As a person who likes to use potions although I play on Normal I want:
1. That you can skip through the drinking potion animation with a right click (same as in conversations)
2. That when you save the game after you drank the potions and then later load this save game you actually have those potions effects working instead of missing. How the hell did the QA not notice this (or whoever decided to have this by design is a moron)?!

*EDIT*

While I am a bit disappointed that you can't make it through the game without using signs and bombs, I don't think my previous comments about the combat system should be put in. You can't let enemies surround you even if you max out the swordsmanship tree, but I feel that is fine. Just need to make sure I get in a couple of swings, roll, get in a couple. Before you know it the enemies are all dead. It works, I just needed to get used to it.

However, they still need to fix the issue with button presses not always registering or being sluggish. That is just not right no matter what kind of game you are trying to make.

seperate bombs/traps/potion recipes in crafting screen. Same with armor/weapons/enhancements.

I started a new thread before this one was pointed out to me so I'm reposting it here...

A few observations, but some of my suggestions may require some development time. feel free to add on or ridicule as you see fit:

1. Fist Fighting - I found this ti be a bit of a disappointment. Almost a last minute effort. Simple "hit the key within 1.5 seconds of it flashing a key whose labeling is in an area on the screen which is not that easy to see with varying background contrast to the A,W,S,D,(space bar). If you had MOVES that could be triggered with key combination or mouse keys while allowing the character to move and stalk the opponent, that would be some SERIOUS wresteling. As it was, it felt a little "cheap" in terms of control (or lack thereof). I realize that actually allow a character to move around the ring a bit is more dev work, but I think it would REALLY be worth it: interesting style of combat, learn some combat terminology/moves and people would love it I'm sure (based on the craze with WFC over here in Toronto).

2. Arm Wrestling: So far, not impressed with the "hold the icon in the zone with your mouse" bit. I've read about some challenges but many people are not finding it such. Why not have a balancing system with strength discharge vs. stamina available (lactic acid buildup in the muscles per say). Then you'd have to time when you expended your strength (or lactic acid buildup) with the relative expended strength of your opponent balancing all the while, how much strength to you need to expend/available in balance with how much lactic acid (or toxcitiy level if you like) you can tolorate. Better yet, allow addition of that as a talent or add some strength/toxcitiy tolerence per level. In principle, it would take SOME work, but not a lot. And would make it MUCH more worthwhile/interesting. Like the fighting, I feel this was kinda last minute and not enough thought was put into it where there was big potential.

3. Eliminate bugs with non-responsiveness to key in combat (waiting for animation/location before excuting spells...) (bug fix/testing)

4. More character background to Triss, Zoltan and Dandelion. Seriously, we RPG gamers LIVE for partner character background/discovery, not just our own. really should be expanded upon.

5. I have mixed feelings about playing as another character (ie, king in the 2nd act). a little confusing for some. Okay, it adds for a few decision trees but a little disorienting)

6, Add drinking contests/conversations as means of information persuation. There were no drinking contests I observed in act 1. Those were actually a GREAT part of Witcher 1. Get info, and see if you can hold your drink That was really cool in Witcher 1.

7. It seems strange that you can recognize ANY plant without reading/learning but you have to relearn all your spells/abilities/potion making. The monster reading to learn more and better able to contact them is cool, along with abilities. But the plant recognition should also requiring learning in the same way Witcher 1 did. Its consistant, and another fun way to expand your abilities. Otherwise its mindless picking up of weightless objects for no particular reason.

8. The shield is in some ways too "invincible mode" in contrast to Witcher 1. Some more fine tuning to balance as with the Quen, you can apparently keep it up and attack with no weakness except to spell casters. Example: Poisoned: Cast Quen and you don't take damage, same for incineration. Even though its you can't regenerate vigor, its seems a bit TOO invincible at times.

9. Have special sword combos with specific mouse button combinations. I know there are supposed to be automatic hits in "combos" but it would be cooler if, say "fast, fast, strong" in sequence would generate a specific combat moves. Yes this requires a little more learning, but that is actually part of the fun. I must point out that Icewind Date (and Baldor's Gate II) had HUGE manuals, which people actually LIKED (myself included). I was cool with reading your manual, but the manual (2nd draft?) I felt was a bit sparse. Could have had more meat on it. which leads me to the next point...

10. More robust manual. (not counting the game guide from GOG). I understand that translating to many languages is a bit time consuming expensive...but given the lack of in game tutorials (which are more expensive in productions and translation I expect) it would be nice if more detail was in the manual. it seemed sparse compared what I discovered in the game.

11. Pause Button!! Some of us would like to take a second or two to evaluate our surroundings during combat. One could argue that its better for an ACTION game, and perhaps it is, but many us, when surrounded by 6-10 opponents would like the option of seeing an overview without dodging around with no ability to see the field of battle or position of opponents (or what they are). In Bioware's gold age, they used this simple, effective mechamism to great effect, and offered the best of both worlds. This is an easy add on (space bar or "p"?).

12. The character talking selection mechanism is ANNOYING. (I'm being polite its pretty bad). It is frankly unreliable: having your camera at the EXACT angle to select some characters...frustrating. And some characters I was unable to select for conversations and I couldn't tell if it was the camera angle or that the charcter ad nothing to say. A simple "alt key" to "tab" around the characters in view would fix this issue and I suspect with minimal development/testing time relatively speaking.

13. The doors with needing to open EVERY door even if a partner character had just passed through it. Many have commented poorly on this and now I'm another. Its a small but IRRITATING oversight/quirk. Please fix PLEASE.

14. This is being picky but a health meter on your partner characters during combat would be cool. Needing to actually rescue them in combat would also be good to avoid losing your support. Right now it seems your "partners" are invicible leaving you to only guard yourself. Its okay at easy, but harder levels they should have finite health. A small point but one we gamers enjoy using to play "hero".

15. More areas to explore. I'm hearing over and over how witcher 2 is smaller and I guess so far I'd have to agree. (not done yet). Maybe you are adding this in content you intend to charge for. I don't know. I think more could have been added from all reports I've read. Hopefully in an Enhanced Edition...

That is about it. I'll wirte more later as I proceed throught Act 2. These are the biggest I've seen so far. There are many improvements to the game over Witcher 1 (which I still enjoyed), the graphics being the biggest. But I fear that in doing such a great job with the graphics other important details got missed. Its a common occurence, but that is the difference between a good game and a GREAT game. Still looking the the one that beats the standard of Blador's Gate II or Mass Effect 2..this game could get there...perhaps if some (or even all? I'm not that lucky or inffluential...) get added in Witcher 2: Enhanced Edition, it would surpass the 2 I've mentioned. (some say DA:1 did but I don't agree there). Anyway, some great work here. Hope it gets improved upon, as there is room...and that would make this truly a work of art to be envied by all.
They just responded to that while repsonding to questions about patch 1.3. Their site was revamed by a 3rd party developer group that has been "screwing the site" for the longest time. Lot of unprofesional fakes there which I suspect was a 3rd party even before the posting. CD Projeckt has expressed politely they are losing patience and they realize its been WAY too long for the group to get the site up the state it should have been at the product launch. Basically they hired the wrong group to do the revamp of their site so we'll have to be patient while the 3rd party is either "whipped into shape" or is replaced.

Yeah sorry I haven't updated it in a few days. I want to add a few more things but I also have to break them down into smaller sections now and I'm not 100% sure how to do so.

Also kind of waiting for the forums to come up but it looks like that will be a while :(

Alphabetical sorting of journal entries and inventory.

Geralt 's arm wrestling skills are inhuman! Burn him at the stake!....or at least the crate upon which he sits when arm wrestling with Adam Pangratt.


This is a BUG REPORT. its a small bug but...has anyone noticed that whever you arm wrestle Adam Pangratt in Act 2, he is ALWAYS virtually on the campfire next to Adam resulting in getting incinerated when your done? Running into a fire and getting incinerated is okay, even funny. But when you arm wrestle a character? That a rather embarssing bug. Please fix this. Its irritating and silly.

Another fix: MAKE THE BLOODY KEYBOARD KEYS RESPOND!! its getting seriously annoying and costs MANY deaths; you try to cast a sign...no response....hit keys 2- 3- 4 times, no response...unless you move (60% time works) or get hit (100%). that bug is a dealbreaker. Next Patch, top priority next patch please...get the keyboard to respond so we don't die trying to cast a sign like the Shield.

To those assuming I have no Vitality left, I will have full 3-5 bars and it makes no difference. I understand you must have vitaility to block or cast spells. This non-repsonsivness of the keyboard is reported by many people and MUST be fixed. Its a bug that should have delayed the release until it was resolved. Please and thanks.

Agreed with most of bug reports and changes needed.


1. Alchemy is strange, and prepare potions isnt clear :
- Color icons for elements are sometime greyed for no apparent reason, even without selecting them
- Ingredient we used are reset in "default" configuration after each preparation. It was the case in the first game, and was pretty annoying, considering the seemingly "logicless" choice of the "default" ingredients (sometimes very valuable ingredients instead of common ones).

2. The "you already read that" information on formulas and other documents is clearly missing, and ability to compare things we already have when in stores is missing too.

3. a support for 16:10 displays is CLEARLY MISSING, and none of us may understand why. A 2D interface isn't difficult to ajust, and I cant believe graphic designers be blocked because they didn't think about that...

4. Most important to me : With systems of more than 4Gb RAM spreading around, Why does dead bodies have to disappear so quickly ?
There must be an option to set the dead bodies duration, at least until geralt leave the zone. And accordingly to that, the ability to loot directly on bodies, without to wait some annoying seconds (wich often break dynamism) to loot a tiny magical bag...
I want to see results of my fight, and not a clean and polished floor without any blood stain or burn marks on it, damn !!

5. Blood is missing (who doesnt lost some blood after being amputated by an arm, of slice opened by a witcher's sword ?).


That's for me most important points to change (and optimize ubersampling too ^^)

Add separate options for music, battle music, dialogues, sound effects, ambience. Wicher 1 has it why not Witcher 2?

16:10 aspect ratio and campfire bug. Also, add toggle for armor with Hood enable/disable. Please.

I found another irritating issue :

After each new scene (in the prologue for example, when you choose your next "chapter"), the game restore Geralt with the "default" equipment, in fact "the best" :
- Blue stripe armor
- magician pants
- herborist gloves

instead of MY precedent equipment :
- Raven armor
- Normal gloves
- normal pants

I just want the game to save my configuration between each chapter, instead of re-equip Geralt with another stuff...
I believe it is a bug related to "preco bonus packs" but that's pretty annoying.

I thought about getting rid of that and throw away this stuff, but neither I want to lose a higher bonuses equipment or lose the money value of these...

Minor bug I've lately noticed:

You don't seem to get experience of you kill opponents with gravity, i.e. Aarding them off the battlements in the prologue. Pity; it's entertaining. ;)

I haven't yet tested Aarding an a nearly-dead opponent into a campfire and letting the flames remove the final HP, but it wouldn't surprise me if you don't get XP for that, either.

~~

Trap damage appears to ignore Quen, at least vs. Geralt. I haven't tried cheesing enemies with all the traps in the Flotsam woods, but if this holds for enemies certain battles against magically-talented foes might be pretty cheese-able.

thats odd but now that i tihnk about it, it makes sense. they would have to be able to know you killed them that way .

Yep. This could be worked around by storing a per-actor field corresponding to "last conscious actor that did damage to this actor" bit. It's pretty minor because most kills aren't going to finish with environmental elements, and if you're spending a lot of time Aarding enemies into dangerous situations, you're probably just goofing around anyway. :D

~~

On my various irritations with the map, much would probably be alleviated with a simple "drop labeled pin where I am", "alter pin color/label", "remove pin" or even "remove all pins of color X" functionality, so that I could easily mark important passes, mines, caves et al that for whatever reason aren't mapped when you find 'em.

~~

Swords and cut-scenes: there are situations where it is perfectly normal that you would approach with sword drawn, but where a cut-scene forces you to enter battle mode with sword sheathed (e.g. vs. Dmitri and friends. In fact, in that particular cut-scene, you're pretty much the aggressor; this is not a situation where you should be surprised and unready.)

~~

Active item slot should have a counter underneath it, and it should either clear or switch to another slot when you're out.

Counters would also be helpful on the alchemy screen, e.g. so you know how many Grapeshots you have while you decide how many more to make.

Found some improvements to do for interface and other ambience stuff, even if I know it has probably already been posted here :

WISHED CHANGES
1. Implement all modifications from the "panel tweak" and "hud tweak" from AH :
- taller tooltips and faster scrolling for ingredients needed
- items like schematics and books marked "already read" when read, and checked with "already have in inventory" mark
- don't oddly rotate ingredients AND color icons for alchemy
- Select most cheaper and common ingredients first (herbs and mushrooms for example), and KEEP choices made for next identical potion.

2. implement some changes that had not been tweaked :
- stop rotating minimap, only direction pointer
- Show number of possible ameliorations on weapons and armor BEFORE crafting
- Try to make different schematics for each type : one symbol/color for weapons (and a different for ranged weapons/traps), another for armors, and another for crafting materials.
Having all schematics beginning by "Schematic :" leads to a considerable mess
- Show remaining quantities when drinking potions, crafting, and for quick items (bombs, throwing knives)
- When a quick weapon (ie bombs) is empty, switch to next one, at least clear the slot (numerous times i tried to throw a bomb because the icon remain but no bomb left....)
- Dont auto scroll entries in logs (actually, scrolling "pull" to next entry, supposedly because selected item can't be "outside" screen)
- Add an "adrenaline" entry to in-game tutorial
- For max damage bonuses, in french version we get "Damage X", instead of a more clear "Max Damage +X"
- In the character sheet, all bonuses are in disorder, very difficult to get those being modified.
Maybe add a color to highlight them ?

AMBIANCE CHANGES
- Try to not get the same name to different characters. I got it that some generic NPC's are randomly generated, but seeing Two joung and three old women named "Margot", sometimes side to side, is pretty surprising.
Not to mention the name of a prostitute (with a fat joke inside I think) that I seen later on a little girl : pretty confusing IMO.
There is a bunch of possible names, your may give hundreds of different ones, why restrict to barely a dozen ?
- NPCs dont have to repeat the same sentence twice or more in a row. Let them quiet after one or two answers.
Some other tend to only get one sentence... pretty annoying, but I'm aware about the sum of work that represent, and can't blame for that.
- I sometimes heard ducks and dogs (in Flotsam's outskirts), but can't see one of them : there was dogs in the first game, as well as some other animals (and Keyran couldnt have killed them all in Flotsam ^^).


BUG REPORT :
That was only changes, now i saw a little bug with Orosmose quest (the keyran potion) :
- After being briefed by Triss and got the potion's recipe, I could make a potion with another ingredient (endriague foetus I think) that contains fulgor (the red one).
Then i get the potion without having to harvest the special ingredient (Orosmose) in the elf cave.
That was not blocking because the quest completed with the Keyran death, but I wasnt able to complete it before that, no matter what I tried.
A least, i got 2 keyran potions ^^

- Some apparent localisation problems in French version : Grapeshot Schematic is well translated to "boîte à mitraille", but the bomb itself became "Ruche" (bee hive).
In same manner, the "zerrikanian sun" bomb became "Luciole" (firefly) bomb for no reason (and a loss of prestigious name ^^).


At last, the game is almost perfect, thanks to CDPR team for this. I regret some that great features (mostly depicted here), existing in first game, hadn't been kept in this one.
But i'm confident in their "super fan's listening capacity" that will make a more-than-ever perfect game ;)