Game News The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine Expansion Released

[Infinitron]

Tags: CD Projekt; The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt; The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Blood and Wine

Geralt of Rivia's final adventure, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Blood and Wine, sees its release tonight, just over a year after the release of the critically acclaimed base game. The expansion's previews, reviews and launch trailer are all already out there, so there's nothing left for me to do but quote its description:

Blood and Wine is the final expansion for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt -- an award-winning role-playing game set in a vast fantasy open world.

Become professional monster slayer Geralt of Rivia and explore Toussaint, a remote land untouched by war, where you will unravel the horrifying secret behind a beast terrorizing the kingdom. With all trails leading to dead ends, only a witcher can solve the mystery and survive the evil lurking in the night. Introducing an entirely new realm to traverse, new characters and monsters, Blood and Wine is a 20+ hour adventure full of dark deeds, unexpected twists, romance and deceit.

Explore an entirely new part of The Witcher’s vast open world -- the land of wine, Toussaint

• Embark on over 30 hours of new adventures and discover a land unlike anything you’ve seen in Wild Hunt or Hearts of Stone.
  
• Visit new points of interest and set out on new side-quests in a realm rivalling No Man’s Land or Novigrad in size.
  
• Kick back and relax in your very own vineyard, a real home away from home.

Hunt down an elusive beast terrorizing the kingdom

• Unravel the mystery of the strange killings -- investigate a series of brutal murders and decipher the pattern to predict who’s going to die next.
  
• Discover the dirty secrets of Toussaint’s capital, Beauclair -- explore the city by day, ask questions by night.
  
• Use new gear, items, and combine them with your skill to slay monsters never before seen in the series.

Embark on your final quest in a world still brimming with things to do

• Visit a world of fairytales gone wrong and battle surreal creatures you know from children’s tales and books.
  
• Dye witcher armors in different colors thanks to an all-new game mechanic.
  
• Take on knights in a grand tourney to show your true fighting skill, or set out to discover the gruesome mystery behind a spoon-collecting creature known as a wight.
  
• Team up with powerful allies to take down the beast terrorizing the kingdom, or turn a blind eye to what’s going on and play Gwent with an all-new Skellige deck.

You can get Blood and Wine for $20 on Steam or GOG. I don't know how many of you still care to play Witcher 3 at this point, but I'm sure we can at least expect a few good duck comics.

 

[RK47]

They're hitting Bethesda's level of world building.

Soon we'll have radiant notice boards.

 

[Elhoim]

They're hitting Bethesda's level of world building.

Soon we'll have radiant notice boards.

To be fair, it's only upscaling. So easier monsters would be harder, but harder ones won't be easier.

 

[Aenra]

I like how he plays F4, is fine with it, but when the opportunity arises? Regurgitates Codex rule #58573 (because everyone else says so, so why can't he)
Upscaling is not wrong in theory. Can be wrong in implementation, yes, but the gook is hardly the expert on such matters. Between F4 and Bioware's Star Wars Online, whatever grey matter he has left is hardly adequate anymore

Does anyone know if they have improved on their modding support? Am uninterested in the 'default' version..
i.e. are there still scripting errors due to the official script handling, is it still incapable of running multiple mods simultaneously (used to be you had to activate one, exit, activate another, re-exit and so on [or it would crash]) and most of all, has any streamlining such as a mod managing tool been added (or made)? Ordering, merging, etc.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[RK47]

To be fair, it's only upscaling. So easier monsters would be harder, but harder ones won't be easier.

To be fair, it does absolutely nothing to address the stupidity of the character level design. Even Bethesda learned from this by creating 'leveled zones' where places in northwest Boston wouldn't spawn high level enemies, but as you go further south and east, things got tougher. Logical progression and low level players eventually learn to avoid taking on dangerous places until they're ready, assuming they played in the revamped Survival difficulty. Or, you can even try be creative, take the risk against high level mobs and drop some frag mines, lure a few of them and score a few indirect kills.

But what do we see in Witcher 3? Try that against a skull-rated mob and they'd vaporize you in 2 hits or less. This is a game where you slaughter a lvl 10 Griffin, only to get destroyed by level 28 dwarf thugs in Novigrad because you didn't pay attention to recommended level in the quest log. And now I'm loaded into Heart of Stone at level 33, wondering what content can possibly challenge Geralt at that level after facing down a slew of beasts both lowly like Drowners, common bandits and epic ones, like Katakans, Dragons, and the Wild Hunt warband itself.

Guess what? I went into a sewer below Oxenfurt, and I encountered level 35 drowners.
I slaughtered a random thug in a side quest and got a lvl 35 sword, a pair of gloves and a random armor I want to try on. However, Geralt, the slayer of the Wild Hunt, can't equip it while a thug can. You know, the same Geralt who slaughtered Velen's Crones, and beat a dragon in Witcher 2?

Oh, I also went and quickly redo the sidequest to hunt drunk-slaying Katakan in Oxenfurt. Without the upscaling on, that dude died in two hits. Hooray for fucked up game design. FYI, I don't mind having tougher time against Katakans, because they're lore monsters. But fucking drowners? No fucking way. I refuse to accept to have trouble dealing with a bunch of these trash after the obscene amount of epic encounters I've beat .

You know this game has fucked up design when you gotta turn your brain off for this to not to bother you.
I hope they learned from this but I doubt it, they never really think it's a problem and just added upscaled option so the side content don't turn into a joke for those who rushed thru the primary content. Thanks for adding better tomato sauce, CDPR, but you still have a terrible fried chicken which is half cooked and battered with crispy level mechanics in a fucking game that should've been a great action hack and slash. But it looks good and you won GOTY, so it didn't deserve to be criticized.

 

[J_C]

So many crybabies... Maybe you should, git gud!

 

[MicoSelva]

RK47 makes a valid point, although he overestimates how much that stupid enemy level design affects the enjoyment of the game for most people.

 

[commie]

Ima bad playa

If you're not good enough for Witcher then here's a game more on your level...no problem with baddies being teh hard: http://store.steampowered.com/app/22330/

 

[Makabb]

Atleast Witcher 3 gives you XP for combat unlike the abortion pillars of eternity

 

[RK47]

If you're not good enough for Witcher then here's a game more on your level...no problem with baddies being teh hard: http://store.steampowered.com/app/22330/

Ahhh that potato pride.

 

[Perkel]

Yeah enemy level in TW3 is weird but there is mod that removes +6 lvl above Geralt superbuff to monsters. (for 1.21 is still not updated though should be updated in few days)
Then there is rebalancing which changes monsters and so on.

Either way after B&W and few patches game will be finally in form to seriously fix gameplay. There were some awesome overhaul mods like Shool of Roach and other one but every time patch is released it breaks mods. So without new patches modders will be able to finally do some serious stuff.

Back in 1.10 i played with alchemy being like in TW1, no loot level scaling and with monsters def being focused on type of monster (still there were harder ones).

 

[Zed]

Atleast Witcher 3 gives you XP for combat unlike the abortion pillars of eternity

also dont forget babes and gore

the three pillars of a good game. combat exp, babes, gore.

 

[Multidirectional]

RK47 makes a valid point, although he overestimates how much that stupid enemy level design affects the enjoyment of the game for most people.

Yeah, all three Witcher games have shit gameplay systems and they are liked by many regardless. Clearly it's not what people play them for.

 

[taxalot]

Muh gameplay mechanics.

Nobody gives a shit. It's Witcher, not Baldur's Gate.

 

[Excidium II]

Muh gameplay mechanics.

Nobody gives a shit. It's Witcher, not Baldur's Gate.

 

[Black]

Did someone say bladder's gate?

 

[Metro]

Looks like they turned Witcher into Diablo.

 

[abnaxus]

Oh, I also went and quickly redo the sidequest to hunt drunk-slaying Katakan in Oxenfurt. Without the upscaling on, that dude died in two hits. Hooray for fucked up game design. FYI, I don't mind having tougher time against Katakans, because they're lore monsters. But fucking drowners? No fucking way. I refuse to accept to have trouble dealing with a bunch of these trash after the obscene amount of epic encounters I've beat .

Legendary Devouring Drowners

 

[muds_animal_friend]

At least Witcher 3 gives a completely inconsequential amount XP for combat. Like any good next-gen RPG, the vast majority of XP is earned by watching cutscenes.

Fixed.

 

[RK47]

At least Witcher 3 gives a completely inconsequential amount XP for combat. Like any good next-gen RPG, the vast majority of XP is earned by watching cutscenes.

Fixed.

Killing 10 drowners actually gave less EXP than herding two pigs into a pen.

 

[Black]

At least Witcher 3 gives a completely inconsequential amount XP for combat. Like any good next-gen RPG, the vast majority of XP is earned by watching cutscenes.

Fixed.

Killing 10 drowners actually gave less EXP than herding two pigs into a pen.

What does that say about Original Sin exp?
All those juicy rats and other fauna.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Metro]

At least Witcher 3 gives a completely inconsequential amount XP for combat. Like any good next-gen RPG, the vast majority of XP is earned by watching cutscenes.

Fixed.

Killing 10 drowners actually gave less EXP than herding two pigs into a pen.

What does that say about Original Sin exp?
All those juicy rats and other fauna.

Original Sin has good combat, though.

 

[Azrael the cat]

To be fair, it's only upscaling. So easier monsters would be harder, but harder ones won't be easier.

To be fair, it does absolutely nothing to address the stupidity of the character level design. Even Bethesda learned from this by creating 'leveled zones' where places in northwest Boston wouldn't spawn high level enemies, but as you go further south and east, things got tougher. Logical progression and low level players eventually learn to avoid taking on dangerous places until they're ready, assuming they played in the revamped Survival difficulty. Or, you can even try be creative, take the risk against high level mobs and drop some frag mines, lure a few of them and score a few indirect kills.

But what do we see in Witcher 3? Try that against a skull-rated mob and they'd vaporize you in 2 hits or less. This is a game where you slaughter a lvl 10 Griffin, only to get destroyed by level 28 dwarf thugs in Novigrad because you didn't pay attention to recommended level in the quest log. And now I'm loaded into Heart of Stone at level 33, wondering what content can possibly challenge Geralt at that level after facing down a slew of beasts both lowly like Drowners, common bandits and epic ones, like Katakans, Dragons, and the Wild Hunt warband itself.

Guess what? I went into a sewer below Oxenfurt, and I encountered level 35 drowners.
I slaughtered a random thug in a side quest and got a lvl 35 sword, a pair of gloves and a random armor I want to try on. However, Geralt, the slayer of the Wild Hunt, can't equip it while a thug can. You know, the same Geralt who slaughtered Velen's Crones, and beat a dragon in Witcher 2?

Oh, I also went and quickly redo the sidequest to hunt drunk-slaying Katakan in Oxenfurt. Without the upscaling on, that dude died in two hits. Hooray for fucked up game design. FYI, I don't mind having tougher time against Katakans, because they're lore monsters. But fucking drowners? No fucking way. I refuse to accept to have trouble dealing with a bunch of these trash after the obscene amount of epic encounters I've beat .

You know this game has fucked up design when you gotta turn your brain off for this to not to bother you.
I hope they learned from this but I doubt it, they never really think it's a problem and just added upscaled option so the side content don't turn into a joke for those who rushed thru the primary content. Thanks for adding better tomato sauce, CDPR, but you still have a terrible fried chicken which is half cooked and battered with crispy level mechanics in a fucking game that should've been a great action hack and slash. But it looks good and you won GOTY, so it didn't deserve to be criticized.

That's one thing that BG2 does surprisingly well - moderately high-level encounter design. I remember their interviews and fluff emphasising that they'd put a lot of thought into ensuring that the player was now a significant power in the world, and it shows. Trash mobs are assisted either by numbers, or quite often, by being minions of appropriately strong mini-bosses. Common thugs/orcs are easy throughout, in chap 2-3 the fluff does a good job of explaining that the mooks are now elite shadow thieves and minor vampires instead of alley thugs, then by the time you're massively overpowered you're thrust into the underdark, where it makes sense for trash combat to be of a much higher level. When you leave the underdark you can go back and smash pretty much anything, though the exp won't matter to you nearly as much as if you'd done it before heading underground.