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The Witcher W3EE - Overhaul mod to TW3 that fixed everything that was wrong with vanilla game.

Joined
Feb 11, 2007
Messages
2,951
So after playing for a while with Ghost Mode I found myself missing some quality of life improvements of EE, and decided to maybe give it another shot. And for once playing on linux worked in my favor as I could easily have two separate installations to play both mods at the same time. And, well, it kinda grew on me. It's actually quite decent as long as you realize the mod is autism distilled, and adjust a few settings to preserve your sanity.

Personally, I reduced all enemy hitpoints by 20%, and elemental hit points by 60% (and even then it's a 5-10 minutes long slog to kill one of tougher ones, where a single misstep can kill you dead). I've also turned off weight for money, quest items and alchemical components, as well as increased the stash size. Oh, and I increased maximum sell prices to half, I think. With those in place it was a much smoother sailing for me.

Now, some problems still remain. I still hate improvement of skills by use, the character power curve is very, very flat for the most part, and 95+% of gear is just as useless as it was in vanilla (if for different reasons - in vanilla most of it was hopelessly outclassed as you level up, here most of it is just more or less the same shit). Alchemy system is weaponized autism, but you only really need Swallow and sometimes a couple of other potions / oils. And Grapeshot bombs, of course, lots and lots of Grapeshot, there's no problem these can't solve in enough quantity. I did not once use any decoctions, as they are such a pain in the ass to make that I just leave them off for when I will really need them later (and end up never using them).

All in all, I'm having fun for now. Found some content I've never seen before (never played with expansions before), and even some stuff I completely forgot about (loled at the whole throw-a-baby-into-oven thing). Just wrapping up Skellige now.
 

DalekFlay

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I did this relatively early into the game by sniping the wolves with a crossbow one by one. Whenever I got hit, I ran away from the cave, ate some food and meditated to heal, returned to snipe another wolf, rinse and repeat until it was only me and the Werewolf left. Cheap shit and clearly an exploit, but I was determined to beat the quest without returning to it later.

I find the idea that this is more fun than vanilla pretty suspect.
 

anvi

Prophet
Village Idiot
Joined
Oct 12, 2016
Messages
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Location
Kelethin
This thread annoys me every time it pops up. This mod doesn't fix the one thing that was wrong with W3 (the dumb combat) and yet fixes lots of other stuff that was fine to begin with.
 

Lambach

Arcane
Joined
Feb 11, 2016
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Location
Belgrade, Removekebabland
I find the idea that this is more fun than vanilla pretty suspect.

It's not like you have to do it this way. The encounter was redesigned with a mid-to-late game Geralt in mind and I approached it fairly early. A sane person would've just left the area and came back after powering up, but I got irrationally stubborn for some reason.
 

cretin

Magister
Douchebag!
Joined
Apr 20, 2019
Messages
1,347
Stopped playing W3 for a long time (the game having pacing issues is really true) and booted it back up again yesterday for some play. I still had W3EE 4.93 installed.

On reflection, I don't like how this mod turns every single trash encounter into a grueling reload simulator. A lot of the problem comes down to even human enemies can kill you in 4 or 5 hits, but it takes you about 10 to kill a single lightly armored opponent. This makes taking on large groups of bandits feel really really shit, since you gotta take out the archers first, but instead of being tactical like "oh ill occupy the main group with some signs and then kite behind these tents so i can isolate the archers and finish them quickly" it ends up being like "oh this single archer is taking forever to kil - yep the halberd guy just catched up with me and now im stunlocked and dead". I still like a lot of what the mod aims (and largely achieves) to do, but the balancing is really off. Its the same shit with wild dog/wolves, who become a huge pain in the ass not because of their moveset and numbers, but just because they take so long to down.

5.00 is out now and features apparently even more major changes to gameplay with a new poise mechanic and parrying rework, but I can't be fucking bothered doing a fresh start to see how it is.
 

flyingjohn

Arcane
Joined
May 14, 2012
Messages
2,945
Modding witcher 3 is like trying to mod call of duty into deus ex.Bad idea.

It doesn't have the action elements to be dark souls or a semi competent eurojank.
It doesn't have any deep rpg elements and most of the gameplay is reliant on said weak action elements.
It also uses levels as the core of its difficulty which is horrendous.

Witcher 1 is the only one that had a resemblance of character skill meaning something and that was mostly a rhythm game in terms of combat.
 

cvv

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This mod reminds me of that guy who bought a standard Toyota, thought it was underpowered and tried to solve that problem by replacing the vanilla engine with a massive V8 from a Ferrari.

Forgetting that the rest of the car - the brakes, the gearbox, the steering, the tires - is absolutely not built for such a powerful engine.
 

ekrolo2

Learned
Joined
Jun 8, 2019
Messages
201
EE lets you customize lots permutations from damage to all kinds of enemies, player health, weight, how much money you get from selling stuff... I'd consider doing so as mandatory. The base EE is, as many have rightfully pointed out, gruelling as fuck and not in a good way most of the time.
 

cretin

Magister
Douchebag!
Joined
Apr 20, 2019
Messages
1,347
EE lets you customize lots permutations from damage to all kinds of enemies, player health, weight, how much money you get from selling stuff... I'd consider doing so as mandatory. The base EE is, as many have rightfully pointed out, gruelling as fuck and not in a good way most of the time.

Honeslty I knew this, but I just hate/refuse to do this sort of thing as a matter of principle. I get mods to play because someone says they're a better experience or they add this and that to the game. When it turns out said experience the way the AUTHOR intended, is shit, them being all like "well you can just change anything you dont like anyway!" --- NO. I might as well just be modding the game myself at that point, and its not fun, and I'm constantly having to wonder if I'm getting the intended experience or how changing one variable affects the overall balance and so on. no no no.

Its like skyrim tards with their "well just xedit whatever yo-" NO.

Anyway, I deleted W3 today. Not just the mod but the entire game. Not just EE mods fault - twitcher itself just has too much shit to be able to pick up again. Besides the little i played of EE 5.0 didn't signal any vast improvements to me, just another layer of complexity added with the poise system.
 

moon knight

Matt7895's alt
Joined
Apr 7, 2015
Messages
1,101
Location
Italy
What the hell is "poise"

This mod is too autistic, its development went off the rails real quick.
 

Perkel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 28, 2014
Messages
15,810
What the hell is "poise"
This mod is too autistic, its development went off the rails real quick.

Basically ability to not be staggered when you get hit. In vanilla game every time someone hits you, you get staggered which means fighting group of people from all sides was basically impossible because they would stunlock you.

With this you can pack heavy armor some skills and such and have poise to get through few hits before you get staggered.
 

Valdetiosi

Scholar
Joined
Apr 18, 2016
Messages
215
Location
Finland
Honestly, I like this mod a lot on what it tries to achieve. The only problem with it is however that it's Witcher 3 this was modded in it, and putting me to play this game 4th time now that Version 5 was released is burning me off; this mod would be fine if the game would be smaller.

The 3rd playthrough was done with this mod year ago or so. I had played the game up to finding Ciri and I was wondering "maybe there should be a time I should replace my Kaer Mohern Armor.".
 

cretin

Magister
Douchebag!
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Apr 20, 2019
Messages
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i was just reading on the discord today a few people thinking the latest version mod is too easy now because geralt's base damage got a big bump, so packs of things like drowners and shit are easier to clear out. They actually want this to be nerfed. These guys must be into cock n ball torture.

On the other hand, im reading that human mobs aren't as painful to deal with anymore because they no longer have bullshit defenses that take no chip damage, and the poise mechanic means you can get a lot more knockdowns and quick finishes if you play your cards right.
 
Last edited:

cretin

Magister
Douchebag!
Joined
Apr 20, 2019
Messages
1,347
Ok so im a weak willed little bitch and my curiosity got the better of me, so i reinstalled W3 and the latest version of EE mod.

I dont know or care about the changes on paper; all i care about is how it feels to play. And I can say 5.0 feels a lot better. The damage increase was sorely needed, and the poise system means you can aggressively focus on an enemy and break them down for a quick kill. The result is some of the fights that were extremely hard before are now a lot easier, but i dont give a fuck, it plays a lot better. The first griffin fight for example, that was a notorious pain in the ass - unless you were one of those discord autists who just knows like every inch of every animation and hitbox in the game - is now actually a fairly easy fight if you play well. It only took me about 3 reloads as opposed to in 4.93 where i probably had to reload upwards of 20 times (yeah, seriously) and got very close to smashing my fist into the laptop.

Stamina drain is actually worse now, but on the flip side it recovers a lot quicker. I like this balance more, you still pay for spamming actions but the quicker recovery keeps the pace of the fight up so you can maneuver and keep making active decisions instead of just trying to circle around waiting for stamina to regen.
 

cvv

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And I can say 5.0 feels a lot better.

A few peeps ITT pointed out this mod totally destroys the itemization since the difference between your starting gear and the gear you'd find in the world is so meaningless you might as well not bother. Have they tried to address this in 5.0?
 

Perkel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 28, 2014
Messages
15,810
A few peeps ITT pointed out this mod totally destroys the itemization since the difference between your starting gear and the gear you'd find in the world is so meaningless you might as well not bother. Have they tried to address this in 5.0?

By far the best feature of W3EE is flat progression system with that equipment thing you talk about. You don't find "better" sword (though they exist) you find different sword for different things. So as you play your character builds his stats, finds specific armor to fit build and specific weapons to fit build. That build creation is where power comes from not from +1 to your sword.
 

Valdetiosi

Scholar
Joined
Apr 18, 2016
Messages
215
Location
Finland
A few peeps ITT pointed out this mod totally destroys the itemization since the difference between your starting gear and the gear you'd find in the world is so meaningless you might as well not bother. Have they tried to address this in 5.0?

By far the best feature of W3EE is flat progression system with that equipment thing you talk about. You don't find "better" sword (though they exist) you find different sword for different things. So as you play your character builds his stats, finds specific armor to fit build and specific weapons to fit build. That build creation is where power comes from not from +1 to your sword.

The flat progression would actually work if the game wasn't so goddamn huge. In scale of Witcher 2, yeah, and in that game where everything had organic levels it could work, but Witcher 3 is too large for what it is to sustain flat progression system to keep interest peaked save for relic weapons.

The combat mechanics introduced in 5.0 does speed up and make the gameplay smoother and faster, but it still have scratches on the surface that should be addressed. Unfortunately I don't think there could be viable solution than remove nearly all lootable weapon or armor.
 
Joined
Jan 7, 2012
Messages
14,153
And I can say 5.0 feels a lot better.

A few peeps ITT pointed out this mod totally destroys the itemization since the difference between your starting gear and the gear you'd find in the world is so meaningless you might as well not bother. Have they tried to address this in 5.0?

It fixes itemization so you don't have to compare 100 different fucking swords every time you head back to a city.

Starting swords are at the highest damage level but there's still lots of unique and rare swords with magic effects that you'll find and that will give a large benefit.

The flat progression would actually work if the game wasn't so goddamn huge. In scale of Witcher 2, yeah, and in that game where everything had organic levels it could work, but Witcher 3 is too large for what it is to sustain flat progression system to keep interest peaked save for relic weapons.

You don't have to visit every location of the map and do every sidequest.
 

Perkel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 28, 2014
Messages
15,810
The flat progression would actually work if the game wasn't so goddamn huge. In scale of Witcher 2, yeah, and in that game where everything had organic levels it could work, but Witcher 3 is too large for what it is to sustain flat progression system to keep interest peaked save for relic weapons.

The combat mechanics introduced in 5.0 does speed up and make the gameplay smoother and faster, but it still have scratches on the surface that should be addressed. Unfortunately I don't think there could be viable solution than remove nearly all lootable weapon or armor.

That would be right if that flat progression system was completely flat and narrow. Meaning that you can't find any upgrade and there is just damage to care about without anything else. But that is not the case for W3EE. In W3EE build is your real progression while relics and other stuff gives you auxilary improvements.

So W3EE system is flat but not completely flat and it is wide giving you breath of avenues to explore in how you build your character. So your PC is amalgation of exploration you did in game and that is real achievement of w3ee.

The whole relic system is just cherry on top why W3EE got it right.

I mean base TW3 systems are all over the place hold with string before it would fall down on its own. W3EE manages to reform every part of that system and make it airtight where it is hard to even thing of about any improvement to it and at the same time manages to fix other non system issues due to better loot itemization which for example solves exploration issue where exploration was meaningless as every random npc home was just as good place to loot as sunk evil lord fortress.
 

cretin

Magister
Douchebag!
Joined
Apr 20, 2019
Messages
1,347
And I can say 5.0 feels a lot better.

A few peeps ITT pointed out this mod totally destroys the itemization since the difference between your starting gear and the gear you'd find in the world is so meaningless you might as well not bother. Have they tried to address this in 5.0?

My feeling is they are exaggerating. The good stuff is really good and definitely worth upgrading. Anyone who is disputing that a fully upgraded griffin set isn't bananas with its vigor regen and yrden bonuses is speaking out of ignorance for example.

Its just that not everything you find is obviously better. I dont like the way they handled relic swords - a lot of them trade off flat/base damage for unique bonuses. Arguably they could be slotted into some unique builds, but i just junk them.

A lot of the itemization in general seems to tend towards encouraging you to have multiple sets of gear for different enemy types. I definitely had situations where i was swapping out gear to focus on stacking a specific defense for a specific enemy (especially vampires, fuck vampires), but it is true that the vast majority of generic shit you stumble across is often not appreciably better than what you probably already have.
 

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