of optimal play, in which the easiest, most reliable, and most efficient way to play a game is also the least fun, and is usually an indication of poor design. I honestly think the game would be better with Quen removed, because it trivialized the combat so much that I never felt the need to learn any other mechanic.

And yeah, you could say it's my fault for relying on it, but it's the game's fault for not balancing it. I feel that it is a game designer's responsibility to force you to have fun, and to aggressively prune ways that undermine that goal.

To get this back on topic, I feel like crafting often falls into a similar trap in games, where the mental activation energy required to learn it and engage with it is too high. The best example of crafting done right that I can think of is MGSV, where the interface and mechanics for it are dead simple, and it works seamlessly into the core gameplay loop.

A big part of it, I think, is that the first few things you can craft are free (require no items), then the next ones only cost money, and it's as you progress to the nontrivial blueprints that it starts throwing item costs at you. Once you get acclimated to doing it regularly, it becomes second nature.

Compare that to crafting in TW3, which I actually think is a cool idea on paper, but it's so involved and has so little introduction that I mostly avoided touching it.

author=Liberty
Maybe it's the way I play, but I don't find that it breaks the game or anything like others have said. It's useful, sure, but not the most amazing thing since sliced bread.

We're all agreed the Yrden is pretty much useless but in very few circumstances, though, right?

The ultimate form of Quen basically makes the game a joke. It absorbs all damage that you take as healing, takes multiple hits before dispelling, and reflects all damage that you take. In my first playthrough, I beat the final boss by standing still, holding down the Quen button, and never attacked as it kept healing what little damage it did to me and kept hurting itself.

I like the idea of Yrden but found basically no use for it. The problem with the signs, I think, is that they all have the same cost but aren't equally useful. Quen would be much less OP if you were forced to spend your sign energy on anything else. Igni is also pretty cool and I used it a lot in my first playthrough since you can stunluck enemies and keep them far enough away to never hurt you, but it takes so long to damage anything that way that I started relying on Quen+attack spam, which kills most enemies in seconds.

author=Feldschlacht IV

author=Liberty
...Witcher 3's crafting is pretty good as long as you pick stuff up as you go, and why wouldn't you? It's like Skyrim in that you should be grabbing everything that comes your way. You even have places to store all your stuff if you need it.

Also, most blueprints open up with quests... and if you're not questing in that game, why the hell are you playing in the first place? XD


I thought the crafting was a nice addition to the game, especially when it came to potions and their uses. Just do quests and you get more than enough stuff for both making shit and having shit to make. :shrug:

The issue with the Witcher 3's crafting is that a solid 80% of the gear you can craft is absolutely inferior to the gear you are almost certain to get while you're gathering the materials to make the gear you can craft.

For example, by the time you gather the items necessary to make say, Leather Armor, you are almost certainly going to be rocking gear that's unquestionably superior to Leather Armor. Aside from the Witcher gear (and sometimes even that, depending on when you start it) and potions/dedoctions and such, crafting gear in TW3 is almost entirely redundant.

This wouldn't be so much of a problem if there wasn't so many things to craft in the game, and much of it is superflous too. Why do I need to craft literally dozens of cuirasses with almost identical stats? This is easily an 80+ hour game, mind you, so that's a ton of shit. By the middle of the game the menu will actually start to lag because of the sheer amount of (useless) gear you're able to craft.

I agree with you 100%. I remember grinding to get crafting reagents to make one of the Witcher Gear recipes you get in White Orchard before I advanced the plot, going hours out of my way, and then the crap drops I got from random encounters immediately after were way better. I didn't waste time with crafting again after that.

Actually in general crafting is pretty pointless in that game, because virtually every battle can be won by mindlessly spamming Quen+attack.

Didn't they literally cut funding to flood relief programs right as the hurricane was approaching?

author=Deckiller
nah not cynical. ff15 is probably overrated but still pretty good. ff7 was pretty bad

I agree. A lot of what made FFVII memorable was when it was released. Many people played it who had never played a game with a story before and so, regardless of its quality, they were blown away by it. I think a lot of people are going to be disappointed.