The Witcher 3 Pre-Expansion Thread

[cvv]

Didn't you notice the deserters/bandits/monsters all over the map sitting on a chest with some items in it, for example? There are even question marks floating above quite a few of these encounters on the map.

Those are not "quests"

Much of the "Hidden Treasure" stuff is in fact in micro-quest form. I give imweasel this tho - it's not pointless as such because those treasures are usually full of good items and crafting needs. But all this is needed only because crafting is so obese in this game. With much slimer crafting and most of the question mark stuff gone or redone the game would be even better.

 

[Perkel]

Didn't you notice the deserters/bandits/monsters all over the map sitting on a chest with some items in it, for example? There are even question marks floating above quite a few of these encounters on the map.

Those are not "quests"

Much of the "Hidden Treasure" stuff is in fact in micro-quest form. I give imweasel this tho - it's not pointless as such because those treasures are usually full of good items and crafting needs. But all this is needed only because crafting is so obese in this game. With much slimer crafting and most of the question mark stuff gone or redone the game would be even better.

I finished game on hardest def without really exploring or crafting beside few potions and oils. Used standard armors and swords i got from mc. Crafting is not needed in any way to finish game. (but that doesn't mean it is easy !!!! in fact often i was underpowered but in true DS vein i git good.)

I agree about question marks but you can switch them off completely which is nice. I also switched off minimap and almost all assist. Not used fast travel and only used map when i had problem with finding stuff for whole game.

I think whole witcher sense is kind of good addition to game for people who don't use above stuff like me and it fits the lore (witcher senses and his knowledge). But i agree with RK here that sometimes there is little ambiguity in solving problem thankfully C&C in this game in those quests rewards doing those quests much more than just solving case.


also screenshot to prove i did this game on hardest def in 60+ hours:

 

[bonescraper]

Anyone knows where i can buy the respec potion? I know Keira had one, but i sent her to Kaer Morhen.

 

[Immortal]

Anyone knows where i can buy the respec potion? I know Keira had one, but i sent her to Kaer Morhen.

A few merchants in Novagrad / Skellige sell it. 1000 Crowns broski - cough it up. I think the Dwarf Merchant in Crows Perch sells it and the Magic wares dealer sells it.

 

[Zeriel]

Does importing a save really make all that much of a difference at all?

The world seems to be in a very crap sack state with the answers I gave the guy in the intro.



I really don't get the level requirements for some of the Witcher treasure quests. They are all around 4 levels higher than the gear it has on offer. The griffin gear upgrade quest is level 18 yet offers level 15 upgrades. While the feline armour is a level 20? I think quest for level 14 gear.

I was pretty disappointed with the results of the import too.

Doesn't seem to change anything. Saskia being alive and having a free Upper Aedirn doesn't change anything in the intro for example ("Aedirn put up no resistance", wtf? THERE'S A DRAGON AND ARMY and no resistance?). As far as I can tell so far the major plotpoints and world state aren't affected at all by previous game decisions, it is all minor stuff like certain characters showing up.

I'm not talking about the sidequests, which are very well done, I am talking about the filler content.

Spoiler

Banging Keira because she is hawt

is a sidequest with some C&C and I enjoyed that very much.

It's actually not very C&C.

Spoiler

She "betrays" and "tricks" you regardless of whether you bone her.

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

Dat double dungeon bait in Novigrad...

 

[Gerrard]

I'm pretty sure in the save I imported Henselt was dead and yet they said he died in some battle when Redania invaded them fighting on the front line. Thanks Obama.

 

[Zeriel]

I'm pretty sure in the save I imported Henselt was dead and yet they said he died in some battle when Redania invaded them fighting on the front line. Thanks Obama.

Yeah, it's full of shit like this. The import is a total crock. It actually makes me realize that for all their shitty mistakes, Bioware did a really good job with imports in the Mass Effect series, ergo they didn't completely ignore it. If a company just wants to have a clean slate with every game, that's fine, I'd prefer they just do that instead of checkboxing features that have no actual effect on the game. I pity people who played Witcher 1 and 2 and kept the saves just to import into 3 and find nothing changed.

Although to be fair we had advance warning, import from 1 to 2 was largely pointless too.

 

[Thane Solus]

so is this the best RPG since Rance? or not?

 

[Brayko]

I guess the imports are more of a sentimental thing.

 

[cvv]

Yeah, import is useless. I went with Iorveth in 2 and now Roche is all pals with me like nothing happened.

Also 80 % of Novigrad plays like a pure adventure game. Hours upon endless hours of it. Not sure I like it. I guess if the writing and acting wasn't so stellar I'd be all moody about it. Still, the amount of cinematic content they managed to cram here is Absoltuely. Fucking. Unbelievable.

 

[J_C]

Is there a way to turn off the loading a save movies? It seems like the game doesn't start loading until they are done

I think the game loads during the movies, because for me when the game loads faster, the movie is interrupted.

So Perkel is the polish alt of J_C.

As in, he is right regarding TW3, just like I used to be with other games.

 

[J_C]

Wait i didn't know geralt gets new moves if he upgrades his sword tree... i am doing next full swordsman no bullshit geralt for next playtrought

Didn't you notice the deserters/bandits/monsters all over the map sitting on a chest with some items in it, for example? There are even question marks floating above quite a few of these encounters on the map.

Those are not "quests"

Jesus Christ, that Geralt is like a fucking terminator.

What is this video recording stuff by the way? You use it a lot of times, but how can I record short snipetts of gameplay with it?

On another note:
A strange thing happened in the game today. I had a boot and a gloves which gave me a certain ammount of armor points. But after I equipped them, I got 1 less points than what was in the discription. They were at 100% durability, so it was not a penalty. But this only happened with those two pieces of equipment. Is this a bug, or anyone knows a reason for this?

 

[fizzelopeguss]

ZIS POLISH SOFTWARE WAS CODED BY HANDS OF BABBY ANIELSKI, WITH WITCHER POWER WE NOW CONQUER RUSSIA.

 

[Perkel]

Also 80 % of Novigrad plays like a pure adventure game. Hours upon endless hours of it. Not sure I like it. I guess if the writing and acting wasn't so stellar I'd be all moody about it. Still, the amount of cinematic content they managed to cram here is Absoltuely. Fucking. Unbelievable.

Yeah but it fits into game as that part of the game is all about dagger and cloak and not wanderin'
They really did well with underground society in this. You see thugs of various factions protecting different parts of town.

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Also someone commented earlier that NPC don't reconize Geralt actions in game.

This is actually false. In novigrad alone i heard various chatters among people as game progressed and they often talked about various events in city.
Biggest change imo is when you involve yourself in Triss storyline. By the end of that storyline whole city changes. Where at start city seems normal aside from few pyres and witch hunting by the end of that quest city grows darker and darker. Zealots start to roam city streats, witch hunters are everywhere and so on. People chatter also changes a lot.

 

[MasPingon]

Yeah, import is useless. I went with Iorveth in 2 and now Roche is all pals with me like nothing happened.

Also 80 % of Novigrad plays like a pure adventure game. Hours upon endless hours of it. Not sure I like it. I guess if the writing and acting wasn't so stellar I'd be all moody about it. Still, the amount of cinematic content they managed to cram here is Absoltuely. Fucking. Unbelievable.

Yeah, I'm abit tired of this as well. I'm concerned about replay ability of this game with all those nice, but linear as fuck quests.

 

[Multidirectional]

Guys does every single fucking quest has this shit where you gotta use the Batman vision to look for glowing clues inside the yellow circle on the minimap? I'm only level 5 and I'm already sick of this nonsense..

 

[Zeriel]

Guys does every single fucking quest has this shit where you gotta use the Batman vision to look for glowing clues inside the yellow circle in the minimap? I'm only level 5 and I'm already sick of this nonsense..

Pretty much, yeah. If it's a designed quest, it pretty much has witcher senses or if not is a direct go here, kill this quest. More often both in one: go here, tap witcher senses, kill this.

 

[Lone Wolf]

I didn't enjoy The Witcher or The Witcher 2.

I'm enjoying this game a lot. There is amazing detail in the setting and it oozes atmosphere. It properly feels like a war torn region (I'm still in Velen). The outfits, the disease, the weaponry, the pageantry, the architecture, the bigotry, the power structures... it's an authentic fantasy take on the high medieval period. The only thing that's annoyed me so far is the insistence of the game on referring to military structures in modern terms. I think I understand why they did this, but 'the 10th Temerian Divison' and Nilfgaard's 'Army Group Centre' (really? AGC?) are things I'm learning to tactically ignore.

 

[TedNugent]

I'm finding that I don't like the sign character tree.

I have two greater blue mutagens fully activated with +40% increased sign effectiveness and 18 points in the blue tree. Igni still seems to do less damage than a single light sword attack.

Yrrden is a great sign, but Quen only lasts for maybe two hits with +80% sign strength against comparatively leveled drowners. Only one hit from a fiend or a bear, and you usually get stunned anyway.

Axii is a great sign as well, great for picking harpies out of the sky or stunning bears. I've found use in stunning Edrega Warriors so I can walk up behind their flank and use Ignii alt-mode.

But overall probably 80% of my damage comes from swords and I only use signs to avoid taking damage. After 18 points in signs I feel like I should be a mage...

 

[Zeriel]

I'm finding that I don't like the sign character tree.

I have two greater blue mutagens fully activated with +40% increased sign effectiveness and 18 points in the blue tree. Igni still seems to do less damage than a single light sword attack.

Yrrden is a great sign, but Quen only lasts for maybe two hits with +80% sign strength against comparatively leveled drowners. Only one hit from a fiend or a bear, and you usually get stunned anyway.

Axii is a great sign as well, great for picking harpies out of the sky or stunning bears. I've found use in stunning Edrega Warriors so I can walk up behind their flank and use Ignii alt-mode.

But overall probably 80% of my damage comes from swords and I only use signs to avoid taking damage. After 18 points in signs I feel like I should be a mage...

I have zero points in signs and it sounds about the same level of effectiveness. Saw that clearly when I glanced at the character tree, though. The bonuses are trivial, all that matters is base damage and gear stats, and gear stats all favor weapon damage over incidental bonuses.

 

[Gerrard]

Congratulations you have reached level 12!
Now you can go fight level 12 drowners that will deal the same fucking amount of damage level 5 drowners did when you were level 5. Oh and if you don't have a level 12 sword they will probably be harder to kill as well.

If anyone actually thinks this is good design, they need to be shot. Dead.

There is no point to leveling in this game. You could have no levels and have all the monsters be the same strength everywhere and it would play exactly the same.

 

[Zeriel]

Congratulations you have reached level 12!
Now you can go fight level 12 drowners that will deal the same fucking amount of damage level 5 drowners did when you were level 5. Oh and if you don't have a level 12 sword they will probably be harder to kill as well.

If anyone actually thinks this is good design, they need to be shot. Dead.

There is no point to leveling in this game. You could have no levels and have all the monsters be the same strength everywhere and it would play exactly the same.

Yeah. And honestly every game is designed like this now. This being the case, I'd rather all these "RPGs" were like Far Cry where there's no actual levels, you just periodically gain points to invest in perks that give you bonuses.

 

[RK47]

Congratulations you have reached level 12!
Now you can go fight level 12 drowners that will deal the same fucking amount of damage level 5 drowners did when you were level 5. Oh and if you don't have a level 12 sword they will probably be harder to kill as well.

If anyone actually thinks this is good design, they need to be shot. Dead.

There is no point to leveling in this game. You could have no levels and have all the monsters be the same strength everywhere and it would play exactly the same.

You tell me. I just ran across lvl 25 bandits in a quest while I'm lvl 10.
Every slash I landed did 1% damage.
Every sign did 10-25 damage.
Geralt, a guy who beat a dragon in 1 v 1 back in TW2 is getting his ass handed by street thugs.

 

[Metro]

 

[Kem0sabe]

Sounds like lazy design, same monster types shoundt be more difficult to kill or do more damage simply because of geography.

We aren't even talking about monster variants but the exact same mobs and models but leveled.

They should have used different monsters, different chalenges, but as typical of cd projekt, they are great at presenting a visual consistent game world that they then proceed to fill with shit game play