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The Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone Expansion

Tytus

Arcane
Joined
Jul 9, 2011
Messages
3,596
Location
Mazovia
Too bad. Zerrikania sounded cool before they put it as "we love Arabs as blacks" stamp.Now I hope they never revisit it.

That wasn't Zerrikania though. Zerrikania is a like a combination of Amazons and Turks. This here was Ofir that was only mentioned in passing in the book. So they had came up with their own spin on it. And I agree that it felt like damage control.

Zerrkanians in the books and games for that matter were handled much better. In the books you had those Zerrikanian twins-bodyguards that Geralt fucked. And in the first game you Azar Javed who wasn't a middleeastern caricature.
 

Avin

Liturgist
Joined
May 8, 2004
Messages
377
Location
brasil
HoS is better than Blinky (Ciri doppelganger shit main quest) Story by a mile.

Bosses are harder, but some got nerfed.

I liked it.
 

Malpercio

Arcane
Joined
Dec 8, 2011
Messages
1,534
This Shani romance is fucking bullshit.

I played all main game with a Geralt faithful to Yen, and they railroad me into smooching Shani.
 

rado907

Savant
Joined
Apr 23, 2015
Messages
249
Man, this one played like a choose-your-own-adventure book. Straight-up interactive movie (or like 4 of them). It was good for what it was, but it definitely wasn't really an rpg or an action game. Cutscene, cutscene, cutscene, brief ultra-choreographed fight, cutscene, cutscene, mildly interesting choice, cutscene, cutscene, cutscene, cutscene, ravage Shani ("Oh, no, Geralt! Not there!"), cutscene, cutscene, fight, cutscene, cutscene, cutsene, fight, cutscene, cutschene, cutscne, cutscene. Didn't even get a final fight. Just a bullshit puzzle.

The story was fun, though - straight out of the fairy tale books. Vlodimir was a riot. And Shani was some hot piece of ass.

Glad they'll just pop a new region in the next expo, though.
 

Gerrard

Arcane
Joined
Nov 5, 2007
Messages
11,894
I'm curious, when you meet Shani in front of the crypt, do you get the dialogue option about the notice board even if you didn't see/take that notice?

The expansion is clearly meant to be played after the main quest, as the premise doesn't make that much sense otherwise.
That didn't stop them from adding dialogues related to the DLC to various places in the game though, which is fucking great.
If you finish the DLC before finding Ciri you have an extra "reward" option to ask Gaunter about her, and if you go through with it he tells you what choices you should take to avoid the bad ending.
 
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Starwars

Arcane
Joined
Jan 31, 2007
Messages
2,829
Location
Sweden
Just finished this. It did indeed make more sense just in terms of pacing to play it after the main quest. But the biggest weirdness is that it kinda forces you into the whole Shani deal with no regard to your previous romantic choices. It kinda clashes in that sense since the main campaign kinda feels like Geralt *finally* making his choice on who to "settle down with".

It takes a while to get going I feel but I enjoyed when the story got a bit darker. I think they really did well with O'Dimm in the sense that he really grows scarier the longer you get into the story. Turned out to be a better villain that I initially expected. Also, Olgierd worked much better for me than the Bloody Baron did in terms of the whole "remorseful dude who's done wrong".

Not sure how I felt about the gameplay though. It was good to have some fights be more difficult but unfortunately I don't think they managed to make the combat much fun this time around either. It felt like there was some HP bloating going on with some of the enemies, and I hope they won't continue that trend with Blood and Wine, though they probably will.

Was a bit dissapointed with the ending also. The setting of the "end-game" was nice but I had hoped for something more substantial with O'Dimm himself instead of the maze/puzzle thing. It wasn't satisfying at all to solve it.

Nevertheless, I really enjoyed the story and the characters. Both Olgierd and O'Dimm were excellent and Shani and Vlodimir were good in their roles as well. Shani could've used some more background though besides "I'm a medic, my calling is to help people, I can't be in relationship because I'm a MEDIC who HELPS people I'm a medic medic MEDIC MEDIC!" A bit one-note.
 

HoboForEternity

sunset tequila
Patron
Joined
Mar 27, 2016
Messages
9,151
Location
Disco Elysium
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Man, this one played like a choose-your-own-adventure book. Straight-up interactive movie (or like 4 of them). It was good for what it was, but it definitely wasn't really an rpg or an action game. Cutscene, cutscene, cutscene, brief ultra-choreographed fight, cutscene, cutscene, mildly interesting choice, cutscene, cutscene, cutscene, cutscene, ravage Shani ("Oh, no, Geralt! Not there!"), cutscene, cutscene, fight, cutscene, cutscene, cutsene, fight, cutscene, cutschene, cutscne, cutscene. Didn't even get a final fight. Just a bullshit puzzle.

The story was fun, though - straight out of the fairy tale books. Vlodimir was a riot. And Shani was some hot piece of ass.

Glad they'll just pop a new region in the next expo, though.
the frog and gardener battle was cool
 

odrzut

Arcane
Joined
Apr 30, 2011
Messages
1,082
Location
Poland
Shani could've used some more background though besides "I'm a medic, my calling is to help people, I can't be in relationship because I'm a MEDIC who HELPS people I'm a medic medic MEDIC MEDIC!" A bit one-note.

That's true, she was one-sided in the books as well, but there she was just a one-night stand for Geralt.

Maybe they tried to make a gender-swapped reference to the retarded classic Polish positivist book "Homeless People" by Żeromski where the main character was trying to score that girl for the whole book and in the end decided that he is a doctor therefore can't spend time on useless stuff like women.
 

Perkel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 28, 2014
Messages
15,764
reference to the retarded classic Polish positivist book "Homeless People" by Żeromski where the main character was trying to score that girl for the whole book and in the end decided that he is a doctor therefore can't spend time on useless stuff like women.

Seems like proper lesson for life.
 

Perkel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 28, 2014
Messages
15,764
Ok i finished Hearts of stone. Took me something like 22 hours but mostly because i played it along sidequest not from HoS. So something like 15h would be good. Though i didn't explore anything from new sites beside main quest specific stuff.

HoS is easily better than main quest from TW3. I am constantly blown away by writing. Didn't expect Pan Twardowski themes but i think their own spin on it was great.
Olgierd character was superb same as mirror man.

Now onto Blood and Wine. Though i will need to do first some quests in Novigrad and rescue Dendelion.
 

HoboForEternity

sunset tequila
Patron
Joined
Mar 27, 2016
Messages
9,151
Location
Disco Elysium
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
HoS is the best W3 story so far.

the low key, and personal nature of the story helps too.

i am just lollygagging around BaW now, and haven't really done anything substantial aside from the first 3 main quest and 3 big side quests. it's so pretty i can't help just to walk slowly and take a stroll in town.
 
Joined
Aug 10, 2012
Messages
5,866
Coming back to Twitcher 3 after 6 months or so; I rushed through the main quest after getting to Novigrad because frankly shit was getting very boring. Main quest was pretty disappointing and took too long, item progression was meaningless even on Death March and I finished the game at level 29.

Started Hearts of Stone yesterday and am having a blast. I thought starting at 29 would be pretty hard but nothing has given me any trouble so far. Why is the mastercrafted stuff even in the game if you can blaze through shit with gear 15+ levels below on max difficulty?

Quen spamming has been a problem ever since TW2. Hasn't been fixed. It makes combat so trivial honestly, and forcing yourself to play without using Quen feels disingenuous and contrived.
 
Joined
Aug 10, 2012
Messages
5,866
Finished HoS at level 35; quest was quite well-written and pretty fun all the way through.

Started BaW and... back to killing level-scaled bandits. feh.
 

Sodafish

Arcane
Joined
Dec 26, 2012
Messages
8,462
Finally got around to playing this, and just finished it.

Really solid stuff from CDPR. As many have stated, the story is by and large far better than the main game, especially in its pacing and cohesiveness. The Scenes From a Wedding quest in particular was great all round, and the conclusion genuinely sad. I legit laughed at many of the Geralt-as-Vlodimir parts in that other quest too.

Less good were all the frigging boss fights, which were incredibly tedious for the most part (that fucking toad fight being the worst, ugh). Also the runesmith stuff is laughably overpriced and underwhelming.

Now on to Blood and Wine!
 

Sodafish

Arcane
Joined
Dec 26, 2012
Messages
8,462
The only one which remotely interested me was that which extends the range of whirl and rend, but combat is already easy so meh. Also it takes up all three slots of an item which is probably more usefully used with regular runes and glyphs. 30k total cost is just ridiculous too, and I hear that getting the grandmaster witcher sets in B+W is silly expensive so will save the dorra for that instead.
 

Tacgnol

Shitlord
Patron
Joined
Oct 12, 2010
Messages
1,871,728
Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Grab the Codex by the pussy RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I helped put crap in Monomyth
B&W has some broken talents/abilities. The gourmet talent that was added to the generic tree makes food last 20 minutes and is pretty game breaking.

The mutated blood one in the expansion skill tree that gives you damage reduction based on adrenaline points basically makes you immune to damage when paired with a sword build.
 

Sodafish

Arcane
Joined
Dec 26, 2012
Messages
8,462
The mutated blood one in the expansion skill tree that gives you damage reduction based on adrenaline points basically makes you immune to damage when paired with a sword build.

Sounds pretty lulzy as my current build has maxed resolve too (damage doesn't reduce adrenaline).
 

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