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The Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone Expansion

lukaszek

the determinator
Patron
Joined
Jan 15, 2015
Messages
12,620
deterministic system > RNG
 
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Jack Of Owls

Arcane
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May 23, 2014
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Location
Massachusettes
if you have money you can enchant your sword to store power on sign usage. This way applying yrden is way easier

I was about to explore this avenue but the runesmith guy wants 10,000 crowns/florins/whatever just for the second tier sword spell enchantments. An overabundance of gold coin is one of the many many things the developers fixed for this RPG, unfortunately.
 

Carrion

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jun 30, 2011
Messages
3,648
Location
Lost in Necropolis
Oh 1 more thing because its easy to miss: on hardest diff regen passive skill is kind of a must.
I actually think it's a waste of skill points. It's very handy early on, but it becomes almost useless after a few levels as there are so many different ways to heal yourself, many of them much more effective. There are at least four different decoctions that affect health regeneration in various ways, there are a couple of different healing potions, there's the Quen shield, there's more food and water than you could ever hope to be able to consume... The effect of the skill is so slow anyway that in combat the benefits are negligible.
 

Jack Of Owls

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May 23, 2014
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I took a break from Hearts of Stone after trudging through that dreary wedding for Chani's freind. It was the first time in the game that I just kept *click* *click* clicking with the magical Xbox 360 controller X button (I play on PC) through the cut-scenes dialogues they were so tedious. I think I'll be ready to continue in a week or two. Please don't tell me it doesn't get better. Lie to me, tell me it becomes the greatest DLC in the history of cRPGs after that one bad patch. Do it for a bro, will ya?
 

Jack Of Owls

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May 23, 2014
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I took a break from Hearts of Stone after trudging through that dreary wedding for Chani's freind. It was the first time in the game that I just kept *click* *click* clicking with the magical Xbox 360 controller X button (I play on PC) through the cut-scenes dialogues they were so tedious. I think I'll be ready to continue in a week or two. Please don't tell me it doesn't get better. Lie to me, tell me it becomes the greatest DLC in the history of cRPGs after that one bad patch. Do it for a bro, will ya?

The wedding was pretty much boring but it does get better after that. I quite liked what followed with some pretty interesting areas.

Thank you, pretty little liar ;) Nah, j/k, you sound sincere. I did enjoy the expansion up until that wedding despite having to bump difficulty down a notch to get through that Toad Prince battle. For others who may be faced with the prospect of that dull wedding, there may be an option to bypass it entirely. Just tell Chani "Hell, no!" when she bats her eyelashes at you, smiles sweetly, and asks you if you'd like to take her to her friend's wedding. Chani just doesn't do it for me. I'm carefully avoiding all dialogue options with her that could possibly have her fall in love with me. She's not as bad as Keira, but she's no Yennifer. If Chani dares to ask me if she could ever compete with Yen, rest assured I'll be creating my own little role-playing response in my head, like: "Are you mad, woman?! Yennifer rocks my world like absolutely no other! She can send a man to seventh heaven and seventh hell and back 10X without even touching him, using her telekinetic blast on his prostate! Bitch has got 100 years of experience in the boudoir! What have you got? Go away, little girl."
 

Jack Of Owls

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Poor Shani. I just realized that her name is "Shani" not "Chani." One thing's for certain, you'd never see me calling Yennefer Jennifer. Because that woman is memorable, though I have been spelling it Yennifer so WTF do I know? :lol:
 
Self-Ejected

Ludo Lense

Self-Ejected
Joined
Nov 28, 2014
Messages
936
Hearts of Stone is a text book example of how video games can't do any sort of traditional narrative right.

Hey its Pan Twardowski! Except now he has bullshit red particle sword attacks, can turn into smoke and blink. Apparently the devil threw in "Video Game Boss" skill set as a bonus with that immortality. It is so video gamey it hurts.

Also the fact that Gaunter gets banished in the "save Olgierd" choice renders the entire Faustian mythos and the Christian Motifs of redeeming another sin meaningless. Now its just Geralt going "1v1 me irl" to the devil. I have no idea why decided to add the banishment bit as well, the deal was to nullify their contracts. The ending would have been much stronger if the Devil simply smirked, admitted defeat , told them it was fun nonetheless and was on his way.
 
Self-Ejected

Ludo Lense

Self-Ejected
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Nov 28, 2014
Messages
936

Mate, Geralt beats Gaunter via solving a riddle, have you even played HoS?

Also my issue isn't that you fight Olgierd but that you fight him and he has completely bullshit superpowers that in no way derive from the wording of his deal with the devil. They didn't couldn't think of using his immortality for an interesting boss fight so they just made him a generic magic dude with ostentatious and flashy DMC attacks.
 

Perkel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 28, 2014
Messages
15,810
I think it is fair point to criticize last part of expansion pack. Mirror part was needless and way to obvious when you get into mansion.
 

Gerrard

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Nov 5, 2007
Messages
11,927
The mirror "riddle" was painfully obvious (and not original) and seeing Geralt be unable to solve it outright just makes you facepalm.

Hearts of Stone is a text book example of how video games can't do any sort of traditional narrative right.

Hey its Pan Twardowski! Except now he has bullshit red particle sword attacks, can turn into smoke and blink. Apparently the devil threw in "Video Game Boss" skill set as a bonus with that immortality. It is so video gamey it hurts.
You realize that this fight is in the dream, right? It's not actually him you're fighting.

That being said his teleport attack can be countered rendering him fairly harmless, which I found funny considering all the bullshit other bosses were in HoS.
 

Gerrard

Arcane
Joined
Nov 5, 2007
Messages
11,927
Actually, isn't that the same attack that is the special power of the sword you get if you help Olgierd?
 

Neanderthal

Arcane
Joined
Jul 7, 2015
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3,626
Location
Granbretan
Appreciated seein traditional Polish sabrework in game that Olgierd were usin, nice.

Kinda emphasised how much I disliked Geralts swordfighting style, but nowt you can do about that I suppose, gotta go wi books.
 

Gord

Arcane
Joined
Feb 16, 2011
Messages
7,049
Just finished the expansion.
Pretty good story overall, on par or better with the best moments of the base game.
 

Cadmus

Arcane
Joined
Dec 28, 2013
Messages
4,264
I started both this and B&W, I'm lvl 37 so I wanted to do the expansions in order.
How long is this?
Is it good?
Do I get some shit for my char like in Toussaint with the mutations?
 

Cadmus

Arcane
Joined
Dec 28, 2013
Messages
4,264
Hearts of Stone is the best expansion and i would do it before blood and wine.
Ok,it's just that Toussaint with the pretty nature and my new house look really enticing. Does this have some new pretty areas too?
 
Joined
Aug 10, 2012
Messages
5,869
I thought Hearts of Stone was much, much better than Blood & Wine. I didn't care for the house LARPing bullshit and Touissant was kinda bleh. Story was a lot worse too, by an order of magnitude.
 

Perkel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 28, 2014
Messages
15,810
Yeah 1st expansion has story rivaling Bloody Baron questline.

B&W on other hand does what TW3. Main story is weak but sidequests are excellent.
 

Doktor Best

Arcane
Joined
Feb 2, 2015
Messages
2,849
I dont think the mainplot of Blood and Wine was weak, it was just not as good as Hearts of Stone. CDProjekt set the bar very high with their first addon, so the second one was somehow bound to dissapoint some people.
 
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