Who is Bob the beast???
bob the beast is any NPC with maxed out attributes. but lacking in technique and experience.
suggesting this should apply to henry (you) too. hypothetically , if you had maxed out attributes with little to no experience and technique, you shouldn’t be able to one-two hit kill Cuman and bandit vets (unless you’re lucky as hell) and conversely the Cuman and bandit vets should be able to slice and dice you nearly at will because their advanced techniques (AI strike and defense options) and experience (anticipation AI)
It should come as no wonder if someone invests time into something and gets progressively better, that fits better in the natural world than going:
" Woop, hold up there lad, you can’t get any better than this else you’ll be too good at too many things.
-But i tried thrice as hard!
A shame that such a thing is not realistic at all. You can train as much as you want you will NEVER surpass your physical limitations, nor you will be able to achieve the same results in training as those that are naturally suited to the discipline. For example you can train how much you want in chess as an adult with no mental predisposition for the game, you will never be able to compete against someone that started at a very young age, let alone against a child that demonstrates talent for the game at such an age. The brain develops in a certain manner (and natural talent already has the brain structured in a certain way for you to be able to do certain things better) that you will never be able to replicate with training alone. The same is true for every other discipline existing.
You will reach a plateau with training alone that you you will not be able to surpass and those that can are able to do so either because of talent, predisposition or starting from a very young age (and for champions usually a mix of all of those). The picking a set of skills tied to a ceiling simulates just such a natural behavior.
What you propose is totally unrealistic from every point of view and not only this, even from a pure gameplay perspective is a crap way to approach a roleplay game.
@Amioram Little harsh but agree.
Important point missing is that Henry can be the baddest archer/swordsman/maceman/etc ever. Just can’t be more than one of them at a time no matter how much grinding is done. Just have to create different play through
Thanks man
@amioram I see your point, but also according to that, Henry will never be the best at anything. The only background he has from childhood is in maintenance which he starts at zero. So, if you want this to make sense, you need to change other aspects of the game aswell. And as i said before, which you might have not read, i don’t think reaching the maximum level in any attribute should make Henry on par with the top 0.01% of the population, only to be relatively great at it, to an extent achievable by a normal human such as Henry
@Fadeinthelight Max attribute is by definition the most any human can get. Not capping means Henry gets to be a super freak if he grinds enough. That makes Henry overpowered.
Taking a normative approach, one could assign 1 in 10 of battling NPCs with max strength, and so forth. So, Henry isn’t the top 0,1% or 0,01% but top 10%… but only if you play your cards right (selecting right potential and grinding to realize potential).
Allowing Henry to excel (max) in one attribute seems a reasonable and necessary degree of artistic license to preserve playability. Each attribute beyond that and I feel like we’re back to Skyrim, Oblivion, Dragon Age, etc tank building
Which, as @amioram and yourself corrrectly pointed out, Henry should not be allowed to achieve. You need to either change the definition of max attribute or wall off progression. I merely suggested the former as it would have a broader effect and not be detrimental to playability and realisticness (No matter how much he tries, the game has only been going on for a few in game weeks, he should not be able to achieve this level of expertise in anything.).
I’m willing to concede max potential in (at least) one attribute. This isn’t dungeons and dragons or some other random number generated attribute game. Not a purist about this. Again, to me, opportunity cost should be an important aspect of role development in an RPG. Capping is a means to implement that opportunity cost
Which is exactly what i said from the start. Only that walling off progression isn’t the only way to achieve that.
If you don’t block (wall off) directly or indirectly, you have no opportunity cost
the opportunity cost is at the very beginning when you choose to specialize, the loss of opportunity shows itself in sluggish advancement in other fields. Your choice does become costly, only instead of beheading progress, you’re making it harder to achieve. In a game where multiple ways to achieve things is one of it’s golden features, incapitating one method is not the way you want to go.
The more you do the more you gain. Right now, there’s just a delay. That’s not an opportunity cost as the current situation doesn’t force one to select one opportunity at the cost of another. current actions do not curtail or prevent future actions. The current config of role attributes is anathema to opportunity cost
Opportunity cost is I have 10 hours to spend on training, period. I can spend all in swords, all in mace, or split. At the end, I only get to spend 10 hours. How I choose and what I pass on is opportunity cost. For sake of clarification, I used training as an example. I’m not suggesting opportunity cost in training but in attribute potential.
You can actually scroll through the magic selections without going back into the menu… Witcher 3 has one of the best combat systems of any game I’ve played, in my opinion.
On any game I have played designed to be played on PC, and not a peasant box, I would have multiple buttons for what ever spells I wanted to use. Not being forced to scroll and have a single use button.
That was only the smallest part of what I didn’t like about it. Rolling around. Spinning around. It seemed like I had very little control over the character, and it felt like button mashing. Completely unrealistic, unresponsive, and unenjoyable.
W3 has a lot of fans, and most of those fans are for the story, but the combat system? I haven’t seen a lot of people praising it, and I’m certainly not one of them. I didn’t even bother continuing, I disliked the first fight so much.
Good point OP!
I would like to add, that the “starting Henry” was a disapointment for me - as a blacksmith son, you have 0 level of blacksmith skill as you were not helping your father at all… you are as poor in repairing/maintaining weapons and armor as in herbalism, alchemy or whatever else. Also, you have zero drinking skills, but you are told by the story to be frequently going to the tavern and that you like saviour schnapps… you brawl at tavern, but you have 0 unarmed fighting skills. As a blacksmith son, you lack any skill such teenager would have.
The way they did the “specialisation” is a mockery - in the middle of the game one or two of your skills magically drops down, while one other skill magically raise up. So you forget to use your sword in the blink of an eye (the same sword you used in combat a few seconds ago), because you have magically gained better speech skill…
I would expect to have some sort of “starting skills” reflecting Henry the son of blacksmith and (as mentioned here) set up the “main skills” during the initial dialogue - allowing higher cap and faster XP gain in these skills. There could also be one negative skill (lower cap and slower XP gain).
The midgame perks could enhance the caps or pace of XP gain, but not do an instant boost.
Base Henry - not sure why blacksmith apprentice doesn’t have more default strength, drinking ability and smithy (maintenance) skills… as well as horse riding
Specializations - not a fan of perks that give +2 in X but -1 in Y. I understand the rationale (balance) but not a fan of it. One reason is as you say, why should I now lose ability. It’s a half baked way to simulate the effect of opportunity cost
Mid game perks - Cuman killer and others make Henry a tank. WH is said to nerf some of this. Think nerfed it still misses the mark. The things you mention (raising the ceiling or xp gain rate) seem much better approaches even if they aren’t ‘sexy’
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you seem to be put off by ‘blocking it off in the middle’. Bivoj mentioned a way this could be repackaged and have the same end effect.
imagine that you are only going to ever get 10 (example) attribute potential points to spend. instead of picking attribute potential in the beginning, make it a pay as you go set up. as you progress and reach a development milestone, you get another attribute potential point to invest. it’s your choice. so, you’re not capping anything (that philosophically disturbs some people). rather you are rewarding progress by allowing Henry to develop more in the attribute you care most about
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Again… On console you can scroll through the magic selections while in combat. Clearly you did only do one fight, otherwise you would know this. The combat was hard but incredible.
I understand you CAN scroll. What I am saying is that I dislike the system. On any PC with multiple moves or spells you would have a hot key bar where you can click or press multiple buttons to activate a spell, not scroll through and then press a single button to activate. For example, buttons 1-0 would usually give you an option at a single press to activate any move, spell, or use any consumable item. One button. Witcher’s control system sucks in comparison, especially for what is an action RPG.
I also did the tutorial. I know how it works. I don’t like how it works.
The combat was easy, and floaty. It lacked any sense of responsiveness or control.
If you consider that incredible (good?) then that’s fine, but I didn’t like it at all.
Search Google for “Witcher combat system” and find multiple threads of people hating it, and very few praising it.