The Witcher 3 GOTY Edition

[AwesomeButton]

The RPG elements are surface level as fuck

It actually has good story C&C, which of course means you have to care about the story first.

"RPG elements", i.e. tactical choices and build decisions that matter, in a singe player character / no party, realtime, 3rd person RPG - when did this ever happen?

 

[AwesomeButton]

you can beat the game on Death March easily if you're not a complete retard while being totally underleveled if you're good enough at the action dance.

That's an overstatement.

The world design is clearly inspired by the Ubisoft shcool of pointless busywork, the writing is OK but has about as many lows as it has highs, I guess some armor sets look nice.

That's not far from the truth. IMO Witcher 3 is what happens when you put an actually good story and developed characters in a Ubisoft-style open world. Also, enough sidequests to give you the impression that there is life in this world apart from your main quest, which Ubisoft games lack. Converesely when you put a bland story and barely sketched out characters in a big open (yet level-gated) world, what you end up with is Odyssey.

Combat is too shallow to provide motivation to play by itself, at least for me, but I've never been fond of third person twitch combat, except the implementation they have in Mount&Blade. However, with mods you can achieve a balance of combat where your preparation matters, and your maneuvering, jumping, rolling also matters, if you are into that kind of 'tactial' twitch combat.

 

[Ol' Willy]

"RPG elements", i.e. tactical choices and build decisions that matter, in a singe player character / no party, realtime, 3rd person RPG - when did this ever happen?

I wouldn't call Dark Messiah a RPG, but there build decisions matter - you build a swordsman, magician or archer.

New Vegas.
Gothic series as the prime example.

 

[Desiderius]

The vanilla game's item levelling is so shit. Getting a relic class weapon or armor that's my current level shouldn't be this hard when I'm at level 7. it's like 1/20 chance or worse based on savescumming. I'd fix this ASAP if this wasn't my first playthrough, I don't want some mod to cost me my entire progress so far.

Just get the recipe from the Crypt? Am I remembering that right?

 

[Flying Dutchman]

Why do the Skellige islands have so laughably little shit going on outside of Are Skellig? Faroe doesn't even have anything apart from Lambert's questline fight lol

If I encountered one more Smuggler's Cache in Skellige, I would have lost my mind.

Once getting on the actual islands and walking around, though, I always felt like there was "enough" going on even if it wasn't scripted content.

The werewolf quest, however, was designed by a moron.

 

[Varnaan]

That's an overstatement.

Not really.
I fought the flame guy in the secret hideout in Novigrad while totally underleveled and ungeared, he'd kill me in one hit and I took out 0.5% of his health per hit, but I still did it out of sheer stubornness on death march.
The same goes for all fights that aren't glitchy or have instagib mechanics.

 

[Zero Credibility]

On a serious note, can anyone recommend some mods that push this game to become a better CRPG (and harder) ? Exclude the battle precision mod.

EE. Not sure how much it really improves it as a crpg, as much as I hate level-gated content in the vanilla, I'm not very crazy about improve-with-use systems either. But overall I would say it does make W3 a better game, with lots of little improvements, many of which are customizable through the built-in menu. And it does also make it way, way harder, especially in the beginning.

 

[Semiurge]

The vanilla game's item levelling is so shit. Getting a relic class weapon or armor that's my current level shouldn't be this hard when I'm at level 7. it's like 1/20 chance or worse based on savescumming. I'd fix this ASAP if this wasn't my first playthrough, I don't want some mod to cost me my entire progress so far.

Just get the recipe from the Crypt? Am I remembering that right?

Do you mean the potion that lets you redistribute skill points? That wouldn't solve anything.

 

[mediocrepoet]

"RPG elements", i.e. tactical choices and build decisions that matter, in a singe player character / no party, realtime, 3rd person RPG - when did this ever happen?

I wouldn't call Dark Messiah a RPG, but there build decisions don't matter - you build a swordsman, magician or archer guy who kicks a lot.

ftfy

 

[Desiderius]

The vanilla game's item levelling is so shit. Getting a relic class weapon or armor that's my current level shouldn't be this hard when I'm at level 7. it's like 1/20 chance or worse based on savescumming. I'd fix this ASAP if this wasn't my first playthrough, I don't want some mod to cost me my entire progress so far.

Just get the recipe from the Crypt? Am I remembering that right?

Do you mean the potion that lets you redistribute skill points? That wouldn't solve anything.

No. There’s a crypt to the north of the starter area that has recipes for swords that should last you up to level ten or so.

Serpentine I think

 

[Semiurge]

The vanilla game's item levelling is so shit. Getting a relic class weapon or armor that's my current level shouldn't be this hard when I'm at level 7. it's like 1/20 chance or worse based on savescumming. I'd fix this ASAP if this wasn't my first playthrough, I don't want some mod to cost me my entire progress so far.

Just get the recipe from the Crypt? Am I remembering that right?

Do you mean the potion that lets you redistribute skill points? That wouldn't solve anything.

No. There’s a crypt to the north of the starter area that has recipes for swords that should last you up to level ten or so.

Serpentine I think

You mean the Viper swords in White Orchard, I got the diagrams for those. They were for level 2 at the time. I've got something better now, a level 5 Moon Blade with 3 rune slots, and level 4 wild hunt warrior's sword. I don't care about the bonus xp from witcher swords.

 

[AwesomeButton]

BTW, I didn't expect how cool de-leveling of everything would make the game. The Enhanced Edition mod is superb.

 

[Yosharian]

I really like Enhanced Edition but it's too hard. I already beat the game on Death March, I just want a nice easy experience so I can get to see the dlcs now.

 

[Danikas]

I really like Enhanced Edition but it's too hard. I already beat the game on Death March, I just want a nice easy experience so I can get to see the dlcs now.

You can change every value (enemy damage, player damage, enemy health, player health, stamina, etc.) and make it as easy as you want the best thing about Enhanced Edition is fact that you can do quests in any order you want the main story was designed for that but the stupid vannila lvl gating prevents you from going to Skellige at the start for example.

 

[Yosharian]

I really like Enhanced Edition but it's too hard. I already beat the game on Death March, I just want a nice easy experience so I can get to see the dlcs now.

You can change every value (enemy damage, player damage, enemy health, player health, stamina, etc.) and make it as easy as you want the best thing about Enhanced Edition is fact that you can do quests in any order you want the main story was designed for that but the stupid vannila lvl gating prevents you from going to Skellige at the start for example.

Oh. How did I miss this. Time to reinstall I guess

 

[AwesomeButton]

It's in the mod options accessed by the main menu. I haven't messed with the values yet, I'm trying to git gud. But that bear that keeps killng me around the souther place of power in white orchard has been making me consider doing some damage values tuning.

 

[Yosharian]

Has Witcher 3 on PC gotten this new raytracing update yet?

 

[AwesomeButton]

Is this even a thing that's going to happen?

 

[Danikas]

Is this even a thing that's going to happen?

https://thewitcher.com/en/news/32792/the-witcher-3-wild-hunt-is-coming-to-the-next-generation

We’re working on the next generation edition of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt!

Developed to take advantage of the most powerful gaming hardware, the next-gen edition of the game will feature a range of visual and technical improvements — including ray tracing and faster loading times — across the base game, both expansions, and all extra content.

The next generation edition of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will release as a standalone purchase for PC, Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5, as well as a free update for everyone who already owns the game on PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4.

 

[Yosharian]

Is this even a thing that's going to happen?

Yup, I'm gonna wait til it drops before playing again I think

 

[AwesomeButton]

I know the Enhanced Edition reduces the loot overall, but is it normal that monster nests should have no loot at all? I just destroyed one, using Igni, not a bomb and I was wondering if there is no loot because of using Igni.

 

[Zero Credibility]

I've not been playing the latest version, but no, it's not. There should always be something of value there in my experience - gems, jewelry, something. Maybe it's just that one?

Anyway, I'm playing with default values for enemies myself, except I cut elemental hp in half. Otherwise a fight with golems or elementals turns into 15 minutes of careful hit and run where one mistake is instantly fatal. That bear in white orchard can be cheesed by running around it on the horse. Many enemies that are found outside of dungeons are susceptible to this, making it my preferred tactic when I can't be arsed to fight them properly or just don't yet have the gear or skills to do that.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I've not been playing the latest version, but no, it's not. There should always be something of value there in my experience - gems, jewelry, something. Maybe it's just that one?

Anyway, I'm playing with default values for enemies myself, except I cut elemental hp in half. Otherwise a fight with golems or elementals turns into 15 minutes of careful hit and run where one mistake is instantly fatal. That bear in white orchard can be cheesed by running around it on the horse. Many enemies that are found outside of dungeons are susceptible to this, making it my preferred tactic when I can't be arsed to fight them properly or just don't yet have the gear or skills to do that.

Against the bear, at first I thought I'm simply not meant to fight this yet. I made a few attempts, but after a while I simply managed to walk near enough to the place of power without aggroing the bear.

What irritated me for a while was the pack of wolves in the "Vulpine woods" which always spawn in your way when you are heading for the place of power there. They are way too nimble, prone to surround you, and take too many hits to quickly kill, and there is six of them, including one worg. I thought "meh, this simply isn't meant to be played this way", and then I resorted to parthian tactics with the horse, until I reduced them to three, which I later took on individually.

Still, even the fact that we can talk about random encounters with their place and number of enemies shows that the mod's combat is an improvement, they are no longer just nameless spawns of some nuisance to deal with in 30 seconds.

 

[AwesomeButton]

The monster nest I was talking about is the 5 ghouls in White orchard, next to where the road bends. The area is called "Ravaged lands", on the eastern side of the map.

 

[Zero Credibility]

Yeah, white orchard can be fucking hard with EE. I often resorted to just cheesing through it. Later on you get the tools to take enemies on directly, but at the start...

As for the monster nest, not sure. It could just be that this particular nest is bugged. The only other thing that comes to my mind is that maybe nests destroyed by igni behave like most other remains and disappear on reload? Did you perhaps save and reload between burning the nest and trying to loot it?