The Witcher 3 (PS4) is a buggy mess

Tigel · Jan 5, 2020

I just finished the Netflix show and I've been replaying The Witcher 3 on PS4 because I never finished it and wanted my witcher fix.

Don't get me wrong, the quests and writing are as good as ever, but boy does the game is clunky and buggy (playing on base PS4). Menus take forever to load and look like they run at 15 fps. There are so many graphical and animation glitches everywhere. I just got a conversation menu disappear on me while talking to an NPC. About 15 minutes later, I got a glitch when environmental sound effects from a cutscene that continue playing even when the scene changed to another location...

I mean I get that it's a huge game and all, but all of these issues are kind of diminishing my enjoyment of the game.

Temtastic Muns · Jan 5, 2020

Were there ever any Pro enhancements implemented?

BarryFishFinger · Jan 5, 2020

Was it? I never noticed.

EJS · Jan 5, 2020

I don't recall the game being a 'buggy mess' on base PS4?

Hu3 · Jan 5, 2020

Played almost a thousand hours on it never had a problem. Mind you I am playing on pro.

Temtastic Muns said:
Were there ever any Pro enhancements implemented?

Yes the game is pro enhanced.

Green Yoshi · Jan 5, 2020

I played the game on base PS4 in December 2015 and it was fine. There are some issues on PS4 Pro with the recent updates, so I'm still on version 1.51. Version 1.50 got the PS4 Pro enhancements.

CognitiveAtrophy · Jan 5, 2020

I've played through it on the Pro twice and have never once experienced a bug.

Cincaid · Jan 5, 2020

I've tried getting into the game two times (PC and PS4 Pro) but dropped it both times due to hating the combat. Will give it another chance on my new One X, but I just don't think the game is for me. Which is a shame because on paper it's everything I love in games.

Deleted member 36708 · Jan 5, 2020

Sexy Fish · Jan 5, 2020

Never experienced anything like you're saying on my PS4.

Devilgunman · Jan 5, 2020

Must be base PS4 specific then because it runs fine on my Pro.

Carn · Jan 5, 2020

Temtastic Muns said:
Were there ever any Pro enhancements implemented?

yep! It had various patches (also breaking some stuff) but its ok now.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...3-on-ps4-pro-deliver-a-top-tier-4k-experience

https://kotaku.com/things-are-finally-looking-up-for-the-witcher-3-on-ps4-1826081330

Tigel · Jan 5, 2020

Weird, I must be really unlucky then, but it's my experience after 4 hours of picking the game back (I'm o.mn Skellige). I was wondering why no one was talking about that.

Pankratous · Jan 5, 2020

The only problem I can ever remember having is the menu taking longer to load the more items you had or something like that. Can't recall it being a buggy mess otherwise at all.

Nightbird · Jan 5, 2020

My game can't play even 10 Minutes without crashing. It's probably the disc, but it's still weird since I barely used the game

PurgeVIII · Jan 5, 2020

The menus are slow still for me on PS4 Pro but the performance has been overall great....except for Novigrad. The game stays at a consistent 30 fps and pretty much never dips but its crashed 6 times so far, all in Novigrad. Thankfully I wrapped up all my quests there yesterday so I'm done with the city for the time being.

falcondoc · Jan 5, 2020

Its very janky

D-Soo · Jan 5, 2020

I played a good 100+ hours and completed it on a base ps4 but maybe only ever encountered one or two bugs

ASilentProtagonist · Jan 5, 2020

Game looks gorgeous on base PS4, fps is quite strong outside of Novigrad. The menu's are laggy, and it can get a bit buggy during cutscenes at times.

Tigel · Jan 5, 2020

falcondoc said:
Its very janky

ASilentProtagonist said:
Game looks gorgeous on base PS4, fps is quite strong outside of Novigrad. The menu's are laggy, and it can get a bit buggy during cutscenes at times.

That's my experience as well. I may be overreacting by calling it a « buggy mess », but it's far from being a polished game like, say RDR2 (just to compare it to the last open world game that I played).

Filthy Slug · Jan 5, 2020

Tigel said:
Weird, I must be really unlucky then, but it's my experience after 4 hours of picking the game back (I'm o.mn Skellige). I was wondering why no one was talking about that.

Nah, I'm playing it through for the first time now, and there are tons of bugs and glitches, including completely losing all dialogue audio. Also, in Novigrad, a weird rainbow polygon shadow just dances under Geralt at times.

BubblegumNemesis · Jan 5, 2020

Never had any issues with x1x version... Are they not the same?

Ferrs · Jan 5, 2020

I'm playing it for the first time on PS4 Pro and it doesn't feel glitchier, there's some framedrops but I expected worse.
What is really bad is the combat and the controls. Like, I just fought 2 bosses in a row and 1 kept getting stunlocked by strong attacks while the other had constant hyperarmor but the IA was so bad I oculd just evade and attack till he dropped dead because he didn't do anything other than attack (and whiff) and stand still.

TheGhost · Jan 5, 2020

I'm playing on Pro and yeah it's not the best experience in the world. But i'm chugging along anyway because I can't carry my save over to my X or PC

For example...

Does not have a sword in any cutscenes, she is always pulling invisible swords out of her sheath.

Some game mechanics are super clunky too

Hu3 · Jan 5, 2020

Op make sure to rebuild the database of your ps4

Dever · Jan 5, 2020

I've been playing it as well on PS4. I wouldn't say it's buggy, since I'm pretty sure everything has worked as intended so far, it's just janky.

Bigger problem is I'm finding the game quite boring.

HockeyBird · Jan 5, 2020

It has that typical western RPG jank but nothing I found too out of the ordinary. It was probably one of the better running games of its type honestly.

shinobi602 · Jan 5, 2020

The inventory menus definitely get slow as molasses once you start having a ton of stuff but never experienced the other things you mentioned.

monmagman · Jan 5, 2020

Played through the GOTY version on base PS4 last year....had one bug where the sound cut out during one long cutscene and the menus aren't great.....other than that it was fine.I was actually impressed with how bug free it was considering how big the game is,I assume it was worse before the GOTY version though.

HalStep · Jan 5, 2020

i had some minor issues at launch like a character disappearing in a hut randomly,the biggest thing was this:

Baccus · Jan 5, 2020

It actually wasn't, but the last patch fucked it up. It introduced hundreds of new bugs and graphical problems such as horrible LOD loading on Pro that weren't there.

Baccus · Jan 5, 2020

Carn said:
yep! It had various patches (also breaking some stuff) but its ok now.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...3-on-ps4-pro-deliver-a-top-tier-4k-experience

https://kotaku.com/things-are-finally-looking-up-for-the-witcher-3-on-ps4-1826081330

No it isn't fixed. It's actually ruined.

Kalentan · Jan 5, 2020

I've been playing on Pro and while I haven't noticed menu and bugs, the Framerate has been incredibly inconsistent. One second 30 FPS, next second feeling like it's 15 fps.

Anabolex · Jan 5, 2020

All the horse races bugged out for me. Opponents never spawned which is actually nice because Roach controls like ass.

Evolved1 · Jan 5, 2020

I think the only issue I've encountered is a dumb design decision to not actually use the analog sticks to their potential for locomotion. The game has one walk speed (too fast) and one jog speed (also too fast) so everything feels janky as fuck just moving through the world. If they let you control movement speed with the analog it'd feel like a proper game and not a jank-pile. This is one area where being designed as a PC game first, with the inherent limitations of m&kb for locomotion, definitely hurt the translation to consoles.

No bugs though, so far.

Izzard · Jan 5, 2020

Yeah I remember loads of stuff bugging out in that game.

Carn · Jan 5, 2020

Baccus said:
No it isn't fixed. It's actually ruined.

that's just the most recent stuff I could find about it, haven't really played the game for a long time.

Baccus · Jan 5, 2020

Carn said:
that's just the most recent stuff I could find about it, haven't really played the game for a long time.

The second to last patch was fine, but HDR still didn't work. So they patched it again fixing HDR and.... Breaking everything else. Then support ended. That's how we got the Bethesda tier Witcher version we got on PS4 now.

Disgraceful.

Erg · Jan 5, 2020

Yeah I also just went through the game for the first time and while I still really enjoyed it, I was a bit disappointed by the bugs. Game crashed on me probably 6 or 7 times, had multiple times where I had to reload because something would break (like enemies not spawning, unable to dive into water).

Carn · Jan 5, 2020

Baccus said:
The second to last patch was fine, but HDR still didn't work. So they patched it again fixing HDR and.... Breaking everything else. Then support ended. That's how we got the Bethesda tier Witcher version we got on PS4 now.

Disgraceful.

seems that 1.62 fixed some things that got broken with the 1.60/1.61 HDR update tho?

ThreepQuest64 · Jan 5, 2020

Tigel said:
Menus take forever to load and look like they run at 15 fps. There are so many graphical and animation glitches everywhere. I just got a conversation menu disappear on me while talking to an NPC.

Gotta admit this was my PS4 experience as well. Some conversations had actually LOADING TIMES they masked with showing a blurry screenshot of the last image. Menus are laggy as hell even a single effect like skipping a round in Gwent does look like some 15fps or so.

Returned to the PC version and never looked back. Please do yourself a favor and play this game on even a mediocre PC. While the PS4 is far from being "a mess" the experience on PC is still oh-so better.

Franco_Tech · Jan 5, 2020

I played hundred of hours on base ps4 even on lounch date and it was not a buggy mess maybe the framerate yes.

Baccus · Jan 5, 2020

Carn said:
seems that 1.62 fixed some things that got broken with the 1.60/1.61 HDR update tho?

As you can see from this thread it didn't.

wtd2009 · Jan 5, 2020

games like this and a few others are ones that I'm hoping to play on the ps5, the wait is tough though after watching the Witcher.

Tigel · Jan 5, 2020

ThreepQuest64 said:
Returned to the PC version and never looked back. Please do yourself a favor and play this game on even a mediocre PC. While the PS4 is far from being "a mess" the experience on PC is still oh-so better.

Sadly I don't have access to a gaming PC (or any PC for that matter). I guess I'll just bite the bullet and embrace the jank.

DeeDubs · Jan 5, 2020

Finally made myself do an entire playthrough over Christmas break on my pro. Luckily didn't hit any glitches, however my game crashed several times after extended play.

RiggyRob · Jan 5, 2020

I didn't find it that buggy when I played on PS4 (although there were some situations where Geralt got trapped in a constant falling animation when sliding down a hill and getting stuck behind some thin trees), but the performance in the menus is pretty bad, it can take full seconds just to switch tabs.

Imitatio · Jan 5, 2020

Buggy? Sometimes. But it's lacking in polish and feels quite janky on my Slim. Switching to Witcher 3 from some other games can be jarring, yeah.

Watching W3 being played on PC in 60 fps seems like the way to go to experience the game tbqh.

Carn · Jan 5, 2020

Baccus said:
As you can see from this thread it didn't.

fair enough but while it has its fair amount of jank, I never encountered what OP is describing except for the slow menus, but that can be remedied by dumping a lot in in your stash. Or maybe I did but didn't consider them that memorabel and pretty much what I expect from an open world game. Will boot it up soon and see what has become of it tho :p

Tigel · Jan 5, 2020

RiggyRob said:
the performance in the menus is pretty bad, it can take full seconds just to switch tabs.

In RPGs I usually love spending time in menus, looking at my stats, inventory and tweaking my equipment but with Witcher 3 I cringe whenever I know I have to open the menus. It's a shame ☹️

The Witcher 3 (PS4) is a buggy mess

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