The Witcher 3 GOTY Edition

[Thal]

But why should we care about this sword aside from its stats?

Sadly, we don't even care about the stats. Because the stats are inevitably shit. Even sadder still, that even if you buckle up and defeat an enemy who's higher level than you, the loot will be scaled down to your level.

 

[Falksi]

Witcher 3 Main Game

+ Some good writing
+ Some good acting
+ Nice graphics

- Boring, pointless open world which offers very little to discover practically, it's just all aesthetics
- Shite loot system with absolutely tons of junk, all rendered pointless by getting the Witcher gear which suits your playstyle
- Wank, pointless crafting.
- Repetitive, copy-paste towns & villages with little different between them.
- Repetitive, copy-paste quests & monster hunts which follow a very siimilar structure (talk-walk-witcher senses-fight-do something-return-talk-finish quest)
- Awful dialogue "choices" which usually amount to "talk to me some more" and offer little C&C for a large percentage of the game.
- Flakey as fuck pointless combat, even on the hard level, which you can play with your eyes shut.
- Contradictory setup that makes the whole game feel awful - "You urgently need to get to Ciri to save her from the Wild Hunt, but here's a thousand trivial things to do to pass the time with"
- A divebomb of a mainquest which is OK up until after the Bloody Baron, then is just a massively dull person-fetch quest until a slight bit of relief near the end-game.
- By far & away the worst of the 3 Witcher games for actually requiring you to act like a witcher (make potions, study monsters etc.), as leveling up solves all.
- Far too many characters crammed into it, which makes it messy & feel like you're playing "Geralt - This Is Your Life"
- All the tits look the same.

 

[Beowulf]

Witcher 3 Main Game

Largely agree, except I kind of like the open world.
Someone finally created a game that din't look like the designers participated in the "How many dungeons we can carm in km^2" contest.

I think Keira hed smaller tits than the rest, but not sure. Killed her eventually.

 

[Lord_Potato]

At least they (tits) have different color schemes, Yennefer's being the whitest of the bunch.

 

[anvi]

Jesus christ, I've already put 70 hours into this game with no end in sight. No way I'm buying any DLC.

Having no taste and a low IQ must be awesome.

 

[Carrion]

- A divebomb of a mainquest which is OK up until after the Bloody Baron, then is just a massively dull person-fetch quest until a slight bit of relief near the end-game.

The endgame is by far the worst part of the main plot. A total disaster compared to almost everything else in the game, side quests included. [edit: Come to think of it, some of the Novigrad parts are probably equally bad. Roche is probably the one that suffers the most.]

- By far & away the worst of the 3 Witcher games for actually requiring you to act like a witcher

That would be TW2 by a clear margin.

 

[Comte]

Witcher 3 Main Game

+ Some good writing
+ Some good acting
+ Nice graphics

- Boring, pointless open world which offers very little to discover practically, it's just all aesthetics
- Shite loot system with absolutely tons of junk, all rendered pointless by getting the Witcher gear which suits your playstyle
- Wank, pointless crafting.
- Repetitive, copy-paste towns & villages with little different between them.
- Repetitive, copy-paste quests & monster hunts which follow a very siimilar structure (talk-walk-witcher senses-fight-do something-return-talk-finish quest)
- Awful dialogue "choices" which usually amount to "talk to me some more" and offer little C&C for a large percentage of the game.
- Flakey as fuck pointless combat, even on the hard level, which you can play with your eyes shut.
- Contradictory setup that makes the whole game feel awful - "You urgently need to get to Ciri to save her from the Wild Hunt, but here's a thousand trivial things to do to pass the time with"
- A divebomb of a mainquest which is OK up until after the Bloody Baron, then is just a massively dull person-fetch quest until a slight bit of relief near the end-game.
- By far & away the worst of the 3 Witcher games for actually requiring you to act like a witcher (make potions, study monsters etc.), as leveling up solves all.
- Far too many characters crammed into it, which makes it messy & feel like you're playing "Geralt - This Is Your Life"
- All the tits look the same.

-Awful hidden treasure quests - Find dead body with note about treasure (junk) then use witcher sense to find treasure mentioned in the note 50 paces away.

 

[ScrotumBroth]

- A divebomb of a mainquest which is OK up until after the Bloody Baron, then is just a massively dull person-fetch quest until a slight bit of relief near the end-game.

The endgame is by far the worst part of the main plot. A total disaster compared to almost everything else in the game, side quests included.

This is painfully true. Plot holes, lack of logic and inept understanding aka butchering of themes set in place by Sapko are jarring. At least they made up with expansions.

 

[Old One]

The only armor set bonus that is appealing to me is the one you get for wearing three pieces of Wolf: you can apply three oils at once to your blades. Combined with the perk (or whatever it's called) that makes your blade oils last for 140 strikes (Fixative, IIRC), that's pretty nice. You could also use more green oil perks to get extra perpetual bonuses against nasty monster types. I guess the Bear armor bonus would be nice if you used Quen a lot, but I don't use it that much. I stick with freezing Aard mixed with frequent doses of Yrden.

But then, the armor sets are all level 40. So what do you do when you''re level 45 and you start finding armor that's a lot better than the set pieces?

Off on a tangent...I'm going to be a little disappointed if Geralt doesn't get to bang the Duchess of Toussaint. That's really the only satisfactory conclusion to Blood and Wine.

 

[HarveyBirdman]

- Boring, pointless open world which offers very little to discover practically, it's just all aesthetics

It's world building via aesthetics. The world has an enormous sense of epic scale, even though it really isn't that big. The layout is an achievement.

- Repetitive, copy-paste towns & villages with little different between them.

What world do you live in where every town in a small region of a single country has vastly different architecture? The impoverished, war-ruined hamlets are fittingly similar and squalid.

- Repetitive, copy-paste quests & monster hunts which follow a very siimilar structure (talk-walk-witcher senses-fight-do something-return-talk-finish quest)

And for every repetitive quest, there is a unique one. The questing a highlight.

- Awful dialogue "choices" which usually amount to "talk to me some more" and offer little C&C for a large percentage of the game.

You expect paradigm shifting C&C from every conversation? That would get very stale very quickly. The dialogue for quests arcs builds upon itself, each choice resulting in different options along the way. The dialogue and C&C is fantastic.

- Flakey as fuck pointless combat, even on the hard level, which you can play with your eyes shut.

Could've been better. I've seen worse combat in a CRPG. Play on Deathmarch.

- Contradictory setup that makes the whole game feel awful - "You urgently need to get to Ciri to save her from the Wild Hunt, but here's a thousand trivial things to do to pass the time with"

Scale it up -- Geralt is traversing likely thousands of miles on horseback, running a zigzag pattern all around Redania. A witcher's gotta eat. Morrowind does the open world main quest better than anybody else, but this is hardly a bad entry.

A divebomb of a mainquest which is OK up until after the Bloody Baron, then is just a massively dull person-fetch quest until a slight bit of relief near the end-game.

Yes, Baron arc is definitely the best, but the rest is still fantastic. What's dull about traveling around a fantasy world, interacting with superbly written NPCs, making decisions that directly affect their lives and the politics governing their lives, fleshing out the lore of this rich universe, flipping the hunt on its head by hunting the hunters, and picking up clues to Ciri's whereabouts along the way?

Far too many characters crammed into it, which makes it messy & feel like you're playing "Geralt - This Is Your Life"

Oh no, my RPG has too many awesome NPCs and lets me play it like I'm playing a role.

All the tits look the same.

And all of which look better than your mother's.

 

[Falksi]

- A divebomb of a mainquest which is OK up until after the Bloody Baron, then is just a massively dull person-fetch quest until a slight bit of relief near the end-game.

The endgame is by far the worst part of the main plot. A total disaster compared to almost everything else in the game, side quests included. [edit: Come to think of it, some of the Novigrad parts are probably equally bad. Roche is probably the one that suffers the most.]

- By far & away the worst of the 3 Witcher games for actually requiring you to act like a witcher

That would be TW2 by a clear margin.

The endgame was lifted by the bonding/piss up at Kaer Morhen for me. It was actually one of the few post-Bloody Baron bits which I enjoyed.

You're having a laugh aren't you? The whole first chapter of TW2 was dedicated to beating the Kayran. Not only finding out about it, but making a potion so that you can fight it on fair terms, and also using traps/yrden to combat it.

- Boring, pointless open world which offers very little to discover practically, it's just all aesthetics

It's world building via aesthetics. The world has an enormous sense of epic scale, even though it really isn't that big. The layout is an achievement.

- Repetitive, copy-paste towns & villages with little different between them.

What world do you live in where every town in a small region of a single country has vastly different architecture? The impoverished, war-ruined hamlets are fittingly similar and squalid.

- Repetitive, copy-paste quests & monster hunts which follow a very siimilar structure (talk-walk-witcher senses-fight-do something-return-talk-finish quest)

And for every repetitive quest, there is a unique one. The questing a highlight.

- Awful dialogue "choices" which usually amount to "talk to me some more" and offer little C&C for a large percentage of the game.

You expect paradigm shifting C&C from every conversation? That would get very stale very quickly. The dialogue for quests arcs builds upon itself, each choice resulting in different options along the way. The dialogue and C&C is fantastic.

- Flakey as fuck pointless combat, even on the hard level, which you can play with your eyes shut.

Could've been better. I've seen worse combat in a CRPG. Play on Deathmarch.

- Contradictory setup that makes the whole game feel awful - "You urgently need to get to Ciri to save her from the Wild Hunt, but here's a thousand trivial things to do to pass the time with"

Scale it up -- Geralt is traversing likely thousands of miles on horseback, running a zigzag pattern all around Redania. A witcher's gotta eat. Morrowind does the open world main quest better than anybody else, but this is hardly a bad entry.

A divebomb of a mainquest which is OK up until after the Bloody Baron, then is just a massively dull person-fetch quest until a slight bit of relief near the end-game.

Yes, Baron arc is definitely the best, but the rest is still fantastic. What's dull about traveling around a fantasy world, interacting with superbly written NPCs, making decisions that directly affect their lives and the politics governing their lives, fleshing out the lore of this rich universe, flipping the hunt on its head by hunting the hunters, and picking up clues to Ciri's whereabouts along the way?

Far too many characters crammed into it, which makes it messy & feel like you're playing "Geralt - This Is Your Life"

Oh no, my RPG has too many awesome NPCs and lets me play it like I'm playing a role.

All the tits look the same.

And all of which look better than your mother's.

Man I hate spilt posts.

*I hate Aesthetics only worlds. I play RPGs to interact with things, not to look at them.

*It's not just the visuals, it's the structure. Same shops, same items, same setup. Nothing has any individuality or character. My village is vastly different to the one next to mine. Back in the medival days it was vastly different to the one next to mine. In TW3 each village is exactly the same.

*There's not. Each quest is structured very, very, similarly - Talk, walk, witcher senses, fight, tidy things up, finish. There are very few unique quests, side-quests & monster hunts especially, which break that pattern

*It's really not, it's awful. 90% of conversations offer no real interaction other than "tell me more information"

*Played on Deathmarch, tested combat playing with my eyes physically closed & repeating a rhythm of jumping back & attacking. Beat several mobs that way. Only the expansion packs change that.

*But Morrowind doesn't set itself up with an opening sequence which implies things are of the utmost urgency. And that "earning a living" arguement is laughable - you've earned enough coin to live off for years by the time you've done 10% of the side-quests & hunts.

*Baron Arc was great, the rest between that & the ending is an awful person-fetch quest. Find X person, who leads to X person, who leads to X person etc. It's rank.

*It's badly done. Too many NPC's water the whole thing down, you don't really get to appriciate many of them like you should, and it makes the whole thing feel fake, as if it's "Geral - This is your life" with every Tom, Dick & Harry co-incidentally turning up in the same place at the same time.

*They do, my mum died in 2001, of breast cancer ironically.

 

[Carrion]

The endgame was lifted by the bonding/piss up at Kaer Morhen for me. It was actually one of the few post-Bloody Baron bits which I enjoyed.

By endgame I mean everything that happens after

Spoiler

you're reunited with Ciri: the rushed, out-of-place piece of nonsense that is the battle of Kaer Morhen; the cheapening of the crones, who are turned from super powerful ancient beings into literally worse than elves (or a single elf, to be more precise); the contrived conclusion to the Radovid assassination plotline with Dijkstra going full retard; the super epic final battle followed by a literal end of the world until Ciri's battle against climate change; the non-character called Eredin and his entourage... Very little of it stands up to any kind of scrutiny.

There are some really good character moments in there for sure, and that's the one area where TW3's writing truly shines. Not just in Velen or at the end but throughout the whole thing.

You're having a laugh aren't you? The whole first chapter of TW2 was dedicated to beating the Kayran. Not only finding out about it, but making a potion so that you can fight it on fair terms, and also using traps/yrden to combat it.

It's also the only potion you need to brew in the entire game. Alchemy in TW2 feels like an afterthought, and it's much more important in the other two games. The Kayran might be an epic monster that can only be killed with the power of a QTE, but it's essentially a sideshow in the first act, and despite its scope the questline has about as much depth as a random witcher contract in the third game.

It's true that you can swipe the floor with any monster in TW3 if your level is high enough, and that absolutely sucks ass, but with proper preparation and planning you can also kill pretty much everything regardless of its level.

 

[Falksi]

The endgame was lifted by the bonding/piss up at Kaer Morhen for me. It was actually one of the few post-Bloody Baron bits which I enjoyed.

By endgame I mean everything that happens after

Spoiler

you're reunited with Ciri: the rushed, out-of-place piece of nonsense that is the battle of Kaer Morhen; the cheapening of the crones, who are turned from super powerful ancient beings into literally worse than elves (or a single elf, to be more precise); the contrived conclusion to the Radovid assassination plotline with Dijkstra going full retard; the super epic final battle followed by a literal end of the world until Ciri's battle against climate change; the non-character called Eredin and his entourage... Very little of it stands up to any kind of scrutiny.

There are some really good character moments in there for sure, and that's the one area where TW3's writing truly shines. Not just in Velen or at the end but throughout the whole thing.

You're having a laugh aren't you? The whole first chapter of TW2 was dedicated to beating the Kayran. Not only finding out about it, but making a potion so that you can fight it on fair terms, and also using traps/yrden to combat it.

It's also the only potion you need to brew in the entire game. Alchemy in TW2 feels like an afterthought, and it's much more important in the other two games. The Kayran might be an epic monster that can only be killed with the power of a QTE, but it's essentially a sideshow in the first act, and despite its scope the questline has about as much depth as a random witcher contract in the third game.

It's true that you can swipe the floor with any monster in TW3 if your level is high enough, and that absolutely sucks ass, but with proper preparation and planning you can also kill pretty much everything regardless of its level.

Yeah I agree with the rest of what you pick apart with the endgame. The dimension hopping in particular felt fucking awful.

Yeah but you dedicate 1 of 3 chapters to doing it (not just brewing said potion, but looking to deal with said monster). And like I say, you can't beat it without using the Yrden sign, which again backs up that Witcher feel.

Personally I felt WAY more of a Witcher in TW1 & 2 than I did 3. In 3 all the gadgets, signs, potions I had were rendered pointless by levelling up. Rarely did I bother with enemy weaknesses, even on Death March.

For me you could really tell that TW3's main game had been poppamoled for the mainstream.

 

[HarveyBirdman]

Falksi, you're just wrong. All there is to it.
And that is ironic... sorry about that one...

 

[Falksi]

Falksi, you're just wrong. All there is to it.
And that is ironic... sorry about that one...

I think the game boils down how much value you find in aesthetic stimulation tbh. It's a sense thing for me. I like more reactive, unpredictable games.

Appriciate your apology mate, no harm done or offence taken you weren't to know, just sods law with the irony

 

[Night Goat]

Jesus christ, I've already put 70 hours into this game with no end in sight. No way I'm buying any DLC.

You should at the very least play Hearts of Stone, it isn't super long and has by far the best story content in the game.

 

[Zombra]

You should at the very least play Hearts of Stone, it isn't super long and has by far the best story content in the game.

Noted. Looks like it typically takes another 14 hours. Not too bad but certainly an investment.

 

[Perkel]

Jesus christ, I've already put 70 hours into this game with no end in sight. No way I'm buying any DLC.

Good advice. Try to finish game first. 70 hours if fucking nothing to TW3 especially if you have expansions.

CDPR said that they planned TW3 for about 100 hours of content but this is fucking lie. I barely touched anything in Skellige, never seen southern part of Vellen, skipped most of noticeboard quests, did almost no exploration aside from very few instances when i just wanted to see tower or something. I think i did 2/3 of novigrad area quests and i finished game in about 100 hours.
And that is just base game. They also fucking lied about both Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine. HoS was supposed to be 10 hours expansion pack and it took me around 23 hours and i didn't even get into runecrafting. Blood and Wine made me do same stuff as vanilla. I skipped at least half of quests and i ended up with something like 40 hours.

Recently W3EE mod got huge update and basically fixes gameplay and these days i am thinking about doing 100% tw3 this time not ignoring gameplay itself and frankly speaking even if i would start it today i don't think i would be able to finish it by end of the year. That is easily like 300 hours and that is still not going into full autism for every single POI like some do.

 

[Old One]

Blood and Wine is huge. It's big enough to be a whole game on its own. There's some pretty good stuff in there though, although I'm sure I missed a lot.

One thing I like about some of the quests in this game is that Geralt gets to choose who gets the rawest deal, but in the end everyone gets screwed. Instead of a "shades of grey" approach, you can decide which evil outcome is worse and which is preferable.

 

[OldNorseSaga]

Managed to clear whole White Orchard & it's quests, only to be bugged at in search for Ciri.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Off on a tangent...I'm going to be a little disappointed if Geralt doesn't get to bang the Duchess of Toussaint

Spoiler

You can bang her sister.

 

[Old One]

Off on a tangent...I'm going to be a little disappointed if Geralt doesn't get to bang the Duchess of Toussaint

Spoiler

You can bang her sister.

Done!

 

[Whiny-Butthurt-Liberal]

My mom sent me a cat video which has a familiar Slavic song. Upon closer inspection, I realized it's a Witcher 3 soundtrack. This sparked an entire sequence of back and forth, which ended with me finding out that my close relative's Polish wife worked as a writer on Witcher 3, and was responsible for some of the key dialogue and quest descriptions.

 

[cvv]

Doing my second run, after like 4 years, with the Ghost Mode mod. I have 100x more fun with the game now. The mod fixes most of the problems that fucking gnawed at me my entire 100 hour playthrough back in the day, although I think it's not going far enough in rehauling the loot and chardev. Still it's a huge help.

Plus three other simple but amazing mods that make the game sooo much bearable - a reshade mod to tone down the insane colour oversaturation, an autoloot mod (thank fucking god for that one) and insta-Roach (you automatically mount the horse the moment you whistle; summoning Roach is such a pain in the ass otherwise). With all those QoL adjustments the game is truly great.

 

[Tacgnol]

Doing my second run, after like 4 years, with the Ghost Mode mod. I have 100x more fun with the game now. The mod fixes most of the problems that fucking gnawed at me my entire 100 hour playthrough back in the day, although I think it's not going far enough in rehauling the loot and chardev. Still it's a huge help.

I'm still not sure whether to play Ghost Mode or EE on my next replay.