I don't mind level restrictions for equipment under the condition that either equipment follows some sort of material progression (ie: Iron -> Steel -> Mithril -> Adamant -> Godlikemetalatite), or the character can equip the weapon, but sucks at using them (like Dark Souls, where you can barely swing the weapon, or where you get only a minor attack buff, because you are too ill-skilled, weak, or ill-knowledgeable to wield this material correctly). Hell, if done right, even a crafting system is not a bad choice for handling equipment progression, so long as the necessary materials are qualitatively hard to obtain (requires you to take down a boss), and not quantitatively hard to gather (does not force you kill 100 trash mobs). If I recall, Monster Hunter uses this crafting progression system quite effectively.
The problem with The Witcher 3 is that it takes none of these paths. You either get a butt-load of randomly enchanted loot (after playing hours of Diablo, Torchlight, Borderlands, Dying Light, and even TOME, I sure know I'm sick of such systems), or you grind for a whole bunch of random materials, gold, and diagrams to craft the Witcher sets, which are the best gear in the game, and which make that random loot even less appealing.
The problem with RPGs giving characters super good gear early on is that it kills progression, and would probably make the game tedious. After all, while it is certainly fun to smash through hordes of enemies, at some point, you'll get bored, and will want some kind of challenge to keep you entertained. It also feels good to watch your character go from near-nudity (or perhaps full nudity) to well-equipped (I'm really into the whole rags-to-riches thing), as you get a visual representation of your progression.
Roguelikes get away with giving good gear early because players expect an imminent death, and as a result, are likely planning to replay the game another hundred times over anyway (although perhaps not in the moments directly after death
). So, it doesn't matter if you give a player an "Eternium Double Sword of Devastation" at level 1 because they won't necessarily win/complete the game with it anyway, and will feel less like that item is theirs for the keeping. In a way, Roguelikes balance progression through their meta, where the real-life player progresses based on their knowledge of the game, and how close they come to winning the game, rather than on the amount of quests completed, or the amount of fancy items they have equipped or are hording.
I hate to say it, but The Witcher's strength — its story-telling —, I feel, is exactly what's holding its gameplay back. When you have a large amount of stories to tell, there isn't much room for randomness, especially as it could mean breaking a big budget game and not knowing how to fix it before the deadline. That said, The Witcher 3 is CD Projekt's first properly open world game, and if their interviews are anything to go by, the designers never previously had to account for the condition whereby a player starts a quest mid-way, or has completed one set of quests and not another, or has overpowered or underpowered gear, and so on. And so their experience making such a game was severely limited. It definitely makes me interested to see how they cope with the even more ambitious Cyberpunk 2077.
I definitely agree that gameplay should come before story in games, but I'll give The Witcher 3 a pass since I adored its world. It's nice to have a dark fantasy game where there isn't a cliche orc invasion lead by some
Evil! necromancer overlord, and where I have to question morals before making a decision, only to feel awful while trying to be a hero no matter what I choose.
