The Witcher 3 Pre-Expansion Thread

[Darth Slaughter]

Back to the downgrade/graphics-whoreism discussion, this game has some effects just for beautyfication of a scene: It doesn't matter if the nigh has full or new moon, it's aways the brightest nights. One may say "that's because witcher's have a night vision", but the scenery casts shadows like it's midday. another effect is that with heavy rain in day times, the trees and scenery also casts shadows as if the sky is totally clear.

But the game also have some great visual moments:

Calm waters (which at first I though it was a bug):

first time I reached Novigrad (heavy rain and kind of reminded me of "the city" in thief):

The famous wall:

The crack:

A crack in witcher 1:

Well, my arrival in novigrad was very atmospheric. I betrayed a scoiatel scout by telling about their group to a guard, and she alone ambushed me near that very gate, near a stable.

 

[Joni Odin von Hassenstein]

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.

I let Henselt live and still got the exact same line.

 

[Gerrard]

But there is a form of level scaling. Have you tried fighting enemies 10 levels above you? You deal no damage. Because of level difference, not because they have higher armor value or some shit.

Actually, yeah, I have killed stuff over 10 levels higher than myself on death march.

Congratulations, you have autism. Do you want a fucking medal?

 

[Ulminati]

But there is a form of level scaling. Have you tried fighting enemies 10 levels above you? You deal no damage. Because of level difference, not because they have higher armor value or some shit.

Actually, yeah, I have killed stuff over 10 levels higher than myself on death march.

1v1, you can dodge/counter+stab any opponent. The only difference between easy and death march is how long you're willing to repeat the pattern for. Crowds get a bit trickier, since geralts aforementioned random pirouettes can open you up to losing 75% of your health bar in one go

 

[Dookins]

But there is a form of level scaling. Have you tried fighting enemies 10 levels above you? You deal no damage. Because of level difference, not because they have higher armor value or some shit.

Actually, yeah, I have killed stuff over 10 levels higher than myself on death march.

Congratulations, you have autism. Do you want a fucking medal?

Took all of 3 minutes without any AI cheesing, but hey, if you'd rather bitch about some imaginary problem the game has than the ones that actually exist, more power to ya.

 

[Gerrard]

But there is a form of level scaling. Have you tried fighting enemies 10 levels above you? You deal no damage. Because of level difference, not because they have higher armor value or some shit.

Actually, yeah, I have killed stuff over 10 levels higher than myself on death march.

Congratulations, you have autism. Do you want a fucking medal?

Took all of 3 minutes without any AI cheesing, but hey, if you'd rather bitch about some imaginary problem the game has than the ones that actually exist, more power to ya.

It took you 3 minutes to kill one trash enemy. Once again, do you want a fucking medal?

 

[Dookins]

Pre-menstrual ranting

Hey, sorry, didn't realize it was that time of the month.

On to other stuff, does the import even do anything aside from the neck tattoo? I'd have thought Roche would at least mention Anais.

 

[cvv]

The only difference between easy and death march is how long you're willing to repeat the pattern for.

Yeah, the only difference between difficulties is mobs have more HP and do more damage, just like in any other RPG ever. Stupid Poles. If only they made it more interesting like for example no HP regen on higher def or the enemy AI is more aggressive.

 

[cvv]

Btw the Triss storyline. I'm positively chuffed with the result. Really nice lovestory. Both Triss and Yennefer actresses are fantastic.

The only problem is

Spoiler

after I fuck and confess my love to Triss and say I wanna grow old with her I arrive to Skellige and the first thing Geralt says to Yennefer is she's sooo beautiful and smells awfuly nice :D Fucking Geralt man.

I was worried last night, after the initial quests alongside Triss upon meeting her in Novigrad, she seems to "disappear" from the game. Good to know she'll be back, and romanceable/boinkable.

I really hope Geralt, at some point, is forced to choose between Citi/Yen/Triss, so I leave Yen and Ciri to rot in the dirt and grow old with my wonderful redhead.

Just an advice - try to complete the quest about Philipa before you start going down the romance line with Triss. There may be a bug

Spoiler

where you need to consult Triss about Philipa but if you finish the romance line with her she doesn't seem to be available any longer

I may be wrong, maybe you'll meet her again, but better safe than sorry.

 

[Athos]

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.

I let Henselt live and still got the exact same line.

In fact it should say that if Henselth is alive. If he was killed it should say that Radovid overrun the kingdom without resistance while it was still in mourning for the fallen king.

 

[norolim]

And you must have the attention span and memory retention of a goldfish, if seeing yet the same finisher/gore again and again after 20 minutes doesn't bore you. MY condolences.

Not really. Turning off those horrible finishers was the first thing I did (before I even started playing).

combat is mostly irrelevant. Mutagens are too, in fact. Especially if +150 vitality at level 14 is far from "essential", in my books.

True that... on Easy.

As I don't like combat that much

If you don't like combat, story mode is indeed for you.

It's ok, we know you're Potato and I offended your new national treasure. The pride-induced rage and edginess, I can understand. The shameless defending of the mediocre combat, I can't.

Diagnosis butthurt

Combat in this game is good. That doesn't mean it has no flaws:

• bad camera,
• inconsistent automatic target selection,
• occasionally unresponsive controls,
• good but buggy as hell enemy AI,
• no meaningful penalty for rolling...AGAIN,
• misbehaving hitboxes (occasionally),
• some other minor flaws.

Apart from that, however, the system is good with a potential to be very good. Unlike in most aRPG games you won't get too far by just button mashing. If you try, the enemies will dodge, block, stun and consequently kill you. You need to be patient in combat - look for gaps in their defence, try to work into a good attack position with dodging and counter. In addition to that, you have meaningful ways to prepare for most of the "boss" fights. There are potions, signs and oils that you can use to make an encounter easier. Because, as Perkel said, without them, on harder difficulty levels you will need a lot of attempts to kill the most powerful monsters. That's as tactical as I've ever seen in a real time, single character, action combat system. If you're expecting turn-based level of tactics from an action game, you need to reset your brain.

The AI is much better on higher difficulty levels. Wolves, e.g. will behave differently on Normal and on Hard - they'll try to surround you, they'll attack more often, giving you less time to react and will attack simultaneously instead of waiting for their turn. All that provided the AI doesn't bug out, which unfortunately it does too often.

I also like what I described in the previous post - the fact that the difficulty of a fight increases significantly with every additional enemy you have to fight simultaneously.

I enjoy the combat mechanics in this game, but I can see there is room for improvement. A lot of it, actually. So, I'm afraid the only edgy one here is you, with your "all combat is shit" attitude.

EDIT:
I also like the fact, that with enough effort, you can kill enemies with much higher level. At level one I killed a level 16 Nilfgaardian soldier. It took me 25 minutes (single fight, not several attempts), my fingers burned, but I managed.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Combat is better than in 2, but still not good, and mostly for the same reasons - it prioritizes looking cool and following the concept of witchers as superhuman jedi ninja assassins, rather than playing well. Quen still trivializes any kind of 1v1 fight against hard-hitting enemies, though this is probably a good thing given how weird some of the attack animations are and how you don't have any iframes on your evasion moves.

In terms of support abilities and consumables, it's a bit of a mixed bag. Oils and damage increasing potions like Thunderbolt feel really weak, especially since doing more damage doesn't help that much in general. On the other hand, the game has some very important and meaningful effects as well, like moon dust bombs vs werewolves, Yrden vs wraiths, or Axii vs alghouls. Could use more of these.

 

[cvv]

• bad camera,
• inconsistent automatic target selection,
• occasionally unresponsive controls,
• good but buggy as hell enemy AI,
• no meaningful penalty for rolling...AGAIN,
• misbehaving hitboxes (occasionally)

Imo camera isn't any better or worse than in any other 3rd person game. Target selection is mostly fine, the sudden switchup doesn't happen too often althought it is annoying when it does. Controls are much more lacking outside the combat I find. Too sluggish, not enough immediacy. Agreed on the AI. And there absolutely is penalty for rolling - drains stamina, as it should. You can negate it by drinking the werewolf decoction but that has a very high toxicity so use carefuly. All in all I very much appreciate how they resolved the rolling problem from W2.

Quen still trivializes any kind of 1v1 fight against hard-hitting enemies, though this is probably a good thing given how weird some of the attack animations are and how you don't have any iframes on your evasion moves.

Well, constantly waiting for stamina to refill for quen is boring so it motivates you to play it risky and get punished for that occassionally. And there are iframes, you just have to work for them. The Fleet Footed skill reduces the damage you take during dodging and fully upgraded it negates it completely.

 

[Anthedon]

Combat is better than in 2, but still not good, and mostly for the same reasons - it prioritizes looking cool and following the concept of witchers as superhuman jedi ninja assassins, rather than playing well. Quen still trivializes any kind of 1v1 fight against hard-hitting enemies, though this is probably a good thing given how weird some of the attack animations are and how you don't have any iframes on your evasion moves.

In terms of support abilities and consumables, it's a bit of a mixed bag. Oils and damage increasing potions like Thunderbolt feel really weak, especially since doing more damage doesn't help that much in general. On the other hand, the game has some very important and meaningful effects as well, like moon dust bombs vs werewolves, Yrden vs wraiths, or Axii vs alghouls. Could use more of these.

There's a skill that makes you invulnerable while dodging (Fleet Footed). Potions get useful once you have access to the upgraded versions. Enhanced Thunderbolt makes quite the difference damage-wise. Consumeables have some purpose now. I pretty much only used Swallow in the first two games.

 

[cvv]

> You're Eustace, the corpse collector?
> Yeah! How do you know?
> :sniffs: Fourth sense.

Now and then I actually laugh out loud.

 

[norolim]

And there absolutely is penalty for rolling - drains stamina, as it should. You can negate it by drinking the werewolf decoction but that has a very high toxicity so use carefuly. All in all I very much appreciate how they resolved the rolling problem from W2.

Do you mean on the hardest difficulty level? Because on Hard it only stops stamina from regenerating. Doesn't drain it at all.

 

[Tigranes]

Alright, my week of travel is over and I finally fired it up for a few hours last night.

Grafixwhore: It's clearly TW2 upgraded, and looks quite good, while my 4 year old PC (albeit with a new graphics card) can just about make 30fps on ultra-ish settings. I did the sweetfx from a Codexer in this thread (p39ish?) and turned off most of the postprocessing and I like it. The way they did the foliage is good, and while they insist on doing some of those closeups that show off the uneven texture work the game immediately and consistently - at least in the opening - communicates its vibe very very nicely. They have a very distinctive vibe, and riding horseback through the winds on a cloudy rainy afternoon with the music and sounds is nothing like anything in Skyrim.

Fuck the markers: There clearly seems to be no way to play without markers. I mean, you can turn most of them off - without the minimap, you can ensure you only see one Activated Quest marker in the main map. But then there aren't enough directions given in most cases, in dialogue or journals. You start with 7 or 8 little clumps of houses visible in the map, and often there's no easy way to figure out which one they are talking about. I wish I could just have the minimap on without the markers, but that's also apparently impossible, and soon that whole thing is drowning in herb icons (which you can turn off in main map but... not the minimap?).

Actual Game: feels very TW1/2 combined. White Orchard is obviously more TW1ish in feel but we'll see how long that lasts. There's the typical "I Witcha" stuff and as usual bits of interesting writing - I like how they did the Nilfgaardian commander (though I have only met him once), it immediately complicates the "Nilfgaardians bad" stuff most players will begin with and yet doesn't paint him as some sympathetic sop. Then you start doing the smith quest, etc. and get that familiar Witcher ambiguity.

I expected a TW2+ and it looks very good so far. I'm worried about the MMOness of the open world but I figure I will get to that soon enough.

 

[abnaxus]

> Bestiary/vampire book mentions higher vampire is immune to fire
> Weakness of higher vampire: vampire oil, Igni
>

 

[Makabb]

So i'm at baron, and so far this is the best Witcher. I realy couldn't stomach w1 and 2 , but this one is great. I'm hoping that witcher 4 will let you create a custom character at start and there will be actual stats.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Does the skill which reduces damage "while dodging" work on sidestepping, rolling, or both?

Quen still trivializes any kind of 1v1 fight against hard-hitting enemies, though this is probably a good thing given how weird some of the attack animations are and how you don't have any iframes on your evasion moves.

Well, constantly waiting for stamina to refill for quen is boring so it motivates you to play it risky and get punished for that occassionally. And there are iframes, you just have to work for them. The Fleet Footed skill reduces the damage you take during dodging and fully upgraded it negates it completely.

Problem with Quen is honestly not that it prevents damage, but rather that it also protects you from being staggered. This means that you can dodge one attack, and then execute a full combo without worrying about the counter once the enemy becomes immune to being staggered. This is how I handle every 1v1 fight that doesn't force you to use other signs (like wraiths do for instance). It's really easy to do, and I don't find I spend a lot of time waiting for Stamina regen (then again, I'm using light armor and some sign boosting talents, and often Tawny Owl as well).

Combat is better than in 2, but still not good, and mostly for the same reasons - it prioritizes looking cool and following the concept of witchers as superhuman jedi ninja assassins, rather than playing well. Quen still trivializes any kind of 1v1 fight against hard-hitting enemies, though this is probably a good thing given how weird some of the attack animations are and how you don't have any iframes on your evasion moves.

In terms of support abilities and consumables, it's a bit of a mixed bag. Oils and damage increasing potions like Thunderbolt feel really weak, especially since doing more damage doesn't help that much in general. On the other hand, the game has some very important and meaningful effects as well, like moon dust bombs vs werewolves, Yrden vs wraiths, or Axii vs alghouls. Could use more of these.

There's a skill that makes you invulnerable while dodging (Fleet Footed). Potions get useful once you have access to the upgraded versions. Enhanced Thunderbolt makes quite the difference damage-wise. Consumeables have some purpose now. I pretty much only used Swallow in the first two games.

You missed out if you only used Swallow in the first game, bro. Alchemy was overpowered as fuck there. Blizzard made you nearly invincible, for example. Dungeons were actually dark as well, and difficult to navigate without Cat.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

So i'm at baron, and so far this is the best Witcher. I realy couldn't stomach w1 and 2 , but this one is great. I'm hoping that witcher 4 will let you create a custom character at start and there will be actual stats.

Who are you and what have you done to Makabb

 

[Gerrard]

Inventory needs more tabs. The "Usable items" one is a clusterfuck, needs separate tab for witcher items and one for readable stuff.

 

[Perkel]

So i'm at baron, and so far this is the best Witcher. I realy couldn't stomach w1 and 2 , but this one is great. I'm hoping that witcher 4 will let you create a custom character at start and there will be actual stats.

Who are you and what have you done to Makabb

He tasted blood in his mouth. The taste changed him subconsciously.
His rosy cheeks gave away to paleness.. and hunger. Hunger - thought, felt.
Stopped eating, drinking. Stopped breathing...
He looked upon himself in a mirror. He was no longer himself. He didn't look like anything he knew.

 

[J_C]

Inventory needs more tabs. The "Usable items" one is a clusterfuck, needs separate tab for witcher items and one for readable stuff.

The UI menus are generally a disaster, not just the inventory. The game is great, but it is mindblowing how could CDPR fuck the UI up on this magnitude.

 

[toro]

Also you go with level scaling, people bitch. You go with non-level scaled system, they bitch again. I bet my left nut if CDPR went with Gothic-like system ppl ITT would say "trololo this is stoopid you can kill everything on level 1 trololo".

Truly, everything is shit.

? In gothic you can't kill anything with lvl1 because you will do 0 damage to higher level people.

Please shut the fuck up about Gothic. Even CD Projekt mentioned it as a source of inspiration.