The Witcher: Monster Slayer Takes Flak After Update 1.2.0

The AR mobile game The Witcher: Monster Slayer received a major update.

The Witcher: Monster Slayer - what's new in patch 1.2.0

The patch is marked as 1.2.0 and it brings many changes.

1. A new progression system, called the Trail, has been introduced. By advancing to subsequent levels, our hero becomes stronger and unlocks new skills and recipes. He also receives rewards, among which are chests containing items and currency.
2. Along with the achievement of subsequent levels of the Witcher Rank the strength of encountered enemies will increase.
3. Patch 1.2.0 also heavily modified the Alchemy system. Now potions and oils have a specific duration, so that their effects do not run out after a single battle. Moreover, they can be consumed from the inventory level. Alchemy stations can now be repaired instead of disappearing after a certain number of uses.
4. Stats such as attack and vitality have been added to the character profile in order to monitor the attack power or the effectiveness of Signs. In this way the RPG elements of the game have been strengthened The developers promise that this is just the beginning and that more changes in this direction will be implemented in future updates.

It is worth noting that the creators further develop the Monster Weeks system, in which players perform timed tasks related to specific monsters, and there are also plans to introduce special events.

Patch 1.2.0 controversy

The update did not go smoothly.

1. Players complain about gameplay changes. For example, perfect parrying no longer results in complete damage negation, so in practice there is no point in trying.
2. Fans feel that the changes to alchemy have made the game too easy to play as there is no longer a need to carefully manage resources and now every monster requires these mechanics to survive.
3. The previous choices for character progression have also lost their importance.
4. All this makes the game supposedly much less interactive, and players have fewer opportunities to make decisions that affect gameplay.
5. What is worse, there are also allegations that the changes were introduced to encourage players to use microtransactions..
6. The negative reaction of players can be seen from reviews on Google Play. Before the update, the game had an average rating of over 4/5. Now it dropped to 3.4/5.

In response to this criticism, the authors have published an entry on the official website, explaining the implemented changes. They were considered necessary, as the players complained that after reaching a high enough level fights were becoming boring. Now, instead of the previous four levels of battle difficulty we are to receive more varied challenges, which will take into account the strength of our character, the size of monsters and their rarity.

The alchemy system, on the other hand, has been changed because the players have been hoarding potions and oils for future battles so that they don't waste them in a single skirmish. Extending their duration is supposed to encourage users to use alchemy more often.

Conclusions from criticism

This does not mean, however, that the creators are going to stick to their guns. After the aforementioned entry the authors issued one more statement, in which they wrote that they took note of the feedback related to the update and will make changes to meet the expectations of fans.

Finally, it is worth mentioning that shortly after the release of the update, the game's servers were turned off. The technical break will last until May 31.

The game was released on July 21, 2021 on iOS and Android mobile devices. The title uses F2P model with microtransactions.

1. The Witcher: Monster Slayer - official website
2. Spokko - official website