The Witcher 3 GOTY Edition

[Mark Richard]

You have weird understanding of war in middle ages.

- wars were fought for years but there were usually handful of battles and most of the time only when one side had huge advantage.
- between those battles you had long months sometimes years of absolutely nothing with outright troops of both sides chilling together from time to time (especially nobility)

And yeah wars in middle ages were usually insignificant and pointless.

That's a fair point. But then surely that's just a boring, inactive, cumbersome backdrop for a peice of entertainment media which is supposed to excite? Between that and the Witcher contracts what's next, job simulator 7?

War allows monsters to thrive, creates refugees, and convinces villagers to turn to banditry. It showcases the best and worst of humanity, a perfect setting for an obsolete relic like a Witcher to practice their craft and test their neutrality. I enjoyed riding into a new town like a legendary Old West gunslinger to see what the next quest had in store.

Spoiler

One that sticks out in my mind was being judged by a group of monsters for killing their kind. If you helped sentient monsters earlier in the game then you can point out specific examples to defend yourself.

 

[Paul_cz]

You have weird understanding of war in middle ages.

- wars were fought for years but there were usually handful of battles and most of the time only when one side had huge advantage.
- between those battles you had long months sometimes years of absolutely nothing with outright troops of both sides chilling together from time to time (especially nobility)

And yeah wars in middle ages were usually insignificant and pointless.

That's a fair point. But then surely that's just a boring, inactive, cumbersome backdrop for a peice of entertainment media which is supposed to excite? Between that and the Witcher contracts what's next, job simulator 7?

War allows monsters to thrive, creates refugees, and convinces villagers to turn to banditry. It showcases the best and worst of humanity, a perfect setting for an obsolete relic like a Witcher to practice their craft and test their neutrality. I enjoyed riding into a new town like a legendary Old West gunslinger to see what the next quest had in store.

Spoiler

One that sticks out in my mind was being judged by a group of monsters for killing their kind. If you helped sentient monsters earlier in the game then you can point out specific examples to defend yourself.

Skellige most wanted was amazing quest, one of my favourites for sure.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

thesoup I strongly recommend using the Upscaling feature. It is brilliant. It's like level scaling but without the bad stuff. Anyone higher than you stays higher, but anyone lower is leveled up to your level. This fixes one of the biggest problems with open world RPGs, you becoming too strong and the world becoming irrelevant.

 

[veskoandroid]

thesoup I strongly recommend using the Upscaling feature. It is brilliant. It's like level scaling but without the bad stuff. Anyone higher than you stays higher, but anyone lower is leveled up to your level. This fixes one of the biggest problems with open world RPGs, you becoming too strong and the world becoming irrelevant.

Which mod was that, upscaling feature?

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[PorkyThePaladin]

thesoup I strongly recommend using the Upscaling feature. It is brilliant. It's like level scaling but without the bad stuff. Anyone higher than you stays higher, but anyone lower is leveled up to your level. This fixes one of the biggest problems with open world RPGs, you becoming too strong and the world becoming irrelevant.

Which mod was that, upscaling feature?

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It's not a mod, it's part of the game, although you might need the GOTY Edition, not sure. It's under gameplay options in settings.

 

[veskoandroid]

Thx!

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[Sentinel]

You don't need the GOTY. GOTY Edition is just a repack, doesn't have anything extra.

 

[Carrion]

It's like level scaling but without the bad stuff.

On the contrary, it features the worst stuff about level scaling, like any random bandit or pitchfork-wielding peasant being the same level as you are. It's basically Oblivion all over again, except that bandits don't need Daedric armor when their basic rags can be anything between levels 1 and 100.

Then again, TW3's leveling system is such a nonsensical mess that scaling probably doesn't make it all that much worse. You'll be facing shirtless harbor thugs that can one-shot you with blackjacks and absorb a dozens of sword blows, fight drowners that hit harder than forktails, and meet supposedly great swordsmen that couldn't beat a nekker in a duel. You'll also spend about two thirds of the game desperately looking for someone who's strong enough to challenge you, since you grow in power much faster than your enemies do and the level requirements for quests are arbitrary at best. I guess you might as well go all the way and turn the nonsense up to eleven in order to make the gameplay more enjoyable, but upscaling is still a really rough fix that in no shape or form can be considered "brilliant".

 

[thesoup]

I dunno, it sounds stupid if I go back to the start foe whrever reason and have to fend for my life against wolves.

Any build recommendations? The most important ability is definitely gourmet. For now i have that, sun and stars and level 2 deception. I'm kinda leaning with going with a sign build as the sword abilities seem underwhelming.

Also, I play on the second hardest difficulty. Maybe I should have gone with the hardest, but oh well.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Depends. I noticed a lot of RPG players want to turn into some sort of demi-god and walk around killing everything with ease. Then yes, upscaling would be bad for that. But personally, as someone who hates the insane power-curves in RPGs, I find upscaling to be awesome. I want the bandits and wolves and drowners to be a threat throughout, because otherwise, you are just walking through a dead, pointless world.

 

[Carrion]

Any build recommendations? The most important ability is definitely gourmet. For now i have that, sun and stars and level 2 deception. I'm kinda leaning with going with a sign build as the sword abilities seem underwhelming.

I've had the most fun with a mix of alchemy and signs, with a couple of skills from the sword tree (the fast attack damage one is especially useful, if boring) that go along nicely with a Greater Red Mutagen. From the alchemy tree I'd recommend especially Poisoned Blades and Acquired Tolerance, as the former allows you to take out some high-level enemies (poison bypasses damage reduction), and the latter is pretty much essential if you want to make a good use of potions and decoctions. Later on you can also unlock some cool stuff like cluster bombs. The sign tree has lots of powerful stuff alongside completely useless stuff (I don't know why anyone would pick the "Aard does 40 damage" skill, for example, when hit points are measured in thousands), but just pick whatever you think sounds fun. The sword tree does give you a couple of new attack types if you invest into it enough, but they're probably not worth all those skill points required to unlock them.

Gourmet and especially Sun & Stars are something that you'll probably ditch at some point, as there are better healing methods available and general skills don't give you mutagen bonuses. From that tree I only really use the witcher school technique abilities (just one equipped at a time) and Rage Management, which is one of the best abilities when it comes to casting signs.

The game does get pretty easy later on, so there's no reason to powergame. If something sounds fun, go for it.

Depends. I noticed a lot of RPG players want to turn into some sort of demi-god and walk around killing everything with ease. Then yes, upscaling would be bad for that. But personally, as someone who hates the insane power-curves in RPGs, I find upscaling to be awesome. I want the bandits and wolves and drowners to be a threat throughout, because otherwise, you are just walking through a dead, pointless world.

Sure. It's just that the real problem lies in the power curve and arbitrary enemy levels, and upscaling doesn't really fix the actual issue.

edit: And yeah, switch to Death March while you still can.

 

[hivemind]

Playing on the second hardest difficulty

second hardest

cuck

 

[thesoup]

Depends. I noticed a lot of RPG players want to turn into some sort of demi-god and walk around killing everything with ease. Then yes, upscaling would be bad for that. But personally, as someone who hates the insane power-curves in RPGs, I find upscaling to be awesome. I want the bandits and wolves and drowners to be a threat throughout, because otherwise, you are just walking through a dead, pointless world.

What's the point of leveling if drowners will forever be a threat? No sense of progress.

Fnv had a minimum power for enemies and a maximum one, iirc. For example, radscorpions would not scale as much as deathclaws so when you progressed as a character radscorpions would eventually become a joke, unlike deathclaws.
Having everyone be an equal threat all the time removes any point in leveling up, imo.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

What's the point of leveling if drowners will forever be a threat? No sense of progress.

Fnv had a minimum power for enemies and a maximum one, iirc. For example, radscorpions would not scale as much as deathclaws so when you progressed as a character radscorpions would eventually become a joke, unlike deathclaws.
Having everyone be an equal threat all the time removes any point in leveling up, imo.

Well, games like Witcher 3 are player skill based to a large degree. So the sense of progress comes (as it should) from getting better at the combat system, rather than just being 30 levels above the enemy.

When I started W3, on Death March, I could barely hold my own against a couple of drowners or 2 bandits, but by the end, I could easily do 1v4.

I think getting much more powerful in RPGs is a really bad thing, as it inevitably ruins combat rules and systems.

 

[Storyfag]

I think getting much more powerful in RPGs is a really bad thing, as it inevitably ruins combat rules and systems.

This. A goblin with a pointy stick covered in shit, or in The Witcher series' case a drowner with unimaginably rotten remains of its prey under its claws, should remain a viable challenge no matter how advanced and powerful you get.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

I think getting much more powerful in RPGs is a really bad thing, as it inevitably ruins combat rules and systems.

This. A goblin with a pointy stick covered in shit, or in The Witcher series' case a drowner with unimaginably rotten remains of its prey under its claws, should remain a viable challenge no matter how advanced and powerful you get.

If you feel like these are trash enemies, maybe the issue is that they shouldn't be in the game, rather than you being able to get so powerful, you can just ignore them.

 

[Carrion]

In the books Geralt was killed by a level 1 peasant.

I think every fight should be potentially lethal for the player character, not only because that would be faithful to this particular setting but also because otherwise it would be both boring and pointless to fight at all. A single drowner probably shouldn't pose much of a challenge for a high-level Geralt, but it should be able to severely hurt or kill him if he gets careless or does something stupid. The danger is what makes combat exciting. That doesn't mean that you can't have a sense of progression in the game, like new abilities and skills giving you a wider range of tactical options and allowing you to approach combat in different ways, ultimately making it easier to survive. Of course you can also gain access to better weapons and armor, but it shouldn't make you invulnerable against low-level enemies. A sword or a monster's claw between your ribs should never become a non-issue, even if you become better-equipped at avoiding such fate.

The problem with TW3's steep power curve is that after Velen it's really difficult to find that sweet spot where combat is a challenge but still manageable without resorting to cheese tactics.

 

[moraes]

I'm restarting this with Ghost Mode, anyone tried this rebalance mod yet?

 

[v1rus]

Finally got time to start it. Still looks plucking beautiful.

Also, customized interface enough, I think. Only thing bother me is the disappearing health bar - while I love the fact it disappears, two annoying tidbits - the status effects are still shown and it appears while running (cuz stamina depleting). Any mod that removes both of these?

 

[veskoandroid]

Im playin ghost and its great. Also have preparations, better ghost potions and its working good. Wanted to do w3ee first but someone told me to try ghost since its my first play and ghost is not too much changing combat

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[veskoandroid]

 

[vonAchdorf]

I think the mini map is less immersive than the Bethesda compass. When traveling, it's easier (and mostly mandatory because no real directions are given) to follow the dotted line and ignore the main screen. The compass which just indicates a general direction seems to be a better way to guide the player.

 

[Beowulf]

Or just turn the minimap and the path to target (or whatever it's called), and navigate checking the map from time to time, when needed.

But as you said, they dropped the ball on quest marks - I think only once, when you enter Novigrad and search for Triss, someone gives you legit directions.

 

[thesoup]

I play without a minimap so I don't stare at it 95% of the time, however I would appreciate a compas or if i could just flash the map without going into the menu like you can in arma. Anyway, is there a mod that adds just the compass in the game? Not a quest compass, I just wanna be able to tell where north is without having the minimap turned on.

 

[Atomkilla]

A true witcher knows his directions from clues left by nature. Fiends always piss on the north side of the trees.