This is getting ridiculous. I have died more times on this f'ing tutorial than I have in my last 5 RPG complete games combined. I am pitted against dozens of soldiers, 3-4 at a time, who kill me in as many hits as I can kill them, in environments where it's easy to be surrounded, while a f'ing dragon flies around randomly flaming me to death whenever I cross from one area to another.
That's the prologue. The f'ing PROLOGUE. My tutorial so far has been "press 1 to draw your sword, press 1 again to sheathe it".
I swear to God I'm not a bad gamer. My BF2 team ranked 2nd in CAL and 4th in TWL. I played competitive Tribes and BC2. I know twitch. I know how to kill mans. I know RPGs, too. Beaten everything from Planescape and Arcanum to Oblivion and Two Worlds II. I'M NOT SUPPOSED TO SUCK AT VIDEO GAMES.
This game is just ridiculous in its approach to and implementation of combat. I swear the developers hate people.
The combat is not hard, you just need to learn by it's own standards and leave all the sword-fighting baggage of past games behind.
Most important thing, do not get hit in the back. It does something crazy like +200% damage to get hit in the rear. If you are surrounded, retreat and when you find a new position fight the first man that follows until the others catch up and then retreat again to do it again.
Learn when to use the light attack and when to use the heavy. Do not overuse heavy, it's easily blocked by some foes and it's so slow that it leaves you vulnerable. But when you have a clear opening against a slow opponent, it's the best thing to use. Against fast attacking opponents without armor, you want to depend on the light because it will interrupt their attacks.
Smartly use Lock-on and block. And use magic, tho two best combat spells are Yrden and Quen. Yrden will immobilize opponents and leave them open to attack. Quen is the blue shield, but don't overuse it in combat since it stops vigor regeneration. I haven't tried Axii, the charm, but it's worth a try.
Also, learn to roll really well. It's to this game what strafing is to FPS games.
Aard is pretty great too. You have a chance to stun, which lets you auto-kill. And if you hit a shielded enemy with it twice, they will kneel for a moment, letting you get some hits in. It's probably not as good as Yrden, though.
Its a great opener, Axii. Above all, dodge everywhere. you wanna be rolling around like you're Newell in a hallfull of money.
Anyway, technicall help needed. Whats the cheapest but bestest card I should get to play this? Currently using a 5570 1gb and getting something like 25-40 frames per second. Its doable but I want the shinies. I was thinking GTX460 but some folks have said they're getting ridiculously good results out of a 5770.
Big Classy on
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HardtargetThere Are Four LightsVancouverRegistered Userregular
edited May 2011
just watched the giantbomb quick look
so uh.. i think i'm gonna try using the 360 pad
From my dabbling (which proceeded to dabbling into chapter 1), axii is way more useful than yrden in a crowd. Against one or two opponents, yrden rocks - worked beautifully on the DLC troll - but for more opponents you just can't get in to attack the stunned guy because his fellows will have caught up. If you run back and axii someone, though, that takes him out of the fight and whoever he's engaging with, leaving you to beat on the others or to backstab the distracted guy. Of course, this is all unupgraded versions.
Really I found all the signs useful, as opposed to the first game where it was aard in the morning and then igni for the rest of the day.
The combat is not hard, you just need to learn by it's own standards and leave all the sword-fighting baggage of past games behind.
I beg to differ. I made it to the battle in the temple at the gate. 1 boss knight, 1 2h knight, and 2 regular soldiers. I spent 10 minutes running in circles trying to string them out so I could get a few hits in.
That's the strategy, right? You can't go toe-to-toe. You can't get surrounded. You have to string them out and fight them one at a time, that's what everyone's saying.
Here's the thing. Any game that requires you to run like a chicken for 10 minutes, turning and giving occasional wacks, with 100% certainty of death if you get hit once due to stun-lock is HARD.
Now, the combat is doable, and I am getting used to it. The last few battles I haven't died yet. Yet each battle I fight, using the advice of the people in this thread, I am forced to fight with a gimmick. I don't like fighting gimicky. I don't enjoy running around like a girl stringing enemies out because I know if I fight more than 1 knight at a time I'll get stun locked and gang banged. It's challenging, yeah, and even interesting. But it's not really fun, and it's certainly not immersive. The entire time I feel like I'm playing a video game. Something more akin to Pac-Man than an RPG.
The tutorial is easier on hard than on normal - although it may only be that way in the pre-release "leaked" version that wound up on the torrents, eg: the pirated version.
Need confirmation on this though, it's just my suspicion. I suppose I could go run through the tutorial on normal, but im laaaaaaazy.
Edit: I just tried it and did it first try without using any signs, so either I've gotten better since I last did the tutorial, or the retail version's "normal" is easier from the day1 patch. It's still harder than many encounters in the game though for being at the beginning. Use of signs and traps evens things a bit though. If the game is excessively difficult and you are not, in fact, playing a pirated copy, make sure your game patched properly, or try toggling the difficulty up to hard in the gameplay options and then back down to normal
Edit2: For the record, if you are getting issues of the prologue being impossible because you pirated it and can't patch it - go buy the goddamn game, I felt it necessary to add this. I know about this issue because I had to get a disc image off the internet since my dvd 1 is corrupted (see: a few pages ago in this thread) and read about it in the comments. I started my game on hard, but I guess I can see how I'm being misunderstood here. I actually own this game, I am not in the habit of pirating things
Until much later on, you cannot reasonably face two foes in melee at the same time unless they are lightweights. Against large crowds, use your bombs. In the yard fight (a pretty difficult one) you start with 5 Samums. Throw a few of these and they should clear out all of the light foes, leaving you with 3 heavy warriors. Here you must apply some finesse. Try to trap one warrior in Yrden, then Axii the other closest one to you - the third should be a bit behind if you execute this right - you should be able to roll away after charming one of the knights before you get hit by the last guy. Use this chance to finish off the lone warrior or backstab the paralyzed guy which will now be distracted. You should be down to two knights. Yrden one, and kick the snot out of the other - you are amazing at one-vs-one battles and can duel most humans with little trouble.
You are not 'running around like a girl'. You are doing the only realistic thing there is when severely outnumbered aside from turning tail and fleeing.
Grey Paladin on
"All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes to make it possible." - T.E. Lawrence
Saying that, the second time through the tutorial was a breeze. Now that I know exactly what the game wants, and how to deal with enemies that can block me, life is much more pleasant. Nana, nana, boo, boo, you can't hit meeeee shank-shank-shank.
Chapter 1's fights are absolutely comical. You want to swarm Geralt? HAFF BOMB. I've been wandering into spots where I remember reloading multiple times and pulling piles of corpses out of my hat because I'm not doing it wrong anymore.
For those who have beaten the game, I have a question about an event in Chapter 2 (Spoilers)
The Royal Blood quest has progressed, and the peasants are on the verge of killing Stennis. I'm trying to find all the clues as to who poisoned Saskia.
I've gone through the Suspect: Thorak piece, and figured out that he crafted the chalice. I've also talked to the servant, and found the schematic in the dead priest's place.
I'm still missing a clue, though. Does it have anything to do with the "strange aura" that Geralt notes in the dead priest's place?
ragnarok7331 on
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MongerI got the ham stink.Dallas, TXRegistered Userregular
The combat is not hard, you just need to learn by it's own standards and leave all the sword-fighting baggage of past games behind.
I beg to differ. I made it to the battle in the temple at the gate. 1 boss knight, 1 2h knight, and 2 regular soldiers. I spent 10 minutes running in circles trying to string them out so I could get a few hits in.
That's the strategy, right? You can't go toe-to-toe. You can't get surrounded. You have to string them out and fight them one at a time, that's what everyone's saying.
Here's the thing. Any game that requires you to run like a chicken for 10 minutes, turning and giving occasional wacks, with 100% certainty of death if you get hit once due to stun-lock is HARD.
Now, the combat is doable, and I am getting used to it. The last few battles I haven't died yet. Yet each battle I fight, using the advice of the people in this thread, I am forced to fight with a gimmick. I don't like fighting gimicky. I don't enjoy running around like a girl stringing enemies out because I know if I fight more than 1 knight at a time I'll get stun locked and gang banged. It's challenging, yeah, and even interesting. But it's not really fun, and it's certainly not immersive. The entire time I feel like I'm playing a video game. Something more akin to Pac-Man than an RPG.
The game isn't hard. The prologue is just fucked. Not Demon's Souls fucked, where you pay attention to the mechanics and learn the systems and then you're mentally equipped to take on challenges efficiently. It's regular fucked, where you will die repeatedly for reasons beyond your control.
By mid chapter one, you'll be powerful enough that some of the combat systems being kind of wonky and half-broken is completely irrelevant. Until then, ignore blocking, spam quen so that you don't get stunlocked, and roll all the goddamn time. Basically, you want to roll away from enemies, then click on them to fast attack and more or less repeat that until they die. Be aware that you have zero invincibility during rolls. If you roll through sword strikes, you're still taking full damage from them. Rush archers so that they have to pull out a sword and won't chip away at your health while you run around, but be aware that if you let them get some distance from you, they'll switch back to their crossbows. Also, spam bombs whenever possible. You can cheese through most anything by spamming enough bombs.
Now he's not even very good, like at all, and gives bad advice (for shielded opponents parry->heavy attack or use yrden and then go behind and backstab, since aard's stun isnt 100%), but you can see with just 2 conflag traps he makes it a joke, skip to 5:00. It's not cheap tricks, the game gives you explosive traps in the prologue for this purpose.
Would be nice if it was like "hey, use these" though
I couldn't even find the traps they give you. I did find the bombs, though. Those made a few battles easier. I actually enjoyed the bomb throwing mechanics.
GuildNavigator on
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CorehealerThe ApothecaryThe softer edge of the universe.Registered Userregular
One other question. I remember in the other thread, a day or so before I bought the game, people were talking about finding special perks in certain areas. Things that gave you +20% to backstab, etc. I haven't run into a single one of these yet, even though I've been looting everything and spamming the loot-finder (another cool mechanic) everywhere.
One other question. I remember in the other thread, a day or so before I bought the game, people were talking about finding special perks in certain areas. Things that gave you +20% to backstab, etc. I haven't run into a single one of these yet, even though I've been looting everything and spamming the loot-finder (another cool mechanic) everywhere.
You pick them up in the prologue, massive spoilers below.
20% backstab damage for finding the assassin during the assault.
50 extra carrying capacity for rescuing Aryan from the dungeon.
10% reduced damage for staying under Triss' shield the whole time going to Flotsam.
You also get 1 level in persuasion, hex or intimidate whenever you do one of them successfully up to a level of 3, but I'm not sure if that really does anything.
The traps are under the bear-trap icon in your inventory. You need to drag them to one of your free pockets to set them, then choose them in the quick menu and set them up by pressing 'R'.
The +50 weight thing doesn't actually depends on how much you loot, but another, plot-related, thing.
Grey Paladin on
"All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes to make it possible." - T.E. Lawrence
I don't find the combat to be gimmicky at all. It forces you to do more than just "STAND AND FIGHT AGAINST WAVES OF ENEMIES" which is a trope common in video game sword combat, which is tired and not really fun.
Once you get a handle on the rolling then you don't have to run away. You're going to be constantly repositioning in the same combat space always trying to attain or maintain an advantageous position. It seems like that's exactly how sword combat should be, and it happens to be a lot of fun.
Yeah the combat is pretty unforgiving. I died a hell of a lot in the prologue, and continue to in chapter 1, but I'm always left with the feeling that it was my fault, not the game's.
The number of times I've died due to laziness and not coming into an encounter prepared are high. I love that I feel like I always need to keep a stockpile of bombs on me in case I get swarmed, makes it all the more satisfying when I incinerate a group of enemies.
I picked up the 'conjurer' ability somewhere, don't know where. Or how to level it.
Re: Axii. I have not managed to get it to actually work yet. I zap people with it, they shake their head a bit and geralt gets pushed backwards, then they resume trying to murder me.
Mutagens: How do I use them? Somewhere on my character screen according to the tutorial, but I have not been able to figure out more than that.
Is there any sort of storage system? I have 50 of 300 weight in leather alone and I'm only in chapter 1...
What do all the different places of power do? In TW1 they just enhanced a specfiic sign, now they're a lot less obvious.
Yeah I've gone heavy into the swords talents and the game went from "unforgiving" to "piss easy".
I just trained and gathered up like 20 harpies and just slaughtered them and barely lost any health. The sword tree gives you great Area of Effect damage and personal durability. The group finisher skill is pretty awesome when it works as well since you can take out an entire squad of bad guys with one button, instantly.
Adrenaline also fills up really fast so one-shotting harder creatures happens a lot with the finisher
It is so easy now that I don't really use magic or bombs or whatever apart from the shield spell when I get swarmed
I don't find the combat to be gimmicky at all. It forces you to do more than just "STAND AND FIGHT AGAINST WAVES OF ENEMIES" which is a trope common in real life
Fixed that for you. In real medieval warfare people didn't roll around like ninjas.
I'm not saying the combat would be better if it was more realistic. I'm saying that your polar opposite view of "running and rolling like a circus performer for 10 minutes while you string around a trail of knights isn't gimmicky" isn't right either.
There's something not right in the prologue combat. Plenty of others are saying it, even those who are now (later in the game) greatly enjoying the game after upgrading Geralt.
I've been doing a mix of all of them, really. Not too concerned with not getting to the end of a tree, as I am not that far into the second act and already level 18.
I might have to go back and play the prologue again, because while yes I did die, I chalked it up to not being as familiar with the mechanics. And really I probably only died 5 times in the
Dragon area.
And then maybe once more in the courtyard fight
You really don't need to be rolling around forever. Use your fucking signs if you want to isolate a guy. Fighting two dudes? Trap one of them. More than 2 dudes? Shield yourself then mind control the biggest guy there, leaving you to stab backs while he distracts them
Once you get a solid set of swords talents you really can stand and fight with far less rolling, heavy attack hitting 3 mans at once? yes please
Seems to be more about armor than anything to me. In the prologue, if an enemy instantly cancels out of a hitstun with a parry and staggers you because you decided to hit them more than once or twice in a row (and they will), it's probably a game over. In the rest of the game, you can take enough hits that you can afford to risk it. The only things that make a gigantic difference are the upgrade to block arrows and the upgrade to block from all sides. Although, I guess extra vigor or the block cost reduction helps you get out of stunlocks with some regularity.
Personally, I haven't found the multi-attack thing predictably useful against any of the enemies where you actually need it to be useful. If you heavy attack a group of enemies, at least one of them will, 99% of the time, hit you out of the strike before it lands if all of them aren't already hitstunned. It's alright against hordes of monsters, I guess, but monsters are stupid easy to fight anyway.
For that matter, I haven't found the fabled roll-around-and-stab-them-in-the-butt tactic terribly effective, either. Most of the time, they attack you during the dodge, and half the time they autolock to you during that attack. At best, you take some damage mid-dodge and then shank them. At worst, you take some damage mid-dodge and they're still facing you.* And if they're in any sort of state where they're precluded from attacking you during the dodge, they're in a state where you could just hit them in the face, the only exception being shield guys and a couple of front-shielded monsters.
*edit: I take this back. At worst, you take some damage mid-dodge, and when you click to attack them, your autolock inexplicably snaps to someone offscreen, you leap entirely in a different direction, end up hitstunned because the other enemy hit you out of your attack, and now you're hitstunned and surrounded by all the guys you'd been carefully trying to position yourself around.
Removing them from the OP may have been a bit drastic. After checking the seven saves previously posted in thread, only one of them had 245k. The others were all around 5k-20k, though I'm guessing the big money one was popular - neutral/Triss.
Anyway, I ran through them quickly and set them all at 15k gold, a bit less than the 20k you get at game end, and packed them together. I haven't tried any of them so I have no idea about anything more than the faction/lady decisions which are reported from their original posting.
One other question. I remember in the other thread, a day or so before I bought the game, people were talking about finding special perks in certain areas. Things that gave you +20% to backstab, etc. I haven't run into a single one of these yet, even though I've been looting everything and spamming the loot-finder (another cool mechanic) everywhere.
You pick them up in the prologue, massive spoilers below.
20% backstab damage for finding the assassin during the assault.
50 extra carrying capacity for rescuing Aryan from the dungeon.
10% reduced damage for staying under Triss' shield the whole time going to Flotsam.
You also get 1 level in persuasion, hex or intimidate whenever you do one of them successfully up to a level of 3, but I'm not sure if that really does anything.
you get perks like this in other chapters too, i got one in chapter 1 for
beating ves at drunken knife throwing at the party
One other question. I remember in the other thread, a day or so before I bought the game, people were talking about finding special perks in certain areas. Things that gave you +20% to backstab, etc. I haven't run into a single one of these yet, even though I've been looting everything and spamming the loot-finder (another cool mechanic) everywhere.
You pick them up in the prologue, massive spoilers below.
20% backstab damage for finding the assassin during the assault.
50 extra carrying capacity for rescuing Aryan from the dungeon.
10% reduced damage for staying under Triss' shield the whole time going to Flotsam.
You also get 1 level in persuasion, hex or intimidate whenever you do one of them successfully up to a level of 3, but I'm not sure if that really does anything.
you get perks like this in other chapters too, i got one in chapter 1 for
beating ves at drunken knife throwing at the party
Sadly, I didn't know what was going on with that until it was over.
Seems to be more about armor than anything to me. In the prologue, if an enemy instantly cancels out of a hitstun with a parry and staggers you because you decided to hit them more than once or twice in a row (and they will), it's probably a game over. In the rest of the game, you can take enough hits that you can afford to risk it. The only things that make a gigantic difference are the upgrade to block arrows and the upgrade to block from all sides. Although, I guess extra vigor or the block cost reduction helps you get out of stunlocks with some regularity.
Personally, I haven't found the multi-attack thing predictably useful against any of the enemies where you actually need it to be useful. If you heavy attack a group of enemies, at least one of them will, 99% of the time, hit you out of the strike before it lands if all of them aren't already hitstunned. It's alright against hordes of monsters, I guess, but monsters are stupid easy to fight anyway.
Odd, the multi-attack talent is incredible for me. You just shield yourself and wade into a group of badguys hitting the heavy swing and they all will get staggered and then you just keep hitting them until they all die. Sometimes I swing at nothing but air but still hit the guys on my sides. It's a really awesome talent, especially if you have your sword poisoned and with other effects on it
Though I do admit the talent-tree itself wasn't that great until I hit around level 14 or so. Once I had the +damage talents and the damage resistance talents and the multi-attack + adrenaline generation I became unstoppable. I can't think of an encounter that gave me trouble since
Guys whats the white line that fills up and then drops out above the health meter? i thought this was like the adrenaline bar but apparently its not and that goes under the bar when you can use it.. the manual says nothing of it, only thing i can think of it being is how many times you can use Z to search? that or its an XP bar?
Guys whats the white line that fills up and then drops out above the health meter? i thought this was like the adrenaline bar but apparently its not and that goes under the bar when you can use it.. the manual says nothing of it, only thing i can think of it being is how many times you can use Z to search? that or its an XP bar?
It's your XP bar. When it fills up, you get a level.
Posts
Probably. Though I imagine theres a way to make your generic pad act as a 360 controller for games that support 360 controllers.
Most important thing, do not get hit in the back. It does something crazy like +200% damage to get hit in the rear. If you are surrounded, retreat and when you find a new position fight the first man that follows until the others catch up and then retreat again to do it again.
Learn when to use the light attack and when to use the heavy. Do not overuse heavy, it's easily blocked by some foes and it's so slow that it leaves you vulnerable. But when you have a clear opening against a slow opponent, it's the best thing to use. Against fast attacking opponents without armor, you want to depend on the light because it will interrupt their attacks.
Smartly use Lock-on and block. And use magic, tho two best combat spells are Yrden and Quen. Yrden will immobilize opponents and leave them open to attack. Quen is the blue shield, but don't overuse it in combat since it stops vigor regeneration. I haven't tried Axii, the charm, but it's worth a try.
Also, learn to roll really well. It's to this game what strafing is to FPS games.
It does require a short channel, mind, so don't think you're gonna pop that off in a crowd without Quen up.
Anyway, technicall help needed. Whats the cheapest but bestest card I should get to play this? Currently using a 5570 1gb and getting something like 25-40 frames per second. Its doable but I want the shinies. I was thinking GTX460 but some folks have said they're getting ridiculously good results out of a 5770.
so uh.. i think i'm gonna try using the 360 pad
Really I found all the signs useful, as opposed to the first game where it was aard in the morning and then igni for the rest of the day.
That's the strategy, right? You can't go toe-to-toe. You can't get surrounded. You have to string them out and fight them one at a time, that's what everyone's saying.
Here's the thing. Any game that requires you to run like a chicken for 10 minutes, turning and giving occasional wacks, with 100% certainty of death if you get hit once due to stun-lock is HARD.
Now, the combat is doable, and I am getting used to it. The last few battles I haven't died yet. Yet each battle I fight, using the advice of the people in this thread, I am forced to fight with a gimmick. I don't like fighting gimicky. I don't enjoy running around like a girl stringing enemies out because I know if I fight more than 1 knight at a time I'll get stun locked and gang banged. It's challenging, yeah, and even interesting. But it's not really fun, and it's certainly not immersive. The entire time I feel like I'm playing a video game. Something more akin to Pac-Man than an RPG.
Need confirmation on this though, it's just my suspicion. I suppose I could go run through the tutorial on normal, but im laaaaaaazy.
Edit: I just tried it and did it first try without using any signs, so either I've gotten better since I last did the tutorial, or the retail version's "normal" is easier from the day1 patch. It's still harder than many encounters in the game though for being at the beginning. Use of signs and traps evens things a bit though. If the game is excessively difficult and you are not, in fact, playing a pirated copy, make sure your game patched properly, or try toggling the difficulty up to hard in the gameplay options and then back down to normal
Edit2: For the record, if you are getting issues of the prologue being impossible because you pirated it and can't patch it - go buy the goddamn game, I felt it necessary to add this. I know about this issue because I had to get a disc image off the internet since my dvd 1 is corrupted (see: a few pages ago in this thread) and read about it in the comments. I started my game on hard, but I guess I can see how I'm being misunderstood here. I actually own this game, I am not in the habit of pirating things
You are not 'running around like a girl'. You are doing the only realistic thing there is when severely outnumbered aside from turning tail and fleeing.
Yeah, the game punishes that thought, no doubt.
Embrace your tools or suffer.
Saying that, the second time through the tutorial was a breeze. Now that I know exactly what the game wants, and how to deal with enemies that can block me, life is much more pleasant. Nana, nana, boo, boo, you can't hit meeeee shank-shank-shank.
Chapter 1's fights are absolutely comical. You want to swarm Geralt? HAFF BOMB. I've been wandering into spots where I remember reloading multiple times and pulling piles of corpses out of my hat because I'm not doing it wrong anymore.
I've gone through the Suspect: Thorak piece, and figured out that he crafted the chalice. I've also talked to the servant, and found the schematic in the dead priest's place.
I'm still missing a clue, though. Does it have anything to do with the "strange aura" that Geralt notes in the dead priest's place?
By mid chapter one, you'll be powerful enough that some of the combat systems being kind of wonky and half-broken is completely irrelevant. Until then, ignore blocking, spam quen so that you don't get stunlocked, and roll all the goddamn time. Basically, you want to roll away from enemies, then click on them to fast attack and more or less repeat that until they die. Be aware that you have zero invincibility during rolls. If you roll through sword strikes, you're still taking full damage from them. Rush archers so that they have to pull out a sword and won't chip away at your health while you run around, but be aware that if you let them get some distance from you, they'll switch back to their crossbows. Also, spam bombs whenever possible. You can cheese through most anything by spamming enough bombs.
All right, people. It is not a gerbil. It is not a hamster. It is not a guinea pig. It is a death rabbit. Death. Rabbit. Say it with me, now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm1ToFxaWsg
Now he's not even very good, like at all, and gives bad advice (for shielded opponents parry->heavy attack or use yrden and then go behind and backstab, since aard's stun isnt 100%), but you can see with just 2 conflag traps he makes it a joke, skip to 5:00. It's not cheap tricks, the game gives you explosive traps in the prologue for this purpose.
Would be nice if it was like "hey, use these" though
Made me crack up.
You pick them up in the prologue, massive spoilers below.
50 extra carrying capacity for rescuing Aryan from the dungeon.
10% reduced damage for staying under Triss' shield the whole time going to Flotsam.
You also get 1 level in persuasion, hex or intimidate whenever you do one of them successfully up to a level of 3, but I'm not sure if that really does anything.
The +50 weight thing doesn't actually depends on how much you loot, but another, plot-related, thing.
Damn you, morally ambiguous choices! Actually, no, I love that. I just don't like losing out on awesome perks because of it.
Also, by assassin do you mean the one from assassin's creed?
You did fine, don't play the games for the perks, they're not important at all.
Once you get a handle on the rolling then you don't have to run away. You're going to be constantly repositioning in the same combat space always trying to attain or maintain an advantageous position. It seems like that's exactly how sword combat should be, and it happens to be a lot of fun.
Throw bombs and force pushin' fools just adds icing on the cake.
The number of times I've died due to laziness and not coming into an encounter prepared are high. I love that I feel like I always need to keep a stockpile of bombs on me in case I get swarmed, makes it all the more satisfying when I incinerate a group of enemies.
LoL: BunyipAristocrat
Re: Axii. I have not managed to get it to actually work yet. I zap people with it, they shake their head a bit and geralt gets pushed backwards, then they resume trying to murder me.
Mutagens: How do I use them? Somewhere on my character screen according to the tutorial, but I have not been able to figure out more than that.
Is there any sort of storage system? I have 50 of 300 weight in leather alone and I'm only in chapter 1...
What do all the different places of power do? In TW1 they just enhanced a specfiic sign, now they're a lot less obvious.
I just trained and gathered up like 20 harpies and just slaughtered them and barely lost any health. The sword tree gives you great Area of Effect damage and personal durability. The group finisher skill is pretty awesome when it works as well since you can take out an entire squad of bad guys with one button, instantly.
Adrenaline also fills up really fast so one-shotting harder creatures happens a lot with the finisher
It is so easy now that I don't really use magic or bombs or whatever apart from the shield spell when I get swarmed
Fixed that for you. In real medieval warfare people didn't roll around like ninjas.
I'm not saying the combat would be better if it was more realistic. I'm saying that your polar opposite view of "running and rolling like a circus performer for 10 minutes while you string around a trail of knights isn't gimmicky" isn't right either.
There's something not right in the prologue combat. Plenty of others are saying it, even those who are now (later in the game) greatly enjoying the game after upgrading Geralt.
I might have to go back and play the prologue again, because while yes I did die, I chalked it up to not being as familiar with the mechanics. And really I probably only died 5 times in the
And then maybe once more in the courtyard fight
You really don't need to be rolling around forever. Use your fucking signs if you want to isolate a guy. Fighting two dudes? Trap one of them. More than 2 dudes? Shield yourself then mind control the biggest guy there, leaving you to stab backs while he distracts them
Hrmm... I was actually thinking of grabbing the +100% to bombs/traps after hearing so many people raving about it.
Personally, I haven't found the multi-attack thing predictably useful against any of the enemies where you actually need it to be useful. If you heavy attack a group of enemies, at least one of them will, 99% of the time, hit you out of the strike before it lands if all of them aren't already hitstunned. It's alright against hordes of monsters, I guess, but monsters are stupid easy to fight anyway.
For that matter, I haven't found the fabled roll-around-and-stab-them-in-the-butt tactic terribly effective, either. Most of the time, they attack you during the dodge, and half the time they autolock to you during that attack. At best, you take some damage mid-dodge and then shank them. At worst, you take some damage mid-dodge and they're still facing you.* And if they're in any sort of state where they're precluded from attacking you during the dodge, they're in a state where you could just hit them in the face, the only exception being shield guys and a couple of front-shielded monsters.
*edit: I take this back. At worst, you take some damage mid-dodge, and when you click to attack them, your autolock inexplicably snaps to someone offscreen, you leap entirely in a different direction, end up hitstunned because the other enemy hit you out of your attack, and now you're hitstunned and surrounded by all the guys you'd been carefully trying to position yourself around.
All right, people. It is not a gerbil. It is not a hamster. It is not a guinea pig. It is a death rabbit. Death. Rabbit. Say it with me, now.
added this to the op with thanks.
you get perks like this in other chapters too, i got one in chapter 1 for
Sadly, I didn't know what was going on with that until it was over.
You can push down walls that have secrets behind them.
Odd, the multi-attack talent is incredible for me. You just shield yourself and wade into a group of badguys hitting the heavy swing and they all will get staggered and then you just keep hitting them until they all die. Sometimes I swing at nothing but air but still hit the guys on my sides. It's a really awesome talent, especially if you have your sword poisoned and with other effects on it
Though I do admit the talent-tree itself wasn't that great until I hit around level 14 or so. Once I had the +damage talents and the damage resistance talents and the multi-attack + adrenaline generation I became unstoppable. I can't think of an encounter that gave me trouble since
It's your XP bar. When it fills up, you get a level.