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The Witcher 3 Pre-Expansion Thread

Perkel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 28, 2014
Messages
16,284
The White Orchard is just some boring village where nothing happen, I was more interested on the backstory of that phantom on the well, that would be a much more interesting contract to do on the main story than fighting the griffin. The problem is that griffins have no class, I prefer demon dogs made of fire.

I think this was bait and switch situation.

You start game expecting to spend hours looking for Yennefer. Whole prologue was based on that, whole prelude for game was based on that (the trail cinematic).

As for nothing happens. End the game first. I don't want to spoil anything to you.
 

bonescraper

Guest
Go to village inn -- > Ask dudes about Yennefer --> Garnison --> Herbalist --> hunter ( i think one of them is actually optional) -- gryphin --> garnison --> inn
the end.
Yeah, and this way you're losing 6 skill points from shrines, that's like half of what you can find in the whole game :roll:
 

Perkel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 28, 2014
Messages
16,284
Remember kids if you fallow quest marker you brain switches off and you don't learn geography thus you need to constantly use quest markers to find stuff.
 

dragonul09

Arcane
Edgy
Joined
Dec 19, 2014
Messages
1,446
I still think that the ''open-world'' approach was a bad idea for this game.The game is huge,no doubt about that ,but everything feels dead outside the contract quests and main ones.You won't find much if you stray from the path beside the endless ''hidden'' treasures filled with the same garbage like the others.
They wanted to reward the player for exploring but dude,placing 20 hidden treasures on a 50 meter radius is not the right answer.The amount of garbage loot is another problem,so much stuff to pick and after a while you realize it's just pointless and you won't need 90% of it.I understand that loot is important for an open world game but for fuck sake just tone it down with the garbage loot dude..

The reviewers that complained about the main quest being too long or getting tiresome ,they were 100% right,the chase for ciri ruined this game.

My other problem is that the game doesn't even feel like a sequel to Witcher 1 or 2,more like a sequel to the books.There are some instances where if you didn't read some raw informations from the book ,you are like ''what the fuck is going on here,who is that ,who is this,where did i meet you'',it's just like the first two games didn't even exist.
Everything in this game seems to be about Yennefer and Ciri and this really started to piss me off after a while,i don't give a shit about them,even if Geralt got his memories back,it feels like you are forced to find them.CDprojekt should have made their own story for Geralt and leave the damn books alone...

On the positive side the game had some great characters,music and some nice side quests here and there.
 

Perkel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 28, 2014
Messages
16,284
I still think that the ''open-world'' approach was a bad idea for this game.The game is huge,no doubt about that ,but everything feels dead outside the contract quests and main ones.You won't find much if you stray from the path beside the endless ''hidden'' treasures filled with the same garbage like the others.
They wanted to reward the player for exploring but dude,placing 20 hidden treasures on a 50 meter radius is not the right answer.The amount of garbage loot is another problem,so much stuff to pick and after a while you realize it's just pointless and you won't need 90% of it.I understand that loot is important for an open world game but for fuck sake just tone it down with the garbage loot dude..

The reviewers that complained about the main quest being too long or getting tiresome ,they were 100% right,the chase for ciri ruined this game.

My other problem is that the game doesn't even feel like a sequel to Witcher 1 or 2,more like a sequel to the books.There are some instances where if you didn't read some raw informations from the book ,you are like ''what the fuck is going on here,who is that ,who is this,where did i meet you'',it's just like the first two games didn't even exist.
Everything in this game seems to be about Yennefer and Ciri and this really started to piss me off after a while,i don't give a shit about them,even if Geralt got his memories back,it feels like you are forced to find them.
CDprojekt should have made their own story for Geralt and leave the damn books alone...

1. You are literally describing Potato design. Where open world is huge field of potatoes and each and every new things is in near viccinity.
Potato design has huuge flaw. Due everything being close together there is no actual exploration. You "don't find things" because you can't miss them !
TW3 design on other hand is more natural. There is a world but it isn't filled with crap everywhere and finding actually something means that you need actually to explore and find it.

Imo TW3 take on open world is superior one.

2. I actually like shit ton of garbage loot. Becaue it fucks with people who have OCD.
Stop picking up everything and focus on quests is the lesson to be learned here.
If you will need something for crafting you can simply buy it in shop.

3. completely disagree here. It is not fault of CDPR that people didn't read books. Whole point of those games was to fallow books as closely as possible without any "games" aproach where people have amnesia or they need to explain who they are and what they did everytime you meet them.
As for MC story. TW2 lead to that same as TW1. Difference here is that they didn't need to catter this time to new players as so they went full on with books thus they created fantastic finish for saga that completely fits the books and redeems its worse parts.


GAME NEEDS A WORLDMAP HOTKEY

Game fucking needs to have rebindable gamepad controlls in first place.
You know how many times i pressed select looking for inventory and got options menu ? Every single fucking time.
They probably mapped this shit from PS4 controller fuckers.
 

Perkel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 28, 2014
Messages
16,284
BTW get screenshot run it past Photoshop oilpaint filer and enjoy (someone managed to get free camera working):

tRZQHJx.jpg

zUNjTwa.jpg

mQTYiEA.jpg

ntFBVVr.jpg

JaqgqIL.jpg
 

cvv

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 30, 2013
Messages
18,978
Location
Kingdom of Bohemia
Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is.
Gotta say - I love most of the side quests but I just did the Black Pearl one, the one where you have to cover a huge distances, going from Novigrad to Skellige and back, and ALL I got was 10 crowns. 10 fucking crowns. No experience, no items, no nothing.

To be clear, I don't mind the huge disparity between XP rewards for side and main quests, after all they had to balance the game somehow, but sometimes it's getting way too ridiculous.
 

dragonul09

Arcane
Edgy
Joined
Dec 19, 2014
Messages
1,446
I still think that the ''open-world'' approach was a bad idea for this game.The game is huge,no doubt about that ,but everything feels dead outside the contract quests and main ones.You won't find much if you stray from the path beside the endless ''hidden'' treasures filled with the same garbage like the others.
They wanted to reward the player for exploring but dude,placing 20 hidden treasures on a 50 meter radius is not the right answer.The amount of garbage loot is another problem,so much stuff to pick and after a while you realize it's just pointless and you won't need 90% of it.I understand that loot is important for an open world game but for fuck sake just tone it down with the garbage loot dude..

The reviewers that complained about the main quest being too long or getting tiresome ,they were 100% right,the chase for ciri ruined this game.

My other problem is that the game doesn't even feel like a sequel to Witcher 1 or 2,more like a sequel to the books.There are some instances where if you didn't read some raw informations from the book ,you are like ''what the fuck is going on here,who is that ,who is this,where did i meet you'',it's just like the first two games didn't even exist.
Everything in this game seems to be about Yennefer and Ciri and this really started to piss me off after a while,i don't give a shit about them,even if Geralt got his memories back,it feels like you are forced to find them.
CDprojekt should have made their own story for Geralt and leave the damn books alone...

1. You are literally describing Potato design. Where open world is huge field of potatoes and each and every new things is in near viccinity.
Potato design has huuge flaw. Due everything being close together there is no actual exploration. You "don't find things" because you can't miss them !
TW3 design on other hand is more natural. There is a world but it isn't filled with crap everywhere and finding actually something means that you need actually to explore and find it.

Imo TW3 take on open world is superior one.

2. I actually like shit ton of garbage loot. Becaue it fucks with people who have OCD.
Stop picking up everything and focus on quests is the lesson to be learned here.
If you will need something for crafting you can simply buy it in shop.

3. completely disagree here. It is not fault of CDPR that people didn't read books. Whole point of those games was to fallow books as closely as possible without any "games" aproach where people have amnesia or they need to explain who they are and what they did everytime you meet them.
As for MC story. TW2 lead to that same as TW1. Difference here is that they didn't need to catter this time to new players as so they went full on with books thus they created fantastic finish for saga that completely fits the books and redeems its worse parts.

1 I don't know what the fuck are you talking about dude,if you like potatoes just say so.And the world is indeed filled with crap ,you just said yourself ''I actually like shit ton of garbage loot'' for no reason apparently.And what superior open world dude? There's no interactivity with the enviroment,just a static world with a buttload of hidden treasure on a 50 meter radius.Maybe you just played another game.

2.So you like garbage loot just because?Why would even bother to reply dude?

3.There were some videos with the devs telling people that The Witcher 3 is more accessible to the new comers than the first two games and that's just bullshit.You will get later into the game where you really need some serious background information or else you will realise that you will grow uninterested with the story.And why should they follow the books? The first two games stood up for their own,didn't need to follow the mediocre books.
 

Dookins

Educated
Joined
May 23, 2015
Messages
77
Yeah, they had to have been fucking with us with that quest. "Oh, I left my monies at home sry"
 
Joined
Jul 8, 2014
Messages
31
SO it seems like a lot of POI quests are bugged, like the blacksmith in a cage on Skellige, actually there's another npc in a cage in Novigrad that I couldn't find the key for. And now there's a hidden treasure POI that I can't find the key for. I really hate unfinished quests in my log even if they are MMOish.

Aside from that, I can't find anywhere on the interwebs that explains what armor piercing actually does. Is high armor piercing better than base damage? Do monsters even have armor? Why even have different damage types if the devs hide their functionality? I don't know the damage types of monsters or men, and I sure as hell don't believe anyone who plays this game is considering if they need more bludgeoning resistance or base armor. Weapons should have had 1 or 2 specific damage types without an unspecified base damage and the damage types/resistances for monsters should have been added to bestiary. Arrgh I hate being forced to make uninformed decisions. And before anyone suggests testing these values with actual combat, I don't trust combat information in this game. Especially considering that my damage output mysteriously gets unuked when nothing but my level changes against the same level opponent.
 

Perkel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 28, 2014
Messages
16,284
SO it seems like a lot of POI quests are bugged, like the blacksmith in a cage on Skellige, actually there's another npc in a cage in Novigrad that I couldn't find the key for. And now there's a hidden treasure POI that I can't find the key for. I really hate unfinished quests in my log even if they are MMOish.

Aside from that, I can't find anywhere on the interwebs that explains what armor piercing actually does. Is high armor piercing better than base damage? Do monsters even have armor? Why even have different damage types if the devs hide their functionality? I don't know the damage types of monsters or men, and I sure as hell don't believe anyone who plays this game is considering if they need more bludgeoning resistance or base armor. Weapons should have had 1 or 2 specific damage types without an unspecified base damage and the damage types/resistances for monsters should have been added to bestiary. Arrgh I hate being forced to make uninformed decisions. And before anyone suggests testing these values with actual combat, I don't trust combat information in this game. Especially considering that my damage output mysteriously gets unuked when nothing but my level changes against the same level opponent.

I don't think someone knows this.

logically u should go for lizards with piercing weapons and for dudes in heavy armor with hammers.
In reality damage and lvl of gear is simply to important.

imo this is probably some relict from time when game had more flatter progression. Probably works but simply it has negligible impact.

Still Axes always seems to outdamage swords but they have shorter reach.
 

Perkel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 28, 2014
Messages
16,284
1 I don't know what the fuck are you talking about dude,if you like potatoes just say so.And the world is indeed filled with crap ,you just said yourself ''I actually like shit ton of garbage loot'' for no reason apparently.And what superior open world dude? There's no interactivity with the enviroment,just a static world with a buttload of hidden treasure on a 50 meter radius.Maybe you just played another game.

2.So you like garbage loot just because?Why would even bother to reply dude?

3.There were some videos with the devs telling people that The Witcher 3 is more accessible to the new comers than the first two games and that's just bullshit.You will get later into the game where you really need some serious background information or else you will realise that you will grow uninterested with the story.And why should they follow the books? The first two games stood up for their own,didn't need to follow the mediocre books.

You are newfag so i will explain you.

potato design for open world games means that open world looks like this :

imgp1654.jpg


Notice pattern ? Now try Skyrim and open your map. You will see that Skyrim map is literally potatoland where every new thing like dungeon, house, etc is near each other.

skyrim-ingame-east-lg.png


There is no actual exploration because if you will go into one direction you will find 2-3-4-5-6-7 place of interest regardless if you look at your way or not.

TW3 on other hand handles open world in non potato design where you really need to explore to find something and more often than not it is better to stick to quest.

2. I like it because it is hell for OCD players and teaches them lesson that they should simply pick up things they find worthy and not some random bottle of nothing.

3. That is the problem for people who didn't read books. They are always at lost position. Be it TW1 TW2 or now TW3.
TW1 was the last part when they tried to introduce it to people who didn't read books. Witch TW2 they went full books lore straight from chapter one and whole point of TW2 ending was to acknowledge books and go for TW3 without constraining narrative or plot for people who didn't read books.

Like i said in earlier post for people who didn't read books there are absolutely ton of concepts missiong from their head which they will never understand.

For example if you don't care about reading books something which concerns Emhyr and Ciri

In books Emhyr aka Duny her father basically murdered her grandmother also killed his wife and her mother and almost killed her in massacre of Cintra, he chased her for whole time in books and he wanted her to be his wife (incest) so she could bore child with him so he could control Cintra

Now some players i saw in various forums think that father trying to find her using Geralt is ok.

How you would show that in game ? IT is impossible without mentioning from where ciri is, who was her mother etc which would at this point basically be book on its own. So players who didn't read books see here only father trying to find his daughter. Those who read books see completely different image and they wonder what to do.

Next one reinstalling lodge of sorceress. All of those characters are in books along with Keira Metz, Shilla, Triss, Philippa and so on. Ciri even mentions in story their previous doings in regards of her which naturally those who didn't read books can't know about.

Ultimately my point is that it is really good that they did not cheapen narrative to catter to new players. Characters done in this game are that good because exactly they have history which doesn't span this game but 3 games and 7 books.

So if you want actually to understand fully TW3 or even TW2 you need to read books.
And you should do it imo. They are 6-10 hours each and fairly well written. All now are in english be it official or unoficial translation (which is really good).

You can now even listen to really good acted audiobooks:

 

Anthedon

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jan 1, 2015
Messages
4,797
Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
Are quests without good directions the exception or the rule? Is playing without navigation system viable?

It's a mixed bag, most quests do have directions. There are a few instances where it's just tedious and you have to check every house in a certain area if you don't use any markers (mostly in Novigrad).
 

Cromwell

Arcane
Joined
Feb 16, 2013
Messages
5,443
2. I actually like shit ton of garbage loot. Becaue it fucks with people who have OCD.
Stop picking up everything and focus on quests is the lesson to be learned here.
If you will need something for crafting you can simply buy it in shop.

So you like the fact that 90% of POI are uninteresting garbage, because it tells people to learn to leave useless stuff alone, and thats the reason why its good to have useless stuff in there? Are you retarded? If the lesson here is concentrate on the quality quest content that means CDPR are idiots because they put so much work in stuff you shpould not concentrate on which means they as devs should not have concentrated on putting that much of it in there. with a smaller more focused world they could have put in even more of the content even you say one should concentrate on, but instead its a good thing they did not because.... you are an idiot
 

Gerrard

Arcane
Joined
Nov 5, 2007
Messages
12,871
BTW get screenshot run it past Photoshop oilpaint filer and enjoy (someone managed to get free camera working):

tRZQHJx.jpg

zUNjTwa.jpg

mQTYiEA.jpg

ntFBVVr.jpg

JaqgqIL.jpg

I very much doubt someone making a digital painting would forget to paint grass shadows, so that won't pass.
:troll:
 

J_C

One Bit Studio
Patron
Developer
Joined
Dec 28, 2010
Messages
16,947
Location
Pannonia
Project: Eternity Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
Fucking hell. 4 level 5 wolfs led by a level 5 varg teared me a new asshole for half a dozen times until I managed to beat them with my lvl4 Geralovics.
 

Tigranes

Arcane
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
10,350
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?).
:(
Really?
There was one euphoric review by a German magazine claiming the opposite:
So entfalten Quests mit örtlichen Richtungsangaben auch ihre Stimmung: Wenn der Alte in einem Dorf mich darauf hinweist, dass ich am Ende des Tümpels bei den Gänsen einen großen Stein finde, an dem ich rechts in den Wald abbiegen soll, wo ich wiederum einen Pfad finde, der zur Hütte einer Hexe führt, macht das Suchen danach ohne Minikarte mit Zielanzeige natürlich ungleich mehr Spaß!
google translation with lots of corrections:
So quests with local direction information create their mood : If the old man in a village indicates that at the end of the pool at the geese where I find a big stone I should turn right into the forest, where I again find a path which leads to the cottage of a witch, that's far more fun without minimap with target display!
Wow, how come Google translate doesn't know anything about German grammar. That was just abysmal! :retarded:

I kinda trusted that guy, he was one of the very few professional dorito munchers critics that dared to call out Bioware on their epic fail called DA:I. Also he's specialized in reviewing CRPGs for them.

Are quests without good directions the exception or the rule? Is playing without navigation system viable?
Perkel , how did you do it?

Luibl hat sein Herz am rechten Fleck wenns um RPGs a la Gothic geht.

In my experience he's right in most cases: NPC do give directions, though they are often very brief, ie. "west of here, not too far" or not note that says "I've hidden the chest near the haystack". It works if you do the quest immediately and are willing to look around a bit, but there's no way to read up on those directions in the journal at a later date. No way to ask NPCs for directions to landmarks and such either, you're expected to use the map if you get stuck.

What you can't do without a compass are the treasure hunts for witcher gear because those those begin with maps that mark the spot where you need to search, unless you stumble upon them by chance. Once you start the quest and find some clues you can usually progress without relying on markers though.

So I'd say it's not doable 100% but you can minimize the usage of the helpers quite a bit.

As I say I was only in White Orchard. Now I'm going around Velen, and I'd say it's still insufficient. You do often get directions, but it's...

Ex1: "help me with X it's up on the hill over there" as the camera frames Geralt & dude inside the house through the window. Naturally, it's not the hill you can see when you look out that window. It is a hill, but that's not really enough.
Ex2: "help me with X it's over near Midscope" - I may be wrong here but the World Map doesn't tell you what the 18 different clumps of houses on that regional map are, you only learn it's Midscope by actually heading there and arriving or by looking at your quest marker.

I do think once you get the lay of the land it's OK, but mmm...
 

Gerrard

Arcane
Joined
Nov 5, 2007
Messages
12,871
Just because you can disable the fucking map does not mean the game was designed to accommodate your autism.
 

Rahdulan

Omnibus
Patron
Joined
Oct 26, 2012
Messages
5,323
Finally got around to Velen. As much as I love contracts because they do actually have some story attached to them, boy am I glad not all paper scraps on noticeboards are actually contracts but also for flavor. Managing all of those each with 5-6 contracts would've driven me insane just thinking about it.
 

Eirikur

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 25, 2014
Messages
1,126
PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015
Dreamt about W3 last night. I was at the pellar's house, and we were talking about James Bond movies, though all the movie titles had the word 'pellar' in them. Pellar Royale, Pellars Are Forever, License to Pellar, etc. I told him my favorite was The Pellar Who Loved Me (although it isn't), and felt a bit disturbed in hindsight because I worried he might've thought I was coming on to him. :?
 

Renfri

Cipher
Joined
Sep 30, 2014
Messages
587
Managed to finish this game before Serpent in the Staglands is released. Witcher 3 turned out to be what I expected: bad combat, nice story, humour and looked pretty but they need to tune down the damn crazy wind.

Also some of Geralt monologue were annoying, some of them assumed that player is complete retard who needs hand holding in serious scale. Running around red stuff AKA detective mode was overused way too much.
I chose Triss <3
 

J_C

One Bit Studio
Patron
Developer
Joined
Dec 28, 2010
Messages
16,947
Location
Pannonia
Project: Eternity Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
Also some of Geralt monologue were annoying, some of them assumed that player is complete retard who needs hand holding in serious scale.
This, this this!!!! How stupid CDPR thinks the players are? In one of the missions I was asked to pour oil onto corpses and burn them. And each time I poured the oil, Geralt said to himself: Now, some Igni. I FUCKING KNOW HOW TO IGNITE FUCKING OIL DAMMIT, I AM NOT MENTALLY HANDICAPPED!!!!!
 

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