Does this game immerse you?

[Monchey]

Just in advance, I think the Witcher 3 is damn good, this is just something that's been on my mind for a while. It's a bit of a trek, feel free to ignore.

I don't know if it's the perspective, the controls or the separated maps, but I've never really felt completely immersed in the Witcher 3. I get that this series is all about it's excellent quest design, writing, story and characters, but I feel like there's something stopping me from actually feeling like the game spans across this gigantic, richly realised realm, rather than just multiple different smaller maps that serve as a backdrop for various quests. Mountains, valleys, villages, cities and other landmarks feel smaller than they are, traversing certain places can be annoying as hell (Sliding down an entire half of a mountain after half a minute of climbing) the discoverable locations like monster nests and bandit/prisoner camps can end pretty quickly after you discover them, fighting different monsters feel samey because of the combat. It's hard to put into words exactly what I mean, but the world of the Witcher 3 has never really felt like a world. At least to me.

[pokerhabs]

Dragon... The guy who admitted never finished the game but spends his days roaming these boards to detract potential buyers of a near 5yrs old game... Pathetic if you ask me, not to mention he probably reads and edits his own posts 20 times and he posts on every single thread.

What games do you play, Dragon ?

On topic: Yeah, story-wise this game is one of the most immersive I have played.

[[deleted]]

No.

[Yraggul666]

Ontopic: to me it's one of the most immersive games i've played to date and i still have it installed. After NG and NG+ i still enter the game fairly often just to watch the world and play Gwent with people.
I guess it's a matter of opinion and/or taste.

Offtopic: here they are, ladies and gentlemen: the Steam Forums Power Couple extraordinaire: Dragon and CD; two girls that properly illustrate why abortion should remain legal forever.

[𝙹𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛]

I don't really know what I think about immersion in this game. But I can understand what you mean, perhaps using signboards to get between different locations (as in maps) kicked it, and all the quests don't go beyond the locations on the map. Although, there are plenty of hints that inform you of the events outside of the map. That kind of makes me feel immersed, the thought that I can't get involved beyond a certain point. But again, in the end, I really don't know.

[MadMek]

Are we sure dragon and CD aren't the same person?

[=GG= Mr Moe]

Yes, most of the time the game is immersive. Still finishing up Blood and Wine first run thru and also doing a second run thru the main game (about 1/4 thru). I take my time, never use fast travel unless going between main maps, I have Geralt walk 99% of the time and not jog or sprint, and rarely run Roach hard. I take in the scenery, explore buildings, even using a mod with animations for looting and picking herbs and try to turn off the HUD (except in combat) whenever possible. You get the idea.
At times with the game being long and playing too much, it can get tedious but then taking a break for a few days or a week fixes that.
But that's me, and at the moment The Wild Hunt is the only game I have been playing.

[PuppyFiddler]

Game would be immersive if it was first person and you didn't have to put up with one of the worse game characters every created and look at the dudes rear end for the whole f-game.

[The B1tcher]

Originally posted by Dragon:

Nope, Witcher 3 doesn't immerse me at all, ever.

Here are some of the many immersion-killing things in the game:

- The game is constantly force-opening your map against your will when you go to a spot where the devs didn't expressely intend for you to go. This can even happen in the middle of combat, and recur every few seconds within the same one fight. In addition to being immersion-killing, this auto-force-map-opening is also unbelievably aggravating.

- And the game also pops-up a ludicrous text message that you can't go to the end of the world because only devils play there, even though you are supposedly a professional monster hunter who should have no problem hunting down devils.

- The few NPCs in towns who do talk a bit keep repeating the same two or three lines over and over again every 30 seconds, verbatim...which is also unbelievably aggravating.

- 99% of the NPCs, you can't even talk to at all whatsoever. They might as well be cardboard cutouts, because those would have just as deep characterization that way (i.e. none at all); most of the characters that are in the game are no better than inanimate objects and therefore not the least bit believable as real people.

- The few NPCs who you can have an actual conversation with, you can usually only exchange a few lines together, and only have a very brief, shallow conversation.

- The game contains ludicrous plotholes in the story, such as the fact that the Nilfs treat Geralt like he's their best bud and freely let him walk around all their camps and castles, even though he mass-murdered several dozens/hundreds of them at the end of Witcher 2...which the Witcher 3 game completely ignores due to colossally bad & woefully sloppy storytelling.

- Similarly, Geralt spends all of Witcher 1 and all of Witcher 2 constantly pining after Yenn, then when he is finally reunited with her after many years in Witcher 3, neither of them hardly care at all, and they only have a couple of extremely brief conversations. Again, this is terrible storytelling and therefore very immersion-breaking.

- The main plot of the game as described in the store page, i.e. tracking down the child of prophecy who can save the world before the evildoers find her first... is incredibly generic and cliche and has been done countless times before.

- magical alcohol fairies magically replenish all your potions automatically every time you mediate while having alcohol (which is a ludicrous dumbing-down of the game mechanics from Witcher 1 and 2 in order to pander to lowest common denominator players)

- you can rob every citizen blind, right in front of their face, and they never do or say anything about it

- you can park your idle horse in the middle of a road and the NPCs will walk right into it as if they are blind, instead of simply walking around it, or stopping before they walk into it

- you can leave Vesemir fighting the Griffon forever, and he will never once take a break to eat, drink water, sleep, urinate, or anything else

- most of the characters' dialogues do not ever change/update/refresh as you progress the story

- quests can fail before you ever know you started a quest, even if you ride through a quest that happens to be way above your current level

- you are forced to perform mandatory fast travel to change from one zone to another, which is inherently immersion-breaking

- many of the NPCs are copy & pasted clones and some with copy & pasted voice lines too

- many of the trash mobs are copy & pasted from one part of the world to other parts of the world

- the play control is absolutely horrendous and terribly awkward, clunky, unwieldy, and anti-fluid

- many objects in the game contain unintended jagged/dotted white lines regardless of any & every possible anti-aliasing setting that you can possibly set

I'm sure there are many other immersion-killing things I could add to this list that didn't happen to come to mind at this moment.

True... also

relying on potions to stay alive, constantly doing a chugging contest mid battle is breaking

[Ultraviper]

no, because the character isn't "me" it's some monotone emotionless old dude. it's not role-playing it's "watch the story of geralt"

[PycassoClaudiu]

Turning off the mini-map helps a lot with the immersion. It forces you to focus a lot more on the world than on the dotted line on the mini map. It gets annoying at first when you have to open the map multiple times but I don't really mind it anymore.
I turned off my mini-map after about 200 hours into the game because I felt like dropping it. After that I did a 180 turn around. Now I play up to 9 hours a day.

[gratata]

Originally posted by Dragon:

Nope, Witcher 3 doesn't immerse me at all, ever.

Here are some of the many immersion-killing things in the game:

- The game is constantly force-opening your map against your will when you go to a spot where the devs didn't expressely intend for you to go. This can even happen in the middle of combat, and recur every few seconds within the same one fight. In addition to being immersion-killing, this auto-force-map-opening is also unbelievably aggravating.

- And the game also pops-up a ludicrous text message that you can't go to the end of the world because only devils play there, even though you are supposedly a professional monster hunter who should have no problem hunting down devils.

- The few NPCs in towns who do talk a bit keep repeating the same two or three lines over and over again every 30 seconds, verbatim...which is also unbelievably aggravating.

- 99% of the NPCs, you can't even talk to at all whatsoever. They might as well be cardboard cutouts, because those would have just as deep characterization that way (i.e. none at all); most of the characters that are in the game are no better than inanimate objects and therefore not the least bit believable as real people.

- The few NPCs who you can have an actual conversation with, you can usually only exchange a few lines together, and only have a very brief, shallow conversation.

- The game contains ludicrous plotholes in the story, such as the fact that the Nilfs treat Geralt like he's their best bud and freely let him walk around all their camps and castles, even though he mass-murdered several dozens/hundreds of them at the end of Witcher 2...which the Witcher 3 game completely ignores due to colossally bad & woefully sloppy storytelling.

- Similarly, Geralt spends all of Witcher 1 and all of Witcher 2 constantly pining after Yenn, then when he is finally reunited with her after many years in Witcher 3, neither of them hardly care at all, and they only have a couple of extremely brief conversations. Again, this is terrible storytelling and therefore very immersion-breaking.

- The main plot of the game as described in the store page, i.e. tracking down the child of prophecy who can save the world before the evildoers find her first... is incredibly generic and cliche and has been done countless times before.

- magical alcohol fairies magically replenish all your potions automatically every time you mediate while having alcohol (which is a ludicrous dumbing-down of the game mechanics from Witcher 1 and 2 in order to pander to lowest common denominator players)

- you can rob every citizen blind, right in front of their face, and they never do or say anything about it

- you can park your idle horse in the middle of a road and the NPCs will walk right into it as if they are blind, instead of simply walking around it, or stopping before they walk into it

- you can leave Vesemir fighting the Griffon forever, and he will never once take a break to eat, drink water, sleep, urinate, or anything else

- most of the characters' dialogues do not ever change/update/refresh as you progress the story

- quests can fail before you ever know you started a quest, even if you ride through a quest that happens to be way above your current level

- you are forced to perform mandatory fast travel to change from one zone to another, which is inherently immersion-breaking

- many of the NPCs are copy & pasted clones and some with copy & pasted voice lines too

- many of the trash mobs are copy & pasted from one part of the world to other parts of the world

- the play control is absolutely horrendous and terribly awkward, clunky, unwieldy, and anti-fluid

- many objects in the game contain unintended jagged/dotted white lines regardless of any & every possible anti-aliasing setting that you can possibly set

I'm sure there are many other immersion-killing things I could add to this list that didn't happen to come to mind at this moment.

Nonce

[GazClatty]

If you hate the game that much why write an essay about it?

[oboroge]

The 1 was quite immersive, the 2 felt like a failed tomb raider. The 3... so far... no idea about it. Just that it has been praised to be so beautiful and it is not, doesnt help to immerse to start with disapointment.

[Yraggul666]

Originally posted by Dragon:

Originally posted by Iron Patriot gc:

If you hate the game that much why write an essay about it?

My mission is to spread the truth to as many people as possible that Witcher 3 is not nearly so great as it's cracked up to be, not a masterpiece, not the best game ever, not the best RPG ever, not the best RPG you can buy in 2019, not impossibly detailed, and not any of the other things which its countless legions of universal acclaimists assert it to be.

I think the public deserves to know the truth, and for the most part, that's not what they are getting when they input "Witcher 3" into google or youtube.

There he is, in his nimble mind, Dragon, "the messiah of truth"! "on a mission"!
Doing everything for "the public", his "readers", the bringer of justice enlightens the masses as to how The Witcher 3 is not a realistic game because you can't take a dump, a leak or do your laundry in.

He "fights injustice" on the interweb on behalf of......of...wait a minute, on behalf of......well he just fights injustice, because most people like the game and have fun with it and he doesn't, probably because he can't, and that's not right, it's unjust; how dare other people like a game or have fun with it when his nimble mind says you can't and you shouldn't, nvm anything else.

Unfortunately he has no bridge, no railroad and no lake close by so he can do smth constructive with his life.

[=GG= Mr Moe]

Originally posted by Dragon:

Originally posted by Iron Patriot gc:

If you hate the game that much why write an essay about it?

My mission is to spread the truth to as many people as possible that Witcher 3 is not nearly so great as it's cracked up to be, not a masterpiece, not the best game ever, not the best RPG ever, not the best RPG you can buy in 2019, not impossibly detailed, and not any of the other things which its countless legions of universal acclaimists assert it to be.

I think the public deserves to know the truth, and for the most part, that's not what they are getting when they input "Witcher 3" into google or youtube.

WOW, that is so sad, on so many levels.