The Witcher 3 GOTY Edition

[Correct_Carlo]

OK, finished "Hearts of Stone," which I loved. In terms of plot and characters, it's up there with the best quests of the main game. The devil guy is my new favorite Witcher villain (was he in the books?). The only problem was there didn't seem to be much C&C, although it's always hard to tell. The jump in difficulty was welcome too.

I've started "Blood and Wine" and really like that so far too. The enemies are much more varied in their tactics and I love the setting. It's like wandering around in "Don Quixote." I haven't done any of the main quests yet, though.

 

[Correct_Carlo]

No first person, but yes female protagonist this time please, Ciri being the obvious choice.

Ciri is OP to the point of being boring.

Besides, I want them to get away from telling the same stories about the same characters. I'd like to see something new in the same universe.

And I want the player to be able to really make their own character - which we haven't had in this series since Witcher 1, where they used amnesia as an excuse to let Geralt go a bit out of character. I wouldn't mind being able to chose to make a female character, but I don't want it forced. Though I wouldn't mind it if CDPR said "no" on that for lore reasons.

Two classes: female (sorcerer) or male (witcher).

 

[RepHope]

I hope they finally let us create our own character and move away from Geralt etc.

I liked Geralt's happy ending in Blood and Wine. Retires with his own vineyard, love interest or Ciri there with him.

Seems like Yen's use of the trial of the grasses suggests that more Witchers are going to be created.

They’ve repeatedly said they’re done with Geralt. Considering CDPR originally planned to let you create your own Witcher, maybe they’ll revisit those plans.

 

[DalekFlay]

Holly jesus bed hoppin' christ, I'm finally doing random shit in the land of the vikings and no one is EVER allowed to complain about cliffracers in Morrowind EVER again. The fucking sirens in this area are everywhere and consistently annoying, to the point of insanity. Who thought fighting a half-dozen of them at every question mark was a good fucking idea? Fire that person before they taint Cyberpunk with their filth.

P.S. Fought a basilisk who was 15 levels above me, got two swords worse than the ones I was using. Witcher 3 in a nutshell.

 

[Shadenuat]

If you're a learning animal you should have realised by now that going for question marks is pointless. The actual content and interesting quests are all very obvious and you will never miss them.

 

[DalekFlay]

If you're a learning animal you should have realised by now that going for question marks is pointless. The actual content and interesting quests are all very obvious and you will never miss them.

Oh I realize that, and even said as much the last couple pages, but I can't help myself. If there's one thing in this world I'm retarded about it's filling in or crossing off RPG maps. I'm trapped in a fresh hell.

 

[Rahdulan]

If you're a learning animal you should have realised by now that going for question marks is pointless. The actual content and interesting quests are all very obvious and you will never miss them.

I'd say the highest priority is actually scouring for sunken chests. From what I remember got like 90% of recipes and formulae from those for some reason.

 

[CrunchyHemorrhoids]

^You can buy just about every recipe from merchants, no need to bother with looting every shitty little barrel for them.

Most monster nests/sunken chests/guarded treasures/crap question marks/collectibles in ubisoft games are placed there on purpose for people who don't like open worlds and are focus-group tested to require an event every 40 seconds.

I will say that there are also plenty of hand-written/cinematic quests that aren't marked by any sort of map marker and that you only find by actually roaming the lesser roads, running into new ones even after a couple of playthroughs. Exploration in this game works a lot better if you turn off unknown map markers in the options, and much more so if you replace the minimap gps navigation with friendlyhud.

As for Ciri as the protag of Witcher 4, that's absurd, she's a god, not a witcher/adventurer character material.

As for Geralt not being the protag of the next Witcher game, CDPR's claims that they didn't originally mean for Geralt to be the protag (not just for the first game, they planned again for create-a-witcher when starting the sequels too) always struck me as odd since the books do revolve around him and his relationship with the characters around him. Remove that and it's mostly another medieval fantasy setting with magic, monsters and monster hunters. What would these 3 games have gained if you played as a make-a-witcher instead of Geralt? The ability to make crueler choices as an evil Witcher (as if Geralt's morality was what chiefly restricted the amount of choices presented to the player, rather than cost), homo sex? It would've been a waste of the source material.

And now that they've finally built Geralt up into a recognizable/highly marketable videogame icon that even guest stars in japanese fighting games they'd readily throw all that out for a create-a-berengar, presumably in a different time period with a different set of characters? Can't be an easy call to make.

 

[Paul_cz]

If you're a learning animal you should have realised by now that going for question marks is pointless. The actual content and interesting quests are all very obvious and you will never miss them.

Oh I realize that, and even said as much the last couple pages, but I can't help myself. If there's one thing in this world I'm retarded about it's filling in or crossing off RPG maps. I'm trapped in a fresh hell.

Really wish CDP didn't fuck up and made those question marks disabled; so much bitching we could have been spared of.

 

[Shadenuat]

Only equipment you should go for are your school of choice items, and you can just read where they are and game gives you quest to follow for them. You can safely ignore all loot except them.

 

[Ivan]

playing Hearts of Stone, Olgierd is a bro. I don't want anything bad to happen to him

also, holy moly I forgot how much the itemization and skill system sucks in this. also, Geralt controls as badly out of combat as Niko in GTA4.

game is still ridiculously gorgeous and wonderful to explore

 

[Paul_cz]

also, Geralt controls as badly out of combat as Niko in GTA4.

with the alternative movement option that removes the inertia? no way.

 

[Ivan]

hmm, I'll give that a try, is that in the regular options or a mod?

 

[Paul_cz]

hmm, I'll give that a try, is that in the regular options or a mod?

in gameplay options, no mod needed

although if you are using gamepad I am super duper recommending Immersive Motion mod, part of Immersive Cam suite, which improves the controls even further (e.g. restores the granulity of the analog control)

 

[DalekFlay]

Really wish CDP didn't fuck up and made those question marks disabled; so much bitching we could have been spared of.

I did just read a good blog post about how they were thrown in late in the dev process and how the game works better without them. I might try it out. However they're usually a lot more than a stupid and worthless collection item from an Assassin's Creed game. I usually get good loot and crafting supplies from them. Not every single marker obviously, but enough that I otherwise would have worse equipment and a lot less money. Is that important? I dunno.

Only equipment you should go for are your school of choice items, and you can just read where they are and game gives you quest to follow for them. You can safely ignore all loot except them.

Well I know this is wrong, no offense, because despite having a light armor DPS build my cat school items didn't last long. Crit bonuses are super important to me and the cat school stuff has zippo, so as soon as I found crit damage and crit chance boosting swords those cat school swords went to the inventory. Same for armor, I think I'm using one cat school item still (gloves?) at level 21. I have a schematic for a level 23 sword I'm looking forward to that does +75% crit damage too (current one does +50%), so I doubt I'll be going back to cat gear anytime soon. Insane crit damage is how I easily defeat enemies much higher level than me... dodge and roll behind them, spam crit hits, watch their life bar plummet.

 

[Shadenuat]

They all have upgrades. Up to Blood and Wine which has final upgrade (GM) for school armor, but also gives you an alternative sword to use.

??? locations just feature random loot. All recipes for Feline can be bought I believe. Anyway not worth to scout for all ??? shit. You only need to collect all the ingredients.

 

[vonAchdorf]

Holly jesus bed hoppin' christ, I'm finally doing random shit in the land of the vikings and no one is EVER allowed to complain about cliffracers in Morrowind EVER again. The fucking sirens in this area are everywhere and consistently annoying, to the point of insanity. Who thought fighting a half-dozen of them at every question mark was a good fucking idea? Fire that person before they taint Cyberpunk with their filth.

Spoiler

If you don't have it yet, you can get a horn which drops them to the ground from the quest helping out Crach's son.

P.S. Fought a basilisk who was 15 levels above me, got two swords worse than the ones I was using. Witcher 3 in a nutshell.

Yes, the itemization is infuriating.

 

[DalekFlay]

They all have upgrades. Up to Blood and Wine which has final upgrade (GM) for school armor, but also gives you an alternative sword to use.

??? locations just feature random loot. All recipes for Feline can be bought I believe. Anyway not worth to scout for all ??? shit. You only need to collect all the ingredients.

The upgrades don't give me the crit bonuses I want, so again it's worth finding other swords. How many question marks you pursue to do that is up to you I guess, but that's where I find most of my random loot.

 

[Ivan]

So I dropped my playthrough months ago b/c all I had left was the main quest and I found it pretty boring once you find Ciri and the attack at Kaer Morhen. Anyway, picked it back up, wrapped up the campaign, and started Hearts of Stone. Damn what a fine main quest. While I didn't like the filler with the first two wish quests, the finale was great. Olgierd is a true bro. Also, somehow I've just learned how to use skill attacks LOL. I thought they were all passives. Also, I've pimped out Geralt in some Mastercrafted gear.

Next stop: Blood and Wine. I sure hope it has more adventure and exploration than Hearts of Stone.

 

[Ivan]

Also, when Olgierd gave the whole "this sword has been past down from geneartions" I eyerolled so hard, thankfully it's slightly better than my mastercrafted witcher sword, so, progress?!

 

[Shadenuat]

It's MMO shit. It's even structured (upgrade at level 12, upgrade at level 20, upgrade gloves at level 22...) like that.

Get over it and enjoy the storyfaggotry.

And Anna Henrietta's dresses. Oh, these dresses. They're magnificent.

 

[DalekFlay]

Get over it and enjoy the storyfaggotry.

Again, Witcher 3 in a nutshell.

 

[Paul_cz]

How the fuck can anyone consider the wedding quest and heist quest filler

they were fucking awesome

 

[RNGsus]

Also, when Olgierd gave the whole "this sword has been past down from geneartions" I eyerolled so hard, thankfully it's slightly better than my mastercrafted witcher sword, so, progress?!

Does it break after one hit?

 

[yellowcake]

It is a cool sword.