So the Witcher series is heavily discounted on Steam right now

So the Witcher series is heavily discounted on Steam right now.
I know next to nothing about RPGs. I played STALKER years ago, sort of enjoyed it although I kind of forced myself to finish it, but that's pretty much it.
Should I consider diving into the Witcher series ?

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>W3
>RPG

Yes, Witcher 3 is pretty much the best game ever made.

To be more specific I'm asking about 1 & 2.
If I start digging into the Witcher, I might as well play the games in order.

all 3 games are very different from one another

Depends.
If you like
>Go to A
>Boring walk
>Talk to B
>Boring dungeon
>Go to C
>Boring walk
>Talk to D
Then The Witcher is right your alley. Otherwise avoid the series like the plague.

Witcher is a mixed bag. I enjoy them all highly, you might prefer one, or dislike another, but frankly they are all made with a lot of love.

Isn't what you describe basically what most RPGs are about though ?

no

Yeah but most RPG at least have good combat, challenge and interesting dungeons.
The Witcher 1 was so goddamn awful it soured me on the entire series

>Witcher doesn't "get good" until Chapter 4
>2 is a terrible game all-round
>3 is the only decent entry

it is but he will deny it

Witcher 1 is really dated with a really weird combat.

Personally, I played them all in sequence and really liked TW1. The first act is boring but it picks up after it.

TW2 is very good. Really liked it even more than TW3 main story

TW3 biggest flaw is open world meme while having a GOTTA GO FAST rescue main quest. DLC is top tier, though. Probably the tightest shit to ever come out.

>Yeah but most RPG at least have good combat

First off, no. No they don't. Most of them have terrible combat, and most of them lack challenge entirely since they are made to be beaten however you play them.

You clearly haven't played a good RPG in your life then

>Series
Absolutely not! The personalities flip flop and change entirely in some cases between games.

>The Witcher 3: Complete Edition
One of the best recent games. It has horrendous combat, in a game that focuses on combat, but it has a lot of other things going for it.

You need to be over the age of 18 to post here. Pretty much all of the God Tier RPGs ever made have shitty combat.

>muh combat
It's literally hit and roll, just like Dark Souls.
What the fuck?

Do you like traveling to a location on a map and then watching a cutscene? Then you're going to love the witcher!

>shitty combat

Not shitty combat, but RPG combat retard

If a game doesn't have DmC combat it doesn't mean it's a bad combat because it's a completely different genre and the combat is supposed to be different

>Yeah but most RPG at least have good combat, challenge and interesting dungeons.
Name 10 (ten).

...

Witcher 1 was my gateway into "oldschool" CRPGs, and I fucking loved it. Only got into the series in 2013, and had no problems with the original. Played it several times, loving each playthrough more than previous. It did remind me of STALKER at times, namely the atmosphere, which was only a plus in my books. Both are kinda slow burn - high reward sort of games, so right down my alley.

I was super hyped for the TW2, as everyone was raving about it back then. But holy living fuck... it must be THE biggest buyer's remorse I've ever experienced!
I mean, what the hell happened?? It's a prime example of consolization and "we want AssCreed audience!". Gameplay was horrible, UI that console trash everyone hates, world much more linear, dialog choices dumped down into those cryptic "ME style" puzzles, legit QTEs, horribly downsized Alchemy ...

I've only played TW3 for like an hour, and so far it appears to me like a mere TW2.5. Couple steps to right direction, but still far from the joy and wonder I had with the original.

As someone that has never played these games is weird to see how divisive they are.
People always shit on the combat but nobody goes into specifics, I also heard the game has romance and sex but never see "X is best girl" posts

Witcher 3 is a masterpiece. It's worth suffering through Witcher 1 and 2 to experience 3.

>Witcher
>old school

>As someone that has never played these games is weird to see how divisive they are.
There's a simple reason:
TW1 came out in 2007, was a pure PC exclusive, and plays quite like the older CRPGs, with only very few back-then-modern additions.

TW2 was the first multiplat title, and thus the first game Xbots got to play. The whole game was changed to work better on consoles, thus the Demon's Souls and AssCreed similarities.

Finally we got TW3, which was built on TW2's foundations, and made into "true" multiplat, day 1.

>I also heard the game has romance and sex but never see "X is best girl" posts
There really is just two main-story "girls", both who may or may not be relevant depending on your actions.
Also something the consolikids don't know: You can bone just about EVERY female-like entity in the original game. You even collect "sex cards" by doing that. And yes, you can even get married & get a house in OG.

No point in playing the first two.
I hated both games, but loved the Witcher series from the books I read.
I would say read The Last Wish and also look up a summary of the first two games and just dive into 3. No point making yourself miserable with the first two to get to three.

OK I think I'll just pick up the first one for now and play it for a bit before I decide if I want the other two.

>People always shit on the combat but nobody goes into specifics

It's because they massively exaggerate. It's not even bad, it's not mindblowing either and could benefit from some more work in that department but its a consistent improvement from previous titles.

>I also heard the game has romance and sex but never see "X is best girl" posts

There's a bit of that, YenxTriss wars are fairly common.

Shani is best girl.

What if I couldnt even make it through the first one. I played it 10hours+ I just couldnt enjoy the constant walking and talking with sometimes having to deal with the shitty combat. Guess I should just not get Witcher 3 but the OVERWHELMINGLY POSITIVE reviews really bug me.

play them and find out for yourself retard

form your own fucking opinions

Are the dlc worth 18 £? I bought the base game at launch

> I just couldnt enjoy the constant walking and talking with sometimes having to deal with the shitty combat
Then you won't enjoy any of them.

You should work on those anger issues, user.

Are you new to internet discussions or something?

Yes, the combat is sloppy compared to some other games but look at this, that's satisfying.

youtube.com/watch?v=LX5ToaaOWUY

In the first game, sure. 2 is Ves. Haven't finished 3 yet.

it's starting to be goddamn fucking retro, judging by these threads and the allergy its gameplay and pacing is causing in consolikids.

Attaboy.
I will give you a friendly warning though: I've seen multiple threads similar to this in the past couple months now, and one thing always needs to be brought up: Do not give up in the beginning! Some people, for reasons not totally clear to me, just seem to lose motivation to play forward at the very beginning chapters. As in, less than couple hours into the whole game.

Everyone is all nuts about the legendary Chapter 4, which is great alright, but I would say chapter 2 is already the part where the game opens up and becomes great. A bit like STALKER's 100rad Bar.

Oh, and you're not going to be able to see and try everything on a single playthrough. Your choices and actions matter quite a bit throughout the whole game, and some missions you may not realize to "finish" properly at first.

The following is the correct way to look at The Witcher eries.

TW1 is an odd, kind of janky but neat little game. It takes some getting into and the combat really isn't that well designed but there is far worse out there and the atmosphere and whatnot is still great.

TW2 is a tech demo with a good story. It will be a strange departure from most typical RPGs in the sense the maps are smaller but far more detailed. On higher difficulty, the combat is infuriating and about 80% rolling. Good game though.

TW3 is dumbed down but also improved in many ways.
I suggest you play immediately on the higher difficulties because people who say it's too easy say so because they play on easier modes.

Playing on the hardest difficulty on your first run will force you to make good use of dodging, parries, alchemy, magic and all other gear you come across fo each specific kind of beast you hunt.
You can't just get by on swords alone.

It has some VERY light RPG elements, usually some stats and skills etc, but generally treat it as an open world adventure game as opposed to an RPG.
Remember that you are playing as Geralt, not as 'yourself' in an RPG world. When approached as a story in which Geralt stars, TW3 is a great game. Trying to treat it like a bethesda game will ruin it.

There is plentiful armor and weapons sets, many of which look absolutely great, the game is gorgeous, very detailed, and generally pretty great.

If you don't like open world games, you arent going to like TW3 and I don't know why retards buy it expecting it to not be like an open world game despite being mostly based around that.

In terms of open world games themselves, it's certainly one of the better ones; even shitty sidequests usually have a decent amount of writing and whatnot behind them.

tl;dr- remember that typical Sup Forums contrarionism is largely the reason it gets slammed and ironically shilled so much, but also know that it is by no means perfect.

>Playing on the hardest difficulty on your first run will force you to make good use of dodging, parries, alchemy, magic and all other gear you come across fo each specific kind of beast you hunt.
Alright, thanks for warning me. Won't be playing on Hard.

I want to be an OP Witcher, fucking ladies and fucking up monsters. Not play a poorman's DaS clone.

Wish i could play through the first, but that swamp island in act 2 is just so boring, does it get better?

this is exactly where I dropped the game back in 2008 and again in 2014, and again last year

they say the game gets good in act 4, but I can never be fucked getting there

Yes that is universally agreed upon as the worst part of the game.

I never understood how it stopped people in their tracks, though. It takes like 5-10 minutes to get through.

Installing the mod that makes Geralt move faster is a must for TW1

Witcher is so good

>roll right into the nigga's hand
>get slapped
>MUH SHITTY COMBAT WHO BUYS THIS PIECE OF TRASH 0/10 PLEASE PREORDER SKYRIM 2.0

Then you are going to breeze through the game and get bored midway because on easier difficulties you don't need literally anything but to mash the hit button to win.

Like said a million times, it gets a fuckton better.
That being said, by the chapter 2, it's already great. No idea how the swamp can be THAT hard for so many new people.

>want to play it
>have a toaster
>need money to get a better PC
One day.

should I play it with gamepad or mouse+keyboard?

ADHD generation at full mast, I see.
I have played the game four times now, all vanilla. It's fucking great game, from start to finish.

>have a toaster
I played this shit first on a core2duo 2.4ghz, 4GB DDR2 and Geforce 9800GT 512mb. Ran just fine at 1080p and med-high settings.

You won't be doing jack shit with a gamepad in TW1. It's a KB+M game, through and through. Not a hack & slash.

He's not even near the hand in any of the rolls except for the last one. Stop being silly.

It's a labtop.

>You won't be doing jack shit with a gamepad in TW1

what about 3

>part of the game is flat out boring
>hurr durr ADHD

I'm glad you enjoy such a mediocre game, but get fucked. The game is a drag from start to about halfway.

If anyone ever tells you that witcher' swordplay is amazing and interesting get them checked for brain cancer. Other than that games are p good.

2 is basially a must play if you want to truly experience the story and characters. Basically the entire main cast returns from Witcher 2 and they do not go through any trouble of bringing you up to speed when it comes to the very important relationships these characters have.

It is assumed that you've atleast played 2, and if you don't you're doing yourself a huge disservice.

I have seen a lot of people saying that it's completely fine to just skip 1 and 2 and jump into 3 but those people are wrong and most likely did not play 1 and 2.

1 has aged very poorly and there is nothing that carries over from 1 to 3, but when you start 3 you can opt in to simulate a witcher 2 save in order to bring all your important decisions from 2 into 3.

>It's a labtop.
...so? That doesn't tell me anything.
My both laptops can run TW1 just fine. Probably even TW2 on lower settings.

well, it's a console game, so it may make more use of it.

Nothing about the game is flat out boring. You just lack interest towards adventuring and enjoying the atmosphere.
It's superior in every possible way to its sequels.

>1 has aged very poorly
your face has aged poorly.
Then again, you're a TW2 kid. Jesus fuck that shit was terrible.

>The Witcher 1 was so goddamn awful it soured me on the entire series

So you haven't even played 2 or 3 which are radically different from 1 and you're talking out of your ass, got it.

Also, i should probably also mention that you need to be 18 to post on this board.

>Nothing about the game is flat out boring

chapters 1 and 2 say hello - this is coming from someone who's played it 3 times thus far


I can tell you're the same sperg from the previous thread

chapters 1 and 2 were fine introductory material.
t. 4 playthroughs and counting.

>tfw in the same boat
>finally ordered a Ryzen 1700 build
>just picked up Witcher 3 and Dragons dogma
>mfw

i cant wait

hey, he's already played the best game the IP has to offer. It's all downhill from there.

Chapter 1 is okay at best, but 2 fucking drags on and it's events are COMPLETELY pointless.

The game honestly doesn't get enjoyable until the 3rd act, and shines in the 4th.

Stop being a fucking fanboy.

I know both hardcore RPG fans and literal chads who both love this game. Which says a lot if you think about it.
That said, it doesn't offer much in the way of roleplaying. Still great though.

Chapter 3 > Chapter 1 > Chapter 4 > Chapter 5 > Chapter 2

How contrarian am I?

youtube.com/watch?v=vrJ330NGjCU

you can run it even on a toaster

>run TW3 on Ultra without hair physics
>everything's fine
>run TW2 on Ultra
>computer bursts into flames

Why?

tw3 better optimization?

Turn off uber sampling

>tfw just build a PC in Feb
>tfw just bought TW3 today

I've played the first game multiple times on my old PC, along with 2 maybe twice.

How will this run TW3?

Witcher 3 is very story-driven. If you're like one of these faggots who can't sit and watch a cutscene and immerse yourself in a story, don't buy it. Having said that, TW3 is my favorite game of all time. Every quest has a story, and every story is interesting. I don't understand the complaints about the combat, either. The finishers are incredibly satisfying, but you can basically expect a slightly more evolved Assassin's Creed style combat, which I suppose isn't to everybody's taste.

flawlessly with ~High settings. Turn off the Nvidia Hair effects.

Even my oldass i5 2500 + 8GB DDR3 + GTX 560ti 1GB can run it fine at ~Medium settings, 30fps lock on.

Literally just watch the story on youtube. None of the games have great gameplay, and the only reason to consider experiencing them is the dialogue, cutscenes and characters.

Whoopdiedoo.

I personally didn't have problem with W3s combat because it was AC-esque.

I moreover had an issue with it because its just so boring. The enemy variety, moveset variety and playstyle variety is so fucking abysmal that after 2 hours you've practically seen it all. The only choice you have is if you want to break the game with sign spam, sword spam or alchemy spam. No matter what you do, you wont change your basic build and playstyle being a ballerina swordsman.

The enemies are really boring too where they will always block after 2 hits and do a generic sweeping attack animation. They even reskin and recycle enemies for the DLCs and then dare to call them new ones with beastiry entries.

>knock Hz down to 85

you'll be golden

>Turn off the Nvidia Hair effects

his rig can handle it flawlessly at 1080p though

1 Was ok
2 got really boring never finished it.
Im just a few hours into 3 but liking it so far. Huge improvement on 2

The game gets better on as you evolve your skills and such. For example, my first playthrough I tried a fast attack build. Simple, repetitive, with the same attacking, rolling, and parrying, but you start to unlock new abilities and combos like the whirlwind fast attack where you literally spin around and AoE which was very satisfying.

Fine, I bought it.
Now to wait a day for it to instal

Turn off Nvidia hairworks, open Nvidia control panel and set maximum pre-rendered frames to 1. You will for sure be able to run flawlessly at 60 frames. I run the game on high/ultra with a worse PC and also some texture addons.

if you could deal with some of the bad gameplay of STALKER you could do the same for Witcher 1. It's worth it because the game apart from that is great. W2 and W3 are a lot more playable in that area.

>start to unlock new abilities and combos like the whirlwind fast attack where you literally spin around and AoE which was very satisfying.
You can unlock 2 new moves, thats it. The skill system is disappointing as fuck where its just +damage +critical damage +bleed damage for even more spam...

The upgrade system and extra 2 whole skills doesn't save the game since it lasts for over 150 hours. Its just not a very thought out system.

In comparison Nioh, Bloodborne and even Dark Souls have such ridiculous variety that it boggles my mind as to why the upgrade system and variety is so abysmal in W3.

In BB alone you have 26 different weapons with 14+ different animations, reach, damage, combos, recovery times and more.
In Nioh you have 5 weapon classes each with an extensive skill system, and the ki pulse system.

The witchers combat system is so bland that it doesn't even have a stamina bar. A stamina bar would have instantly made it more engaging and challenging since you couldn't just mash your controller like a monkey and win.

>his rig can handle it flawlessly at 1080p though

yeah but hairworks is completely pointless

Witcher 3 suffers from the open world, but its still the best out of the 3
And also the longest by far
Witcher 2 is more linear, but is worse overall
Witcher 1 is really dated, but its still alright if you dont mind the clunky mechanics

Chapter 2's main problem for me was trekking between the city and the swamp a dozen times times and putting up with the tedious loading screens that came with it. Other than that, it was pretty great.