The Witcher 3 GOTY Edition

[Keye_]

Starting my first playthrough of the Witcher 3.
What difficulty do you guys recommend?
Normal for the best experience or are higher difficulties well balanced?

 

[Atomkilla]

Starting my first playthrough of the Witcher 3.
What difficulty do you guys recommend?
Normal for the best experience or are higher difficulties well balanced?

The game isn't well balanced at all. At some point, regardless of difficulty, you will feel OP and nothing will remotely present a challenge. I think that point is around Level 15, maybe 20.
Anyway, I recommend going with highest difficulty. My first run was with Broken Bones difficulty (or something similar), and it grew stale pretty quickly. Later on I played with Death March and it was slightly better, but only slightly.

 

[Paul_cz]

Starting my first playthrough of the Witcher 3.
What difficulty do you guys recommend?
Normal for the best experience or are higher difficulties well balanced?

Death March.

 

[DalekFlay]

Note it's a storyfag game through and through, so how difficult you want your storyfagness to be is a question only you can answer.

 

[Ivan]

I play on Death March, it's not very hard. If you see an enemy with a skull on its name, come back later. Just make sure you have some of the great QOL mods installed

 

[CrunchyHemorrhoids]

Starting my first playthrough of the Witcher 3.
What difficulty do you guys recommend?
Normal for the best experience or are higher difficulties well balanced?

The difficulty is very poorly balanced due to the leveling system (you can kill a lower level griffin with 1 hit and be killed by a higher level drowner in 1 hit), and the enemy upscaling option isn't enough to fix it (it makes most enemies equally powerful, beware packs of enemies).

If you're not going to use mods then your best bet is to set it to Blood&Broken Bones. It has a mechanical difference compared to easier difficulties (you don't heal by resting) while deathmarch further bloats HP and damage from there. You shouldn't want to end up needing to hack at a shirtless bandit's torso 5 times with a sword before the bandit dies while 1 hit from the bandit's tiny club could tear through your witcher armor and kill you.

Ultimately as long as you're capable of pressing the dodge button within a window of 1s you won't die.

 

[Ivan]

So I'm finding every Blood and Wine quest to be a knockout. There's a lot more humor in this and a much greater emphasis on Geralt being old and wisened.

I'm loving this to bits.

 

[DalekFlay]

Nerf yourself by not equipping mutagens in slots, they can boost your sword damage or sign damage by 180-240%+ which is ridiculously unbalanced considering all the skills you unlock/upgrade with levelups give you bonuses in the order of 20-70% put together.

I'm level 26 and best mutagens I have found give me +20% attack with three red abilities linked. Where the hell would you find 200%?

 

[typical user]

Nerf yourself by not equipping mutagens in slots, they can boost your sword damage or sign damage by 180-240%+ which is ridiculously unbalanced considering all the skills you unlock/upgrade with levelups give you bonuses in the order of 20-70% put together.

I'm level 26 and best mutagens I have found give me +20% attack with three red abilities linked. Where the hell would you find 200%?

You can get Alchemy skill which boosts your Mutagen bonuses by +100%. Linking 3 red skill abilities with them will grant you 60% weapon damage. You can insert the Alchemy skill in new slots through Mutations from Blood and Wine. Getting 240% isn't a feat but will severly limit your options as there are perks which can compensate for Red skill-tree. Like Cat School techniques and Alchemy skills.

 

[DalekFlay]

You can get Alchemy skill which boosts your Mutagen bonuses by +100%. Linking 3 red skill abilities with them will grant you 60% weapon damage. You can insert the Alchemy skill in new slots through Mutations from Blood and Wine. Getting 240% isn't a feat but will severly limit your options as there are perks which can compensate for Red skill-tree. Like Cat School techniques and Alchemy skills.

Thanks, I don't think I ever even opened the alchemy tab and should have thought of that. I've never even made swallow potion, that's how easy the game is with cat school crits and rolling.

 

[RNGsus]

If you skip the wedding in hearts of stone to do the wild hunt quest, will Olgieric's brother have any dialogues?

I was thinking of finishing the game this weekend.

 

[CrunchyHemorrhoids]

I'm level 26 and best mutagens I have found give me +20% attack with three red abilities linked. Where the hell would you find 200%?

A greater red mutagen that you can craft from 3 red mutagens (and craft those from 3 lesser red mutagens) will give you a 40% damage bonus when linked with 3 red abilities(in an unmodded game). One of the alchemy skills can increase the bonus you get from equipped mutagens by up to 50%, meaning a Greater Red with matched red skills will give you 60% damage bonus. You can equip 4 of them.

Slight SPOILER: I don't know if the rarity of the red mutagen drops is a bug (the monster loot files define equal chances for dropping red/green/blue so I don't think they're being used for mutagen drops), but you need large amounts of Greater Reds to unlock the new character skills in blood&wine. Which is probably why B&W also has recipes for changing a mutagen's color, as well as an item that nets you one Greater Mutagen (random color) after every 100 kills. So if you're the type who actually goes around killing all the trash enemy encounters to clear the map of question marks you're much better off waiting until after you've got that B&W-endgame item before you start doing that.

If you skip the wedding in hearts of stone to do the wild hunt quest, will Olgieric's brother have any dialogues?

Is it skippable?

 

[Falksi]

Starting my first playthrough of the Witcher 3.
What difficulty do you guys recommend?
Normal for the best experience or are higher difficulties well balanced?

Yeah, don't even entertain any other difficulty apart from Death March else you'll be nodding off during fights & not feeling any of the benefit of Oils/Potions/etc. Even then it's too easy, but at least it gives you some challenge.

 

[RNGsus]

I'm level 26 and best mutagens I have found give me +20% attack with three red abilities linked. Where the hell would you find 200%?

A greater red mutagen that you can craft from 3 red mutagens (and craft those from 3 lesser red mutagens) will give you a 40% damage bonus when linked with 3 red abilities(in an unmodded game). One of the alchemy skills can increase the bonus you get from equipped mutagens by up to 50%, meaning a Greater Red with matched red skills will give you 60% damage bonus. You can equip 4 of them.

Slight SPOILER: I don't know if the rarity of the red mutagen drops is a bug (the monster loot files define equal chances for dropping red/green/blue so I don't think they're being used for mutagen drops), but you need large amounts of Greater Reds to unlock the new character skills in blood&wine. Which is probably why B&W also has recipes for changing a mutagen's color, as well as an item that nets you one Greater Mutagen (random color) after every 100 kills. So if you're the type who actually goes around killing all the trash enemy encounters to clear the map of question marks you're much better off waiting until after you've got that B&W-endgame item before you start doing that.

If you skip the wedding in hearts of stone to do the wild hunt quest, will Olgieric's brother have any dialogues?

Is it skippable?

I mean if once I become possessed, can I just ignore the wedding feast and tackle the rest of the mq? Will the ghost have anything to say during the mq?

I saved before the feast, because I knew it was a long shot, but I wanted to keep him. So if I just reload my save this weekend, and I finish the last act of the mq, is the ghost gonna have funny shit to say and strut around in Geralt's body like a spring cock?

 

[DalekFlay]

A greater red mutagen that you can craft from 3 red mutagens (and craft those from 3 lesser red mutagens) will give you a 40% damage bonus when linked with 3 red abilities(in an unmodded game). One of the alchemy skills can increase the bonus you get from equipped mutagens by up to 50%, meaning a Greater Red with matched red skills will give you 60% damage bonus. You can equip 4 of them.

Crafting... mutagens?

 

[DalekFlay]

Wham-a-Wham is the first tough fight I think I've had in the game. He could kill my glass cannon DPS build Geralt in a single hit, even though I was level 26 and the quest was 27. Wowza.

 

[Ivan]

If you skip the wedding in hearts of stone to do the wild hunt quest, will Olgieric's brother have any dialogues?

I was thinking of finishing the game this weekend.

holy shit this is news to me. is there an alternate quest if you skip the wedding?

 

[Quillon]

If you skip the wedding in hearts of stone to do the wild hunt quest, will Olgieric's brother have any dialogues?

I was thinking of finishing the game this weekend.

I doubt it. They'd have had to do most of the quests with Olg's bros being the one who's doing them so there must be some sort of contingency for it; like game wouldn't let you leave it or the quest's concluding prematurely etc, else it could be an oversight for what players might do at that stage. Try and let us know

 

[CrunchyHemorrhoids]

As far as I remember you can no longer teleport once Vlodimir takes charge, I would've assumed you also can't move too far away.

 

[ScrotumBroth]

Hearts of Stone is my favourite W3 part, no fluffing about, just a great story all the way through, great villain and lots of really cool moments.

 

[Strange Fellow]

As far as I remember you can no longer teleport once Vlodimir takes charge, I would've assumed you also can't move too far away.

That's correct, IIRC if you travel far enough away from the location of the quest you get a line about not getting away that easy, and you get spun around 180 degrees if you try to go any further.

 

[RNGsus]

Finished HoS earlier, moving on to the main quest again. The haunted house was amazing, I thoroughly enjoyed the painted manor. I chose to speak up for Olgierd, since I imagined Geralt relating to him at some level, and out of spite for o'Dim weaving traumatic fates ofc.

Kinda let down I didn't end up in Ofir for at least a bit, Olgierd's sword doesn't play unique animations, and I wasn't able to keep his bro's ghost, but otherwise it was a good diversion.


Blood and Wine on the other hand is irredeemable. Almost absolute shit. Its pretty and the bonus mutation is worth nabbing (if I want to use this save in a new game), but I was looking forward to unmasking a vampire among the nobility. Not interested in Regis Philbin our vampire boyfriend. At this point, it feels like I've seen the best shit the game can offer.

Managed to beat Dettlaf in a robe at lvl 48 lol game over. Don't think I want to play a ng+

 

[ScrotumBroth]

I was a bit discouraged by open world in B&W, by that stage my motivation to travel long distances was severely depleted.
But sticking just to the story works well. Unseen Elder path is way more interesting and inline with the Witcher vibe, so if you want a good ending it warrants two throughways to get your money's worth.
It had a bit of Mediterraneo flavour, which was nice.

 

[RNGsus]

Yes, the Unseen was my path of choice in the end. I did like the Medi flavour, that was superbly done, with the faeritale vibe and all, but I was expecting a cloak and dagger story this round. In fact, the BaW main quest is a study for why I hate vampires in fiction. Vamps are everybody's favorite monster mash, always with the insane power fantasy and cornball personalities. They could be edgy or saccharine, it doesn't matter, because they're just people minus all the faults that come with being people. Speshul snowflakes.

That is one of my largest gripes about this Wiedzmin trilogy - haven't read the books - that as a rule, you know every sentient non-human will be sympathetic, unless made abundantly clear they're evil. HoS was great because it eschewed that bullshit, cast aspersions on everybody, and I had to actually think about what was going on - at least twice.

 

[DalekFlay]

That is one of my largest gripes about this Wiedzmin trilogy - haven't read the books - that as a rule, you know every sentient non-human will be sympathetic, unless made abundantly clear they're evil. HoS was great because it eschewed that bullshit, cast aspersions on everybody, and I had to actually think about what was going on - at least twice.

Witcher 3 maybe I agree, but I remember 1 and 2 having quite a lot of morally ambiguous elves. Dwarves maybe not so much (though they are a gang in TW3) but then dwarves are often treated as cuddly Scots.