The Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone Expansion

[randir14]

The expansion adds way more than I expected, I thought it was just going to be some new quests in existing areas. They even paid attention to little details like giving Geralt new combat taunts.

 

[Infinitron]

Released: http://store.steampowered.com/app/378649/
http://af.gog.com/game/the_witcher_3_wild_hunt_hearts_of_stone?as=1649904300

 

[toro]

Encountered the first tricky quest - Without a Trace

Spoiler

After speaking with the peasants then you can trace the smell of rotten meat to the dead guy. In conclusion I've killed the peasants cause they were cannibals. Problem is that inside the house there is a locked room and I don't know if there is a way to open it. Is it?

 

[cvv]

CDPR faggots didn't give the preload option because "DLC is not that big". And now ofc GOG is completely overloaded, even their bloody web page won't load.

 

[Perkel]

mk

CDPR faggots didn't give the preload option because "DLC is not that big". And now ofc GOG is completely overloaded, even their bloody web page won't load.

buy on gog download from torrents. works like charm

 

[Perkel]

BTW people if you still didn't do it you should use those two mods:

Remove leveleing restrictions
how to update above in posts
Combat evolved
works with 1.10

Strongly advised new game. Ton of changes won't work unless you will start new game. But due to what modds change you will be able to go to Skellige in first hour if you want as you are locked out of places only by gear not by lvl.


What it does:

- Removes those shitty level restrictions. Now your witcha will be able to use Nilfgardian longsword being one level lower. This goes to armor and rest of stuff.
- Thanks to above it changes dynamic of game. Instead of playing hours trying to get exp you can do few quest and simply put get an upgrade without problems.
- You can go for higher level mosnters without problems now. Vanilla game ensured you won't hunt them as it gave higher level monsters (if you were low level) 30% resistance to all damage and huuuuge HP bonus. Now with combat evolved that is gone.
- All skills slots are unlocked since lvl 1
- All skills are used at once when you learn them. No longer you need to put them in skill slot
- Slots are still used for those mutagen bonuses
- All signs seconds modes, special attack heavy fast unlocked from lvl 1 and rebalanced. For example Quen last 6 seconds instead of 30.
- Scales back HP of monsters, especially high level ones.
- Rebalances weapons and armor. Your starting witcher gear (and especially upgrade) is now proper witcher gear instead of being worse than any armor in game. It isn't the best but will take you through most of low level quest fine.
- Generally decreases amount of damage and armor you can get (due to lower monster hp)
- you get 2 skill points per level till lvl 10 then 1 till 50 and 0 past 50
- rebalanced potion system and food. No longer 8 second bonuses. Food lasts 5-7 minutes and is viable option to heal.
- same goes for oils


In other words thanks to those changes you can now easily try to fight drowners lvl 15 being yourself lvl2 with basic sword. They will be harder but they won't be hp sponges.
Thanks to that mod you can try to fight high level monsters being 10-20 lvl below as lvl gives really minor health boost to monster and you.

It basically fixes combat model of tw3.

 

[Killzig]

I'm pretty pleased with the expansion so far. They've fleshed out most of the maps NE well. The bandit camps aren't so generic that they're dull thanks to the minor quest attached to that particular set of enemies. The only thing I don't care for is the diversity squad. That kind of orientalist portrayal of Middle Easterners went out of style in the 40s. I mean, I like Thief of Baghdad as much as the next Powell/Pressburger fag, but I would have enjoyed CD Projeckt making them out to be awful slavers and thieves just to troll the gaming press.

 

[dragonul09]

The expansion is pretty damn entertaining and much,much better than ''Find Ciri:The Game".Money well spent and can't wait for the other expansion.

 

[cvv]

But due to what modds change you will be able to go to Skellige in first hour if you want as you are locked out of places only by gear not by lvl.


What it does:

- Thanks to above it changes dynamic of game. Instead of playing hours trying to get exp you can do few quest and simply put get an upgrade without problems.

Soo....it basically removes the need for you to gain XP and level up?

So instead of a light RPG you're left with an ordinary action game. Grate mod, please recommend again.

The expansion is pretty damn entertaining and much,much better than ''Find Ciri:The Game".Money well spent and can't wait for the other expansion.

AND they finally managed to inclooode a dark skinned characters in the game! I guess bad press is worse than firm spine.

 

[Perkel]

Soo....it basically removes the need for you to gain XP and level up?

So instead of a light RPG you're left with an ordinary action game. Grate mod, please recommend again.

You still need levels for more skills and minor boost to hp just like vanilla.
Difference here is that game isn't gated anymore because some designer thought that Geralt somehow can't swing swords now or wear something and cheating player through superb buff to monsters if they were over your level.

You can still die like nothing if you play like ass.

 

[Carrion]

In other words thanks to those changes you can now easily try to fight drowners lvl 15 being yourself lvl2 with basic sword.

And what happens when you hit level 10, or 30? Combat in the main game pretty much lost all of the challenge before you left Velen, and if anything the mod seems to just lower the difficulty all around.

Liking the expansion so far, although I've only been screwing around in the Northern areas. Some of the new locations look really cool, and it seems the points of interest are actually somewhat interesting this time, based on one pretty cool little quest I found. Certainly seems bigger than expected, and I think it might take a couple of hours until I even get properly started with the main quest.

Combat seems slightly harder than in vanilla, mainly because enemies seem to be able to soak much more damage, but that might just be because they were having some serious armor on (almost as good as the legendary witcher sets...). Enemies also seem to have some new weapon types, like warhammers that cause a pretty nasty knockdown effect on hit.

 

[Perkel]

And what happens when you hit level 10, or 30? Combat in the main game pretty much lost all of the challenge before you left Velen, and if anything the mod seems to just lower the difficulty all around.

Nothing. It is the same. Difference here is that:

- gear is no longer restricted to levels
- monsters don't have plot armor (aka until you level up we will cheat)

If you go to some monster underequiped you will die. Where in vanilla you had to have both equipment and lvl.

Most of high gear in witcher either way is gate by loot you need to take like rare monsters parts which you can take only in later parts of game.

There are few uniques handplaced which you can find but i don't see reason why you should have that boost as reward for your trecking land in search of it.

 

[Old Hans]

BTW people if you still didn't do it you should use those two mods:

Remove leveleing restrictions
how to update above in posts
Combat evolved
works with 1.10

Strongly advised new game. Ton of changes won't work unless you will start new game. But due to what modds change you will be able to go to Skellige in first hour if you want as you are locked out of places only by gear not by lvl.

yea im using combat evolved and its really good. The way CD Projeckt designed the monster difficulty just blows my mind with its awfulness.

 

[Perkel]

yea im using combat evolved and its really good. The way CD Projeckt designed the monster difficulty just blows my mind with its awfulness.

Monster are ok. Stupid design to gate stuff via lvl is what made it shit.

I mean they aren't level scaled and you can fight lvl 50 monsters while being lvl 1 but despite fact that you are lvl 1 and have 0 skill and probably shit gear they decided to cheat and give them plot armor.

 

[Beowulf]

Soo....it basically removes the need for you to gain XP and level up?

So instead of a light RPG you're left with an ordinary action game. Grate mod, please recommend again.
[...]

Ahh, so RPG is leveling and XP. Come on...

 

[cvv]

Ahh, so RPG is leveling and XP. Come on...

 

[toro]

My experience with the expansion seems to get worse.

Spoiler

There is at least one enemy with plot armour. I mean he is invincible because the plot requires it at one specific moment. Another lousy Letho fight.
The romancing of Shani is crap. It's completely overdone compared with "his" previous romances. Sermon about marriage !? ... wtf is this shit.
The entire wedding quest reminded me about the Dandelion quest from Novigrad. Fucking awful.
Everything is weird in this expansion. It make me feel like a Bioware fan: mmorpg combat and stupid romances.
The only quest that requires any intelligence was "Without a Trace". It's also hilarious to see youtubers failing it (cause the game doesn't signal the fail state).
Anyway, I'm only at 30% of the dlc therefore maybe thing will improve. Perhaps.

 

[bminorkey]

The writing is way better than the main game's

I really like this so far

 

[Perkel]

To make point better. Currently i am lvl 10 and i have found diagram for harpy sword which is lvl 37. If i can make it then i can use it and get huuuuge boost to damage. Problem is that i need resources for that like glowing ore and such which i need to get from higher leveled chests in harder places.

 

[toro]

So, I'm at the end of the DLC and I've decided to quit the game ...

I know that not many people will share this impression with me but I think this DLC is shit.

SPOILERS BELOW

I've spent 2 hours trying to beat a 3 stages boss and it simply wasn't possible with my character on Death March. Basically there are 6 incarnations of this boss and each new one is moving faster.

That would not be a real problem except that I died multiple times on the last incarnation because it moves too fast. Dead in 1-2 hits, cannot heal, the signs are not working on this thing and the window of opportunity is very small.

Each incarnation requires from 10 to 15 hits for a kill and I have one of the best swords in the game (and I'm using the correct oil for it). Also this thing is automatically teleporting when you hit it in the back.

Basically you have to successfully land 50 hits in a row while not taking any damage. This is bad encounter design combined with bad balancing at higher levels. Broken level scaling.

Of course the fight is trivial on lower difficulties. But I don't care anymore, this is the worst fight from the entire series. It's absolutely garbage and it ruined the game for me.

Then I realized that nothing from the DLC will transfer in the main game. You cannot change the end of the original game. You can romance Shani but it doesn't matter because she will leave anyway.

And the end of the DLCs is an awful race against time while fighting mobs (another case of artificial difficulty). Did I mention that the starting point of the entire story doesn't make sense?

I seriously need to sleep over this shit.

 

[bminorkey]

So, I'm at the end of the DLC and I've decided to quit the game ...

I've spent 2 hours trying to beat a 3 stages boss and it simply wasn't possible with my character on Death March. Basically there are 6 incarnations of this boss and each new one is moving faster.

That would not be a real problem except that I died multiple times on the last incarnation because it moves too fast. Dead in 1-2 hits, cannot heal, the signs are not working on this thing and the window of opportunity is very small.

Each incarnation requires from 10 to 15 hits for a kill and I have one of the best swords in the game (and I'm using the correct oil for it). Also this thing is automatically teleporting when you hit it in the back.

Basically you have to successfully land 50 hits in a row while not taking any damage. This is bad encounter design combined with bad balancing at higher levels. Broken level scaling.

Of course the fight is trivial on lower difficulties. But I don't care anymore, this is the worst fight from the entire series. It's absolutely garbage and it ruined the game for me.

Then I realized that nothing from the DLC will transfer in the main game. You cannot change the end of the original game. You can romance Shani but it doesn't matter because she will leave anyway.

And the end of the DLCs is an awful race against time while fighting mobs (another case of artificial difficulty). Did I mention that the starting point of the entire story doesn't make sense?

I seriously need to sleep over this shit.

lol are you real

 

[Merlkir]

It's good. Nice that the final boss fight didn't involve fighting a giant demon. But hey, I'm a filthy casual playing on not-death-march.

 

[Aenra]

lol are you real

He seems to be. He also made an attempt to explain how he reached his conclusions.
If this does not suffice, let's pretend this a typical Witcher scene:

--DIALOGUE--
With the above i just gave you a hint.
--Press triangle for romance more hints--
He typed more than a 'lol'
--Press triangle again for maximum immershun--
MMO-like fights with akshun and skillz are hardly a badge of honour for any "RPG". RPGs are about your ingame character's skills, not those of your fingers

Did that help? Unless your issue with his response lies elsewhere, in which case, see triangle for hints above

 

[Merlkir]

RPGs are about your ingame character's skills, not those of your fingers

[repeat until (RPG.isDefined)]"What is an RPG?"[/repeat]

 

[bminorkey]

He seems to be. He also made an attempt to explain how he reached his conclusions.
If this does not suffice, let's pretend this a typical Witcher scene:

--DIALOGUE--
With the above i just gave you a hint.
--Press triangle for romance more hints--
He typed more than a 'lol'
--Press triangle again for maximum immershun--
MMO-like fights with akshun and skillz are hardly a badge of honour for any "RPG". RPGs are about your ingame character's skills, not those of your fingers

Did that help? Unless your issue with his response lies elsewhere, in which case, see triangle for hints above

An alchemy and bomb focused build makes the fight he's talking about much easier. He's playing on the highest difficulty and complaining he's dying a lot, but refuses to lower the difficulty or change his character build whatsoever. And this "ruined the game".