Tuesday, April 17, 2018

Second April Update

hey all,

It is currently raining cats and dogs here in the land of the rising sun. But that has not stopped me working on Particularly Wavy. I am now up to 70 completed puzzles, and I am pushing out an updated version with better controls for Android operating systems today.

I've also been playing a few games and getting in a little more design and research for my dream project: an RPG/RTS hybrid with procedurally generated quests. In terms of games, since finishing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, I've been playing This War of Mine, Ghost Recon Wildlands, and Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice.

Ghost Recon Wildlands in particular deserves special mention for its horribly voice-acted characters, bland and generic mission design, and totally inconsequential story. Ubisoft has reached a new low in terms of open world game design.

In contrast, This War of Mine is a tiny game in which player choice always matters, and everything you do has a consequence. Granted, it is also very heavily influenced by the bigger game State of Decay, but both deserve attention for how they model the consequences of player actions on other characters and the world.

Cheers,

Wednesday, April 11, 2018

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Analysis

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Analysis

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Analysis

David Hunter

April 11, 2018

1 Overview

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is an action RPG developed and published by CD Projekt Red in 2015, with 15 small pieces and two main pieces of DLC published over the course of the next year. It is the third and potentially final game in the Witcher series, and concludes Geralt’s story which was begun in The Witcher from 2009, and continued in The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings from 2011. This trilogy is based on a series of novels and short stories by the Polish author Adrzej Sapkowski.

2 Formal Elements

2.1 Players

The player takes control of Geralt, the white-haired mutant monster hunter from the previous two games. By now, Geralt has recovered his memory and is days from tracking down his on-again off-again lover, Yennifer. Geralt is controlled as a third-person avatar, just like in the previous games, but features more advanced movement, as he can climb many objects, roll, dodge, ride a horse and swim. At certain times through the game, the player will also take control of Ciri, Geralt’s adopted daughter, who has only been referenced indirectly and briefly in previous games. Like those games, The Witcher 3 is a strictly single-player experience.

2.2 Objectives

The player’s initial task is to gather clues about where Yennifer is and has gone. Completing this objective functions as the tutorial of the game, since the player will have to investigate several areas, complete a monster contract or two, and gather ingredients in the world, much as in the main game areas of Velen, Skellige, and Toussaint. Upon finding Yennifer, the player is given their real objective: find his adopted daughter, Ciri. The player will spend most of the game completing branching quests that lead to her.
Along the way, of course, Geralt also has many opportunities to change people’s lives. Like in previous games, these are rarely straight forward. Early on, Geralt has the opportunity to brew a witcher’s potion in order to heal someone, even though witcher’s potions are normally deadly to ordinary humans. Should the player take this chance, an acquaintance of that person will confront Geralt later on, telling him that although the patient survived, now they are a shell of a human being.

2.3 Rules

Like most RPGs The Witcher 3 has a complicated rule set.
2.3.1 Stats and Leveling
Geralt starts with 3500 Vitality, and for each level up he gains 100 Vitality. Each level up also gives Geralt one skill point to spend, and potentially unlocks an ability slot in his active skill tree. Geralt can also gain skill points by activating a Place of Power for the first time.
Skills are organized into groups, categories, and tiers. There are four main groups: Combat, Signs, Alchemy, and General, and inside each group, there are categories:
  • Combat:
    • Fast Attack
    • Strong Attack
    • Agility
    • Defense
    • Battle Trance
  • Signs
    • Aard
    • Yrden
    • Axii
    • Igni
    • Quen
  • Alchemy
    • Brewing
    • Oil Preparation
    • Bomb Creation
    • Mutation
    • Trial of the Grasses
Each group and category is also divided into tiers: 8 points must be spent on abilities in the first tier of each group before the second tier unlocks, and 20 and 30 cumulative points must be spent to unlock the third and fourth tiers, respectively.
In order to receive the benefit of an ability, it must be placed in the active skill tree. Once fully unlocked, there are four places for mutagens, and 12 places for abilities. The abilities are grouped so that three abilities are linked to one mutagen. Mutagens come in three colors: red, green, and blue, which match to Combat, Alchemy, and Sign abilities. Each ability that matches the mutagen’s color will contribute a bonus to that mutagen’s category: red mutagens increase sword damage, blue mutagens increase sign damage, and green mutagens increase vitality.
2.3.2 Combat and Magic
The Witcher 3 continues The Witcher 2’s combination of Dark Souls and Batman: Arkham Asylum style combat. The Witcher 3 attempts to have the weightiness and precision of moving, dodging, and hitting in Dark Souls and the cinematic flair and acrobatic finesse of managing multiple opponents in Batman: Arkham Asylum. Both light and strong attacks can be interrupted by a dodge or a roll, which is the main saving grace of the combat system. Geralt’s attack animations, although graceful and fluid, also take a great deal of time to connect with the enemy, during which time it is very likely that that enemy or another one will launch a much quicker attack against Geralt.
Bombs, signs, items, and potions may all be used during combat, with the exception of putting a rune on Geralt’s weapons or armor. Items and signs may be changed in a menu which slows down time dramatically, but not completely.
Four quick use items, such as food or potions, may be equipped at the same time and switched between during combat. One steel weapon and one silver weapon may also be equipped and switched between on the fly. Two types of bombs and two special items, such as a mask or torch, may also be equipped.
2.3.3 Crafting
The Witcher 3 features a detailed, comprehensive, and thorough crafting system. There are approximately 100 individual components which can be bought or harvested around the world, which can then be combined into several thousand different items, some of which can be further combined into other items. A similar, though less extensive system can be found in The Witcher 2. However, any composite item in The Witcher 3 can be dismantled into its constituent parts, which be be sold or used to create other items.
2.3.4 Areas
The Witcher 3 is divided into several large open areas: White Orchard, Velen and Novigrad, Skellige, and Toussaint. With few exceptions, the player is free to wander anywhere at anytime, although the level of enemies and monsters in some areas might make it nearly impossible to do so for lower level players.

2.4 Procedures

2.4.1 Leveling and Upgrading
The designers followed their choice from The Witcher 2, and greatly reduced the amount of experience Geralt receives for killing humans and monsters. Instead, most of his XP is derived by completing quests. Indeed, since Geralt is over 100 years old, and has spent much of his life traveling and slaying monsters, he is basically as proficient in it as he can be. This also makes it difficult for the player to engage in typical RPG behavior, such as farming for XP by repeatedly killing monsters in an area. It is usually faster to find an appropriately leveled quest and complete that, and the designers have put the requisite effort into making the dialogue, environments, and choices involved in completing such quests quite interesting.
Crafting, both involving potions, oils, and bombs, and making weapons, armor, and runes, also plays an important role in the game. Weapons and armor can greatly affect Geralt’s ability to give and withstand damage of different types, and potions, bombs, and oils can completely change the difficulty of a fight when used appropriately.
2.4.2 Exploring
The maps of White Orchard, Velen/Novigrad, Skellige Isles, and Toussaint offer diverse environments including rolling hills and flat fields of farmland, rivers and lakes to explore the depths of, caves and ravines near mountainous terrain, and dark mysterious forests hiding bandits and monsters. These maps feature loads of hidden stories built into environmental clues. While exploring the coast of Velen, Geralt will stumble across pirate camps, and within the camps he can discover notes from the pirates explaining why they choose those places, and letters or notes from the farmers and fishers who the pirates killed which explain what they were doing there before their untimely deaths. This is just one of the many areas which CD Projekt Red has made cohesive through the use of these story-telling devices.
Geralt can also find dozens of location-based quests, uncover countless monster nests, bandit camps, locations of power, and elven ruins.
2.4.3 Boss-Slaying
As Geralt investigates monster attacks during witcher quests, and at certain points throughout main story quests, Geralt will have to engage in what amount to boss battles. The investigation sets the stage for the boss battle by providing clues as to what monster Geralt might have on his hands, and what its strengths and weaknesses might be.
The battle itself will play out depending on how well you pay attention to these clues and use them to defeat the monster.

2.5 Resources

2.5.1 Abstract
  • Health: Health starts at 3500, and the player gains 100 points for each level up. When Health drops to zero, Geralt dies and the player must reload a save file. The only exception is when Geralt is killed by city guards: in this case, he is knocked out and loses some money. Geralt can regain his health by using potions, eating food or drinking beverages, and on easier difficulty settings, he can regain it after meditation.
  • Stamina: Geralt can cast signs, run, and dodge using stamina. Outside of combat, it regenerates quite quickly, but when facing enemies, it takes several seconds to regenerate fully. Signs can only be cast when the stamina bar is full, and use up the entire bar once cast.
  • Toxicity: Witcher potions give Geralt game changing bonuses and abilities, but they come with a downside: the more potions active and the more powerful the potion, the higher the toxicity. Higher toxicity levels reduce Geralt’s health and could lead to death, but toxicity levels gradually drop over time.
  • Adrenaline: Geralt gains adrenaline points during combat by damaging enemies. Adrenaline increases the damage Geralt does, and can even unlock special attacks if the appropriate skills are known.
  • XP: Geralt gains XP primarily through completing quests, but he can also gain limited XP through killing enemies. From levels 1-10, it takes 1000 XP to level up, from 11-20 1500 XP, and from 21 and above it takes 2000 XP. Each level up grants one skill point.
  • Skill point: Skill points can be invested in the abilities
  • Abilities: The abilities have been described briefly above. Each ability requires one skill point to unlock, but the ability’s tier must also be unlocked by having the required number of skill points invested in that category.
  • Level: As Geralt completes quests and slays monster and bandits, he gains XP, which works as described above.
2.5.2 Physical
  • Money: There are several different currencies in The Witcher 3, however, only one can be used for buying and selling items. The others must be converted at a bank.
  • Food and Drink: There are many different consumable items, each of which have slightly different effects.
  • Materials: There are hundreds of different crafting and alchemical components, which can be combined at crafters to make weapons and armor, or which can be received by dismantling unneeded weapons and armor.
  • Weapons and Armor: There are three main classes of armor: light, medium, and heavy, and they each offer different amounts of protection. Weapons come in several different groups as well: there are crossbows, steel swords, silver swords, axes, clubs, and maces.
  • Books, Recipes, and Diagrams: Recipes for oils and potions can be found throughout the world or purchased at vendors, as can diagrams for new weapons and armor. There are countless books, letters, and notes, some of which are crucial for completing main quests or side quests.

2.6 Conflicts

2.6.1 Stat Point Investment
The player is granted one skill point per level up, so deciding which ability to unlock or increase can have a dramatic effect on gameplay.
2.6.2 NPCs
It is not possible to make everyone happy all the time. Through dialogue choices, Geralt will inevitably make someone unhappy. This may close off further quests for that person, lead to a fight, or some more complicated outcome.

2.7 Boundaries

2.7.1 Stat Point Investment
All skills have a set number of points that can be invested in them, and as mentioned before they are organized in tiers which are locked through different amounts overall stat point investment in the category. Further, Geralt has a limited number of mutagen slots and ability slots, so although Geralt could learn all the abilities, he can only have a maximum of 12 abilities and 4 mutagens (plus one extra mutation and 4 extra abilities if the player has completed an optional quest in the Blood and Wine DLC) activated at a time.
2.7.2 NPCs
Most NPCs are not attackable or killable. This makes sense as no matter what kind of Geralt the player decides to play as, he would not be one to indiscriminately slaughter innocents.
2.7.3 Swimming and Climbing
Geralt has limited ability to climb on objects in the environment. Normally, these are marked with white shading on the edge of the climbable object, which could be interpreted as fungus or as guano.

2.8 Outcomes

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has several main outcomes, depending on the player’s choices. These include changing the fate of Geralt and Ciri, who will be king of the Northern Kingdoms, and of course which (or neither) of the main love interests Geralt will be with at the end.

3 Dynamic Elements

3.1 Time

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has a dynamic time system where one real world second equals an in-game minute. The day-night cycle affects NPC behavior, as most of them will go into their homes and sleep at night, but during the day they will wander around or do their jobs.
Further, there are many time sensitive quests, in which Geralt will need to meet an NPC at a particular time, wait a set number of days, etc. There are also several passive time sensitive abilities, such increasing Vitality regeneration during the day (night).

3.2 Weather

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has a dynamic weather system. This has some effect on NPC behavior, and both they and Geralt will comment on the weather in the game. It also adds a bit of atmosphere and drama to the game.
Lastly, there are a few passive abilities which are affected by the weather.

3.3 NPC Standing

As the player interacts with NPCs, your dialogue choices and in-game actions will affect your standing with those NPCs. They may approve or disapprove of your choices, thus unlocking or blocking off further interaction, or changing the tone of further interaction.

3.4 Patterns

This section focuses on game patterns as discussed by Ernest Adams and Joris Dormans in Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design.
3.4.1 Stopping Mechanism
The Witcher 3 contains the stopping mechanism pattern in how it prevents the player from spamming the witcher signs: the player needs a full stamina bar in order to cast a sign, and once cast, the stamina bar must regenerate from zero.
3.4.2 Dynamic Friction
The Witcher 3 contains the dynamic friction pattern in many forms. As mentioned before, the amount of XP needed to level up increases once Geralt reaches certain levels. In the Blood and Wine DLC, the enhanced mutations require increasing numbers of mutagens and skill points to unlock.
Finally, as Geralt advances in the game story, the level of monsters and enemies increases to counterbalance Geralt’s own increasing power.
3.4.3 Resource Placement
Due to the nature of the skill tree, it is possible to swap out abilities and mutagens on the fly. This makes Geralt’s skill tree an example of resource placement pattern. Placing an ability in a particular place on the skill tree allows Geralt to take advantage of that ability, and also influences his overall attack power, sign intensity, or vitality.
3.4.4 Play Style Reinforcement
As the player can choose which abilities to employ, and which types of armor and weapons to equip, the player can choose a play style which matches their own preference. Equipping a particular trophy, for example, the player can increase the amount of XP they receive for killing monsters and bandits, making it easier to level up. Or, by equipping certain weapons, abilities and mutations, the player may make it easier to kill enemies more quickly using dismemberments. By investing in alchemical abilites, the player can make ever greater use of potions, oils, and bombs in combat.

4 Dramatic Elements

Like the previous games in the Witcher series, The Witcher 3 features a moving, multifaceted and branching story.

4.1 Characters

The characters of The Witcher 3 are all mostly well voice-acted, touchingly animated, and speak dialogue that is quite well-written, especially compared to other video game titles. Instead of all good heroes and all bad villains, we get a complicated cast of distinct grey characters. Geralt can even engage sentient monsters, such as trolls, in dialogue and decide whether to resolve the matter with them peacefully or with violence.
The main character and star of the show is Geralt. While he tries to maintain witcherly neutrality, he clearly cares when others are mistreated, but he is sarcastic and can be cold. His main love interest in books, Yennifer, plays a key role in the plot, but is not always truthful and sometimes has a hidden agenda. She can also be petty and bitchy. Triss, Geralt’s secondary love interest from the books and his main love interest from The Witcher 2, also appears, although she is at first noticeably bitter about how Geralt abandoned her at the end of the previous game to find Yennifer. Dandilion, the self-centered womanizer bard from the books, Djikstra, the spymaster, Vernon Roche, the commando, and many other characters all make their appearances. Ciri, Geralt’s adoptive daughter, is also a playable character and the player gets to see why Geralt loves her so much: she is kind, loyal, and determined, despite the harsh fate in store for her. The Red Baron, Vesemer, Cerys an Craite, and many more characters fill out the huge cast. The Red Baron in particular deserves special mention: his quests are gut-wrenching enough to make even jaded players cry.

4.2 Story

The Witcher 3’s events take place approximately two years after The Witcher 2. Geralt had regained his memory in the previous game, and is now searching for Yennifer. When he finally finds her, he discovers that their adopted daughter, Ciri, who they believed had fled to another world, had returned but was being hunted by the Wild Hunt. They then begin a game long quest to find her and protect her. Along the way, Geralt will have to help or hinder many of the characters mentioned above. Unlike the previous games, the quest system has been greatly overhauled, allowing for multiple objectives and quests to be pursued at the same time. This allows the player greater freedom in the exact order in which they complete each task, and even which tasks to complete.
The first stage of the game takes place in White Orchard, but after several hours moves on to the Velen/Novigrad area. This map is huge and has hundreds of locations to visit and dozens of well-crafted quests to discover and unravel. Geralt will encounter the Red Baron, a drunken self-declared baron who wishes Geralt to help him locate his missing wife and daughter in exchange for information about Ciri. Geralt will also meet the Witches of Crookback Bog, three monstrous beings who terrorize the local villagers.
After discovering as much information about Ciri’s whereabouts from these two sources, Geralt will be ready to move on to Novigrad. Here, he will encounter Triss, Dijkstra, Dandilion, Zoltan Chivay and a host of other characters from the books. After helping Triss, Geralt will learn that Ciri met Dandilion, who is now missing and who Geralt will have to track down. After completing a series of quests to find out where Dandilion is and what he has been up to, Geralt will discover that Ciri is not in Novigrad and can met up with Yennifer in the Skellige Isles.
In Skellige, Geralt will get caught up in the political machinations of who will become the next ruler there, in addition to trying to find out what has happened to Ciri. With what he discovers here, he picks up a cursed creature from the Red Baron’s castle and takes him to Kaer Morhen to remove the curse. The creature turns out to be Avallac’h, an elven Sage who has been helping Ciri keep away from the Wild Hunt and teaching her to use her powers.
An epic battle at Kaer Morhen ensues, during which Vesemer dies. In the aftermath, Geralt and his allies set about gathering sorceresses and trying to convince Eredin’s (the leader of the Wild Hunt) allies not to support him. Back in Skellige, Geralt and his allies track down an artifact to summon Eredin into a trap. During the battle, Geralt and Ciri will battle different warriors of the Wild Hunt.
Based on certain actions and dialogue choices during the course of the game, Ciri may die, become the Empress of Nilfgaard, or become a witcher.
4.2.1 DLCs
The Witcher 3 released two major DLCs post-release: Hearts of Stone, and Blood and Wine. Hearts of Stone features a few new enemy types, many new weapons, and several interesting quests and quest lines. In terms of tension and pathos, it rivals the best moments of the Red Baron’s quests. Blood and Wine introduces a whole new area roughly half the size of Velen/Novigrad: Toussaint, a kingdom loosely based on a fantasy version of medieval France. This area features new enemies, items, and at least 30-40 hours worth of quests. Again, the best of these rival the best in the main game.

5 Conclusion

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is generally regarded as one of the greatest games of all time. The development team have produced a powerful RPG where player choices can lead to radically different outcomes in the story. It shines not only in the main quest, where the writing, animation, and voice acting are all superb, but in the innumerable side quests, which show the love and dedication to detail the team must have exercised to create them.

5.1 Potent Elements

The graphics, music and animations deserve special praise for helping to bring the world to life. The detective elements of the quests, like the detective elements in the Arkham series of Batman games, are some of the best in video game history. Lastly, the choices the player must make are extremely well-crafted dilemmas, each one an agonizing moment as the player struggles with an ethical issue.

5.2 Areas for Improvement

The combat and Roach’s AI are perhaps the biggest disappointments. Roach is semi-autonomous, but he seems to react to unseen cues in the environment, making his behavior seem random and frustrating. Although generally satisfying, in trying to strike a balance between cinematic flair and precision, the designers generally force the player into set patterns of attack attack dodge attack sign attack attack do something else/wait for your stamina to recharge.

Wednesday, April 4, 2018

April Update

hey all,

Lots of news. After my previous school bit the dust, I have finally found another job at a different company. It is a much larger company than I have worked at before, which has taken some getting used to.

I stopped working on Particularly Wavy for a few weeks and tried to get more work done on the item and questing systems for my RPG dream project. There are still quite a few issues to iron out and develop, but overall I think it was time well spent. I have since then resumed work on Particularly Wavy, and have got an Android version up and running, and gotten the puzzle count up to 65+!

I also tried to develop another game for a game jam about destruction, but I was not able to make the deadline and I'd say that the game is more or less dead on its feet. I wanted to make a game about being a frost giant in a frozen wasteland who pees and snow structures to destroy them, but I was unable to get some nice procedurally generated meshes working. I was able to generate some images using metaballs, cellular automata and Perlin noise, but I just couldn't get the fucking meshes to work correctly.

Besides, all of that, I've been playing through The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt for a second time in order to write a game analysis of it. I've also started Antichamber, and heaven forbid, I actually downloaded another fucking Ubisoft game: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands, which is somehow simultaneously a technical marvel and almost the most boring open world sandbox third person shooter ever developed.

I hope to get these posts back on their regular schedule starting this week.

Thanks for reading!