The Witcher 3 Pre-Expansion Thread

[Reapa]

Since we were on the topic of moral ambiguity & choices and consequences a bit earlier, here are a couple that I have actually tested:

Spoiler

Main Quest: Whispering Hillock

At one stage in the Crones storyline, you meet a spirit trapped in a tree. The Crones tell you to destroy the spirit in order to stop it from killing their villager worshipers. You go to the spirit and it tells you that it was a druidess trapped there by the Crones and that it'd be willing to save the village children from being eaten by the Crones, were you to free it. Sounds awesome, right? In other RPGs this'd be your standard 'moral' choice given that the Crones have already proven themselves to be child-eating douches.

So the spirit has you dig up its bones as one of the conditions, at which time Geralt remarks, "ohwaitaminute, these aren't human bones." You get the option then to betray the spirit and kill it instead of going through with the freedom ritual.

Outcomes:

1. Free the spirit -- the children are freed by the spirit, but the other villagers are slaughtered by it, because it turns out the spirit is no druidess but an ancient being as malicious as the Crones themselves. The Crones punish Anna - that's the Barons' wife - for losing the children and she dies. The Baron then hangs himself.

2. Kill the spirit -- the children are eaten by the Crones. The villagers however are fine. The Crones don't punish Anna, who survives the ordeal and is later rescued by the Baron & his daughter in a side quest. The Baron takes his wife to be healed by a healer and says he's going to 'be a new man from now on.'

Spoiler

Side Quest: Towerful of Mice

To complete this quest, you have one of two options:

1. Be a trusting pleb and take the bones of the ghost girl to her lover. In that case, he dies after she reveals herself to be a Pesta - a pestilence wraith - and then laughs at you and flees. The curse of the tower is lifted but is set to appear elsewhere.

2. Take the lover to the ghost girl. In that case, he also dies, but they make up before he dies and both 'pass on.' The curse of the tower is lifted.

I actually prefer the second scenario. With the first one both option are shit so you don't get fucked as much whichever you choose. The first scenario actually made me think of spec ops the line out of all things. The only way to win is to not play. So take the quest and never finish it, everyone remains alive.

But then you get no booty

what booty?

 

[Anthedon]

Can level scaled loot be differentiated from the hand placed stuff (if there is any) somehow? I've found a couple of high level schematics (+30), but actual items were all within my level range so far (~10).

 

[Reapa]

'k turned off the question marks now. Pretty sure exploration will be among the best of the genre now

why do you keep playing?

Because the game in general is fun.

and why did you change your avatar? FFS

 

[Agame]

Gwent is love, gwent is life

Arcomage (sort of?) lives again!

I think I will mostly play this game to play gwent, and collect more cards, and then play more gwent...

 

[Cromwell]

Fucking quest tracker.

Spoiler

I did the Mice Tower Quest. They did not even indicate you could solve that differently. The Quest tracker just said bring her to her lover. So I did and so he died.

Now I will always and with every fucking quest where it seems possible think about just waiting and trying to do it a different way.

 

[Zeriel]

Oh god, that patch today that was supposed to improve things?

Well, I actually had no issues with the game launch day. None of the problems some people talk about. Patch not only fucked with how the game looks, but now I have constant death animation bugs (enemies bodies just get stuck in mid air permanently). I guess it's kind of funny, all enemies now hover and pay homage to the Sky God instead of lying on the ground as cadavers.

Fucking quest tracker.

Spoiler

I did the Mice Tower Quest. They did not even indicate you could solve that differently. The Quest tracker just said bring her to her lover. So I did and so he died.

Now I will always and with every fucking quest where it seems possible think about just waiting and trying to do it a different way.

Spoiler

He dies no matter what. All that changes is she doesn't go on spreading plagues elsewhere if you do it "properly".

Gwent is love, gwent is life

Arcomage (sort of?) lives again!

I think I will mostly play this game to play gwent, and collect more cards, and then play more gwent...

Don't. Gwent's garbage tier. Arcomage is better, but then I suppose I could say that about most minigames.

 

[Agame]

Don't. Gwent's garbage tier. Arcomage is better, but then I suppose I could say that about most minigames.

Ah thats a pity, I only played a couple games of gwent so far and it seemed interesting.

I will still probably play it more than the main game, I'm really finding the combat irritating.

I must be the only person that preferred Witcher 1's combat system to the new one...

 

[Forest Dweller]

Fucking quest tracker.

Spoiler

I did the Mice Tower Quest. They did not even indicate you could solve that differently. The Quest tracker just said bring her to her lover. So I did and so he died.

Now I will always and with every fucking quest where it seems possible think about just waiting and trying to do it a different way.

It's a subversion of the Quest Marker trope.

 

[Lone Wolf]

And PoE is a bad game. No ifs. No buts. They took a formula that worked and every single change they made to the formula made it play worse and more banal.

Well, if you say so.

So what's KSP and Invisible Inc remakes of? Are you going to argue that FTL is a Star Control homage?

I'm not going to argue anything. I'm just going to let you keep pretending that the 'dex is a prestigious magazine, where like minded scholars of gaming gather to distill the truth of things, while sipping Musigny. Where good taste abounds, and the only games that get poo-poohed are rightly deserving of the ignominy. The last true bastion of hope, and a monument to better days.

 

[Night Goat]

Gwent is love, gwent is life

Arcomage (sort of?) lives again!

I think I will mostly play this game to play gwent, and collect more cards, and then play more gwent...

The Gwent AI is bad. Really, really bad. Playing weather cards on lines where it has cards and you don't bad.

 

[MicoSelva]

I'll just leave this here:
http://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/36namy/psa_nvidia_tanking_witcher_3_performance_on/

Not unexpected at all, of course.

Turns out it is bullshit, the performance is more or less the same.

http://pclab.pl/art63116-44.html

 

[Beowulf]

The Gwent AI is bad. Really, really bad. Playing weather cards on lines where it has cards and you don't bad.

I noticed this as well, but only when the AI had few cards, and it turned out that none of this card is a unit card. I even did this myself as you need to play a card on your round, or pass, and I wanted to just stall and see the AI response before acting further (playing more unit cards, or passing). So it is sometimes a necessity or even sound move. From my observations AI in Gwent is pretty decent, but I am avoiding Gwent from other reasons, namely - it is all about better cards. Play a few immune to weather hero cards with great (10) strength that you even double with more good cards and you literally cannot be beaten. Unfortunately it is the AI who does this, so...

 

[AwesomeButton]

Regarding the low xp from side content

I had disabled question marks from the minimap, which led to me being rather underleveled when I reached Velen. At some point I figured I should return to White Orchard and gather some XP from points of interest (I had completed all sidequests and the monster contract already). The first one I stumbled upon was an "abandoned area" type where I have to clear monsters and destroy their lair so that people can resettle. I did it, and got 90XP for that. Now I'm going after the other abandoned area.

Am I imagining or this game is actually balanced and thought out regarding quest rewards? Because my main quests are recommended for level 6 and I'm level 4. By the time I reach lvl 6 I guess I'll have already done most PoIs in White Orchard. So exploration is not all that optional, getting less and less optional the more you progress the main quest.

The way I see it, the main quest gives you larger rewards, and I used to prioritize the main quest, just to get a boost in XP so I can complete some sidequests. But this strategy only works for a while, after that, to be able to pick those larger rewards from the main quest, you first have to build up your character a little with smaller rewards from PoIs and sidequests.

I've switched to blood and broken bones difficulty after sword and story seemed too easy, and I think it's just right. I'm getting killed often especially if I try to rush a pack of enemies.

 

[Night Goat]

I started on blood and bones, and switched to easy because the combat is so fucking bad that I just want it to be over quickly.

 

[cvv]

Because my main quests are recommended for level 6 and I'm level 4. By the time I reach lvl 6 I guess I'll have already done most PoIs in White Orchard.

Unless you really suck at twitch combat you can take on opponents up to 5 levels higher even on the deatch march diff. You can kill even higher level ones but it takes too much time and is generally not worth the bother.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Unless you really suck at twitch combat

Check!

First, I play with mouse and keyboard, second, I have only little experience with W1 and 2. I always turned difficulty to the easiest setting there. In W3 though for the first time it looks like I'm only going to get killed if I rush the enemies head on, so I'm forced to take combat slower, avoid their attacks as much as I can, and try to counterattack them, while taking care that I'm not surrounded. It's possible to lure one enemy out of the group by continuously sidestepping his attacks, so I often try to do that. Generally, I'm either not very good with the controls yet or haven't found a winning tactic.

 

[Trash]

Putting down the slider to 30fps has allowed me to go pretty wild with the graphical options. Game looks splendid now. And I was honestly thinking I wouldn't be able to play it on my olde toaster.

Surprised at how well it plays with a gamepad. Tried it out as a bit of a laugh and was amazed at how fluid it plays. Then again, this is an action game... Only thing bothering me is the distance to the main character. Some FOV options would be nice.

I don't know how you can play at 30FPS, it only magnifies the sluggishness of the controls.

Bought a boxed copy of Alone in the Dark at release. Loved it. I'll manage.

 

[Ivan]

Any way to rebind Journal and such to F keys?

 

[Comrade Goby]

Gwent is love, gwent is life

Arcomage (sort of?) lives again!

I think I will mostly play this game to play gwent, and collect more cards, and then play more gwent...

The Gwent AI is bad. Really, really bad. Playing weather cards on lines where it has cards and you don't bad.

A lot of the time that's because they have no other cards

 

[WhiteGuts]

I did that "lost box" quest they showed weeks before release. In my first try I followed the "merchant" and he led me to an ambush by lvl 4 bandits, who two shotted me.

Second time, I decided I was going to stop him before that and of course your learn that's he's a Temerian soldier...etc. Decided to let him go cause I'm siding with da Norf.

 

[Perkel]

PRO TIP.

If you have problem with inventory space you can leave things on ground. They will stay there forever. This also means that if you killed some monster its remains will be there after few hours of gameplay.

 

[Perkel]

lol

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

Took you some time to notice.

 

[Havoc]

gib clay

 

[APGunner]

offtopic

While running around Skellige I always stumbled upon a melody that seemed very familiar.

Timestamp: 2.00-2.18


Timestamp: 9.00-9.27


/offtopic

Overall the game was great, 10/10 GOTY all years.

Hated the movement system though.