The Witcher 3 GOTY Edition

[v1rus]

The game only gets easier.

So the hardest it is :/

 

[ilitarist]

To expand on difficulty: I wouldn't recommend the hardest one.

Because difficulty was done in a lazy way in Witcher 3. Enemies just become meater and hit harder. It doesn't change the way you play. Instead of hitting a drowner 5 times you have to hit it 10 times; instead of being able to survive 4 drowner attacks you can only handle 2. But you don't have any real tactical tools to use to get better results, than default behavior brings. You use appropriate oil, you use appropriate spell (probably just spam igni/aard; if you're feeling fancy you can use the shield), you roll and hit and roll. If it flies - shoot it. Yeah, there are bombs, potions and all this stuff but it doesn't bring that much even when you focus on alchemy. For me the hardest difficulty just made the game longer. It's also immersion-breaking in a way: a drowner isn't that much weaker than ancient horrors now and can kill a professional monster hunter in a couple of strikes even those lore-wise he'd have problems with a sober peasant and behaves like a vulture. This problem exists in a default difficulty too because of leveled monsters; drowner who lives in a high level area is more dangerous than legendary horrible monsters you meet in the beginning.

Even, say, Mass Effect 2-3 handled difficulty better by giving enemies additional layers of armor/shields. You needed to use special abilities, thought about party composition against specific enemies. In Witcher you just roll more and hit more.

You should play W3 on Hard because it has some real difficulty changes like no regenerating health. After Velen game becomes easier unless you actively look for trouble going into high-level zones, but you probably shouldn't as it's handled cheaply: high level enemies have unnatural resistances just because of level differences, you'll chip their health for minutes with little effect. It only becomes better in Blood & Wine where devs thought of interesting combat challenges.

 

[Sentinel]

There is no level scaling by default. Level upscaling was introduced like 1 year after the game came out in a patch because people were complaining they were 1 shotting most enemies, and it is entirely optional and disabled by default.

Also combining bombs is fun

 

[ilitarist]

There is no level scaling by default. Level upscaling was introduced like 1 year after the game came out in a patch, and it is entirely optional and disabled by default.

Nothing I said is about level scaling.

 

[Sentinel]

This problem exists in a default difficulty too because of leveled monsters

There are no leveled monsters unless you enable the option.

 

[ilitarist]

This problem exists in a default difficulty too because of leveled monsters

There are no leveled monsters unless you enable the option.

Every monster in a game has a level. If you meet drowner in starting area it's level 2-5. On Skellige the same monster would be level 18 and you won't be able to fight it unless you're around that level.

 

[Carrion]

Because difficulty was done in a lazy way in Witcher 3. Enemies just become meater and hit harder. It doesn't change the way you play. Instead of hitting a drowner 5 times you have to hit it 10 times; instead of being able to survive 4 drowner attacks you can only handle 2.

There's not that much of a difference in the durability of enemies if you switch to the highest difficulty level. The big difference is the amount of damage they deal, and Blood & Broken Bones gets immensely boring around level 10 when you become practically invulnerable. Death March gets easy towards the end as well, but it keeps things more interesting as enemies are still able to hurt you if you get careless.

Whether or not there's HP bloat depends a lot on how you build your character. If you're smart with mutagens, wear the best available equipment, make good use of critical effects, use the right potions and oils and so on, you can take almost anything down very quickly regardless of the difficulty level.

 

[Old Hans]

The game has some of the worst systems ive seen in a long time. It's like they designed this big open world and then had no clue what to do with it, so they populate it with the most mundane banal random junk trash. My favorite Witcher story fromt he books is when Geralt rummages around in peoples houses and sells all the old swords at the junk dealer.

 

[Falksi]

The game has some of the worst systems ive seen in a long time. It's like they designed this big open world and then had no clue what to do with it, so they populate it with the most mundane banal random junk trash. My favorite Witcher story fromt he books is when Geralt rummages around in peoples houses and sells all the old swords at the junk dealer.

*tipshat*
Fools Gold & the Bloody Baron quests are possibly the best 2 quests in there. Carnal Sins was up there with them, and Skellige was worth it's time. But I think Fools Gold & The Bloody Baron are the game's peak. Little else reaches their level, and the main quest really grates when you get to Novigrad.
Has to be played on Death March too, and even then it becomes a cakewalk past level 25.

 

[thesoup]

Finally got into the game, and I must say, its immensely enjoyable. Sum fun side quests, and the filler is tolerable, since its pure joy to run through dem graphics. Difficulty (second hardest) is ok for now, but I didnt have need for any oils/special potions or signs - I just spam quen and swallow. Will this change with time, or should I consider the hardest difficulty?

Still only starting, messing around with all that bloody baron stuff, but sum of the quests are rather great. Enjoyed fools gold quite a lot. Quite immersive too, if we ignore the fucking teleporting horse.

Now, if I'd only get that damn mod to work

Quen is a waste of time. Just sidestep a lot and use igni instead. Swallow is pointless when it's way better to get the gourmet ability and eat food.

Edit
Quen is best used against large and hard hitting opponents. Against drowners and the like it's pointless.

 

[veskoandroid]

Agree with sidestep and igni, but swallow isnt pointles. It restores health fast in-combat when you get smacked a lot amd are low health, whereas food takes ages for same thing. Food is good outside combat primarily. The best is use food in combat, for gradual healing amd swallow in emergency.
U have a skill faster metabolism iirc, general skill that speeds up detox. 1 point was enough for me and does the job.

Sent from my Xperia ZR using Tapatalk

 

[Atomkilla]

Gourmet ability is great for early levels - around Velen and such. Later on I found it to be unnecessary and it's slot could be better used for some combat/alchemy skill. You get a lot stronger, get better gear and skills and (I assume) your knowledge of the fairly simple combat mechanic is on sufficient level that you don't need autoheal anymore.
Also on later levels, if you build Geralt around alchemy, your health bar won't even decrease.

 

[veskoandroid]

Good tactics is to max igni burning chance or aard knockdown. I prefer igni id damages and disables.

Sent from my Xperia ZR using Tapatalk

 

[Falksi]

So, as dull as I'm often finding it overall, i'd gladly give kudos to TW3's character building. It's not stunning, but I've re-specced with several builds and they've all been viable, and fun to play in combat.

 

[hivemind]

GIVE ME A GOOD COMPUTER

 

[ilitarist]

So, as dull as I'm often finding it overall, i'd gladly give kudos to TW3's character building. It's not stunning, but I've re-specced with several builds and they've all been viable, and fun to play in combat.

What difference have you noticed? Geniunly wondering. I feel like W3 is the worst major RPG I've played in regards of playstyles.

Edit: may have sounded agressive, but I'm just surprised. I know there are "perks" (stuff you can only put 1 skillpoint into) that modify gameplay but they all seem minor and not really effective compared to meaty 5-skillpoint things you can put in the same place. And everything else is just better light attack, better heavy attack, better crossbow... Spells have some new effects but nothing dramatic apart from maybe hypnosis thing. You still roll and attack and any of my attempts of using other playstyles gave me a gimmick which worked worse than default behavior. In my New Game Plus I even switched to full caster build and I still rolled and attacked and cast Igni, but with slightly more casting.

 

[thesoup]

What's the point of new game+? Is it at least harder?

 

[ilitarist]

What's the point of new game+? Is it at least harder?

It lets you skip the intro. It is harder, but by leveling up all the enemies. Same for equipment too, so you can look for that witcher armor again and get better stats - by the way, I'm still not sure why the game has any armor apart from witcher armor, never seen anything with stats even approaching witcher armor.

I hoped to get more varied playstyles with access to more skillpoints.

 

[Atomkilla]

I'm still not sure why the game has any armor apart from witcher armor, never seen anything with stats even approaching witcher armor.

Mostly for lore and world building. Although witcher armors are a game thing and never mentioned in books, they have some logic behind them. In books Geralt is described as wearing a leather jacket - therefore something light that offers only bare minimum of protection. Witchers deal in offense, rarely in defense, so heavy armor is not a thing for them.
Even the heaviest witcher armor (Bear armor IIRC) is not really that heavy when compared to a typical medieval heavy armor - seemingly being made out of chainmail, heavy leather and some steel plates. The problem with witcher armor sets in game is not that it is OP - which they are, and should be - but that making it is not that hard, actually. I personally felt that most of the ingredients you use for it are easy to come by.

The rest of the armor sets are there just to show some variety and what not. Unfortunately, since the game is such a lootfest it makes the job of taking contracts quite illogical. You already have 10,000 orens in your purse from all that Nilfgaardian armor you've scavenged from rotten corpses and sold to the merchant, why risk your life to kill an archgriffin for mere 500 orens?

Inventory system in TW3 is quite a mess. TW1 still has the best inventory. IIRC, if TW3 had a similar system, you wouldn't be able to haul any armor except the thing you're wearing. If they made it that way the game as a whole would have made a lot more sense. I feel that limiting inventory capacity and removing dozens of "treasure" locations throughout the world would have made for a far better game. But I guess that works against what is nowadays demanded from open-world RPGs, so that was the main reason. Shitton of unnecessary loot, shitton of unnecessary locations filled with it.

 

[Falksi]

What difference have you noticed? Geniunly wondering. I feel like W3 is the worst major RPG I've played in regards of playstyles.

Edit: may have sounded agressive, but I'm just surprised. I know there are "perks" (stuff you can only put 1 skillpoint into) that modify gameplay but they all seem minor and not really effective compared to meaty 5-skillpoint things you can put in the same place. And everything else is just better light attack, better heavy attack, better crossbow... Spells have some new effects but nothing dramatic apart from maybe hypnosis thing. You still roll and attack and any of my attempts of using other playstyles gave me a gimmick which worked worse than default behavior. In my New Game Plus I even switched to full caster build and I still rolled and attacked and cast Igni, but with slightly more casting.

No worries chap, didn't come across aggressive at all.
I found the Igni fire stream, quen alternate sign, whirlwind adrenaline build and Ard "stun then kill" approaches to be different enough to give it an alternate flavour.
I hear what you're saying, it still often boils down to dodge-attack-dodge-attack. But the slightly different ways of doing that have kept it from going stale for me.
Whereas the repetitive pattern found in the landscapes & quests (here's an inhabited area - shop, notice board, quest. Here's a quest - talk, fast travel/run, Witcher senses, fight) have ground me down way more.

 

[thesoup]

It's funny how the most inherently mmo game in the series is the only one without mmo quests.

 

[Sentinel]

This problem exists in a default difficulty too because of leveled monsters

There are no leveled monsters unless you enable the option.

Every monster in a game has a level. If you meet drowner in starting area it's level 2-5. On Skellige the same monster would be level 18 and you won't be able to fight it unless you're around that level.

that's not what leveled monsters means
the level of monsters is static, they don't take your level into account. Drowners in skellige will be level 18 whether you're level 1 or 30.

 

[hilfazer]

What's the point of new game+? Is it at least harder?

It lets you skip the intro. It is harder, but by leveling up all the enemies. Same for equipment too, so you can look for that witcher armor again and get better stats - by the way, I'm still not sure why the game has any armor apart from witcher armor, never seen anything with stats even approaching witcher armor.

Human armors are defensively much better than witcher gear vs humans. Those %s, not armor value, are the real deal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4OfjD79jec

Not just humans, cyclops has blunt damage type rather than monster.

 

[v1rus]

Friendly hud is up and working and it fucking rocks! Wohoo! Never-mind the fact that I'm an idiot who kept c/ping the parent folder instead the one that's inside.

Now, I'd make some slight tweaks to the mod, and the nice developer included a howto inside his readme - just open sum .ws file and edit a couple of things. Should be easy, shouldnt it? Well, I'm a complete idiot and I dont know with what should i open .ws file. Any suggestions? Or should I just screw it and be happy with what I got?

 

[Sentinel]

Executable script for Windows that can incorporate JScript and VBScript routines and may include XML elements; runs when opened if Windows Scripting Host (WSH) 2.0 or later is installed.

Should be able to open it with any text editor.