The Witcher 3 Pre-Expansion Thread

[Malpercio]

Congratulations you have reached level 12!
Now you can go fight level 12 drowners that will deal the same fucking amount of damage level 5 drowners did when you were level 5. Oh and if you don't have a level 12 sword they will probably be harder to kill as well.

If anyone actually thinks this is good design, they need to be shot. Dead.

There is no point to leveling in this game. You could have no levels and have all the monsters be the same strength everywhere and it would play exactly the same.

Wait, it has level scaling?

 

[Zeriel]

Congratulations you have reached level 12!
Now you can go fight level 12 drowners that will deal the same fucking amount of damage level 5 drowners did when you were level 5. Oh and if you don't have a level 12 sword they will probably be harder to kill as well.

If anyone actually thinks this is good design, they need to be shot. Dead.

There is no point to leveling in this game. You could have no levels and have all the monsters be the same strength everywhere and it would play exactly the same.

Wait, it has level scaling?

"Level scaling" has a range of definitions and meanings. It is more accurate to say that it doesn't have level scaling, but that it doesn't use levels intelligently in its design. Areas tend to have a static level range, but enemies may be copy-pasted at different levels into different areas. Let's say you've got a swamp, a plain, and then another swamp. The drowners in the first swamp are level 5, and will always be level 5, the nekkers on the plain are level 10 and will always be level 10, and the drowners in the second swamp look and behave exactly the same as the drowners in the first swamp, but are level 15 and do way more damage/have way more health, et cetera.

 

[Cromwell]

Congratulations you have reached level 12!
Now you can go fight level 12 drowners that will deal the same fucking amount of damage level 5 drowners did when you were level 5. Oh and if you don't have a level 12 sword they will probably be harder to kill as well.

If anyone actually thinks this is good design, they need to be shot. Dead.

There is no point to leveling in this game. You could have no levels and have all the monsters be the same strength everywhere and it would play exactly the same.

Wait, it has level scaling?

No. But what is there is not that different, you have the same kind of mob just with different levels in different areas, which means for example that a simple bandit is never a pushover if you dont move back in a low level area. Which is very annoying because since the first game geralt makes a point out of the fact that simple bandits try to attack him even after he told him what his profession is. Normally this should mean suicide for bandits pirates and the like but in this game a simple bandit can kill you, hes also able to block more than you and easily parry your attacks and counterattack.

The only things which should prove a challenge for a normal witcher should be very dangerous monsters and highly trained and amored soldiers, or at least a very very big mob of peasants. So with the games system, to be able to larp geralt for full immersion, you would have to play the game on the easiest difficulty, but that also makes any monster a pushover (even more than they already are).

What they should have done is make monsters more unique and dangerous, reduce the number of monsters and all other enemies on the map so that you have not that much trash fights, make the world smaller so it doesnt feel empty and boring and if they wanted to put you up in interesting fights against humans they should use soldiers and other npcs of that caliber. Also more effective signs would be great. I dont care if its not balanced in a singleplayer game, If I use igni I want the peasants to burn and scream in fear.

 

[Metro]

Sounds like lazy design, same monster types shoundt be more difficult to kill or do more damage simply because of geography.

We aren't even talking about monster variants but the exact same mobs and models but leveled.

They should have used different monsters, different chalenges, but as typical of cd projekt, they are great at presenting a visual consistent game world that they then proceed to fill with shit game play

 

[Cyberarmy]

Well, higher leveled monster have different looks already? Mostly after 15th level.
I mean not entirely different but drowners got bigger and colourful fins while foglets got ears and such.

Edit: Also they have upgraded versions with different names.

 

[PhantasmaNL]

Well, higher leveled monster have different looks already? Mostly after 15th level.
I mean not entirely different but drowners got bigger and colourful fins while foglets got ears and such.

Edit: Also they have upgraded versions with different names.

This sums it up.

Plus: monster X in area Y will always be level Z. To conclude that this game has level scaling because monsters in different areas, with different levels -which never change- look same-ish to the ones in other areas is kinda ridiculous..

 

[Doktor Best]

Well its not hard to oversee such details when all youre looking for are more tiny bitty reasons to nitpick on the game you secretly so enjoy.

Also one of the strongest fighters in the bookseries was a regular human thug (bonhart, who even killed 3 witchers by himself), so this bullshit argument about geralt having to kill off every enemy with his farts because he once faced a dragon has to stop.

Geralt defeated the dragon with a fuckton amount of luck and because he didnt get hit. Hes a human after all so he would die to a pack of wolves tearing his belly open as just any ordinary human, what keeps him from that fate are his reflexes and his fighting skills which are abstracted and transferred into level, defense, hitpoints.

 

[Perkel]

Congratulations you have reached level 12!
Now you can go fight level 12 drowners that will deal the same fucking amount of damage level 5 drowners did when you were level 5. Oh and if you don't have a level 12 sword they will probably be harder to kill as well.

If anyone actually thinks this is good design, they need to be shot. Dead.

There is no point to leveling in this game. You could have no levels and have all the monsters be the same strength everywhere and it would play exactly the same.

You tell me. I just ran across lvl 25 bandits in a quest while I'm lvl 10.
Every slash I landed did 1% damage.
Every sign did 10-25 damage.
Geralt, a guy who beat a dragon in 1 v 1 back in TW2 is getting his ass handed by street thugs.

Yep i am here with RK on this.
Like people said monster do start to look different in other places so there is a bit of justification behind level rise but like RK said humans on other hand can kill you like nothing in novigrad because you will deal almost no damamge (high armor value)

Game really would be better if they would flatten a bit damage and armor and imo this is probably something that people will do when redkit for TW3 will hit.

 

[Dookins]

Congratulations you have reached level 12!
Now you can go fight level 12 drowners that will deal the same fucking amount of damage level 5 drowners did when you were level 5. Oh and if you don't have a level 12 sword they will probably be harder to kill as well.

If anyone actually thinks this is good design, they need to be shot. Dead.

There is no point to leveling in this game. You could have no levels and have all the monsters be the same strength everywhere and it would play exactly the same.

Yeah, pretty much. Making nearly every skill a percentage based passive just makes it so you have to be fairly high level before it really starts paying off. Game has a weird power curve, where once you hit 20 or so and finally manage to start abusing the stat system it finally feels ok, with Geralt dealing as much damage as he takes.

 

[MicoSelva]

Game really would be better if they would flatten a bit damage and armor

Welcome to MMO school of game design, also known as Diablo's Legacy.

It is the same thing with Divinity Original Sin - the power difference between low and high levels is too high, and too many things scale based on level alone (to hit, damage, etc.). Compared to this, D&D has a rather flat power curve.

Such shit has no place in proper RPGs, but it will be more and more dominant over the years, as new game designers, who grew up with MMOs and see this as the only true model, will be making games.

The only setting where this would make sense lore wise would be something like Dragon Ball, where characters actualyl do get hundreds of times more powerful over time.

 

[J_C]

Congratulations you have reached level 12!
Now you can go fight level 12 drowners that will deal the same fucking amount of damage level 5 drowners did when you were level 5. Oh and if you don't have a level 12 sword they will probably be harder to kill as well.


There is no point to leveling in this game. You could have no levels and have all the monsters be the same strength everywhere and it would play exactly the same.

If anyone actually thinks this is good design, they need to be shot. Dead.

And you are an idiiot if this is such a big problem for you. At last there is a game where there is no level scaling, and you nitpick about this? Is it hard to believe that some monsters are more experienced than others in their species? You know, like with humans? I agree that they could have been given a different look, but having more experienced and less experienced monsters is not a blasphemy, and certainly not shitty design.

 

[Cromwell]

Congratulations you have reached level 12!
Now you can go fight level 12 drowners that will deal the same fucking amount of damage level 5 drowners did when you were level 5. Oh and if you don't have a level 12 sword they will probably be harder to kill as well.


There is no point to leveling in this game. You could have no levels and have all the monsters be the same strength everywhere and it would play exactly the same.

If anyone actually thinks this is good design, they need to be shot. Dead.

And you are an idiiot if this is such a big problem for you. At last there is a game where there is no level scaling, and you nitpick about this? Is it hard to believe that some monsters are more experienced than others in their species? You know, like with humans? I agree that they could have been given a different look, but having more experienced and less experienced monsters is not a blasphemy, and certainly not shitty design.

It is hard to believe and it is shit, a drowner is a drowner, theres no reason that the drowner in swamp one is cannonfodder and his colleagues in swamp 4 are level 15, what do you think they do, go to fighting lessons? Just because level scaling is shit doesnt mean that what they did here is vastly better.

Well its not hard to oversee such details when all youre looking for are more tiny bitty reasons to nitpick on the game you secretly so enjoy.

Also one of the strongest fighters in the bookseries was a regular human thug (bonhart, who even killed 3 witchers by himself), so this bullshit argument about geralt having to kill off every enemy with his farts because he once faced a dragon has to stop.

Which means every regular human thug is now a combat god. Just listen to Geralts remarks when he fights simple bandits, I am sure the cockyness they wanted there comes from the fact that every pleb with his rusty sword can easily kill you.

 

[Perkel]

Game really would be better if they would flatten a bit damage and armor

Welcome to MMO school of game design, also known as Diablo's Legacy.

It is the same thing with Divinity Original Sin - the power difference between low and high levels is too high, and too many things scale based on level alone (to hit, damage, etc.). Compared to this, D&D has a rather flat power curve.

Such shit has no place in proper RPGs, but it will be more and more dominant over the years, as new game designers, who grew up with MMOs and see this as the only true model, will be making games.

The only setting where this would make sense lore wise would be something like Dragon Ball, where characters actualyl do get hundreds of times more powerful over time.

Diablo ? Nah this was done way earlier than that but i get what you are saying.

Imo best way to handle it in TW3 would be to lock level to creatures. So all standard drowners are level 5 upgraded ones are lvl 10 etc.
Then flatten damage and armor values for Geralt. So difference between swords will fall into few points not dozens and make each sword bit more different. So one blade has better bleeding other stagger etc.

On other hand it seems rather easy to do if they will release REDKIT for TW3. So imo soon we will see overhauls.

 

[Ivan]

Does anyone know what the highest difficulty alters, exactly? Enemy placement or just stat buffs?

 

[J_C]

Congratulations you have reached level 12!
Now you can go fight level 12 drowners that will deal the same fucking amount of damage level 5 drowners did when you were level 5. Oh and if you don't have a level 12 sword they will probably be harder to kill as well.


There is no point to leveling in this game. You could have no levels and have all the monsters be the same strength everywhere and it would play exactly the same.

If anyone actually thinks this is good design, they need to be shot. Dead.

And you are an idiiot if this is such a big problem for you. At last there is a game where there is no level scaling, and you nitpick about this? Is it hard to believe that some monsters are more experienced than others in their species? You know, like with humans? I agree that they could have been given a different look, but having more experienced and less experienced monsters is not a blasphemy, and certainly not shitty design.

It is hard to believe and it is shit, a drowner is a drowner, theres no reason that the drowner in swamp one is cannonfodder and his colleagues in swamp 4 are level 15, what do you think they do, go to fighting lessons?

Area A: lvl5 drowners - the drowners here are very young, only awakend a few months ago. They attacked and killed a few people, but there is not too much to feed on in that area.
Area B: lvl12 drowners - the drowners here are living there for 3 years, attacked a lot of travellers, they grew strong and bold.

What's so hard to believe in this?

 

[Dookins]

Imo best way to handle it in TW3 would be to lock level to creatures. So all standard drowners are level 5 upgraded ones are lvl 10 etc.
Then flatten damage and armor values for Geralt. So difference between swords will fall into few points not dozens and make each sword bit more different. So one blade has better bleeding other stagger etc.

Or they could just set the drop rate on those red mutagens to about half of what the others drop at. Playing the game through as a swordsman is harder because CDPR decided to keep those rare for whatever reason.

 

[Turisas]

Or they could just set the drop rate on those red mutagens to about half of what the others drop at. Playing the game through as a swordsman is harder because CDPR decided to keep those rare for whatever reason.

Isn't it, already? I've a fuckload of blues and greens compared to just a handful of reds.

 

[Beowulf]

Imo best way to handle it in TW3 would be to lock level to creatures. So all standard drowners are level 5 upgraded ones are lvl 10 etc.
Then flatten damage and armor values for Geralt. So difference between swords will fall into few points not dozens and make each sword bit more different. So one blade has better bleeding other stagger etc.

Couldn't agree more. Sadly W2 also was the victim of inflated progress.
But it all boils down to the question - what is an RPG for you? For some people inherent element of RPG is character growth through raising stats and getting better equipement, which is even more valued than narrative or C&C - and that element is more important to others. So implementing your suggestion would result in W3 being described as "adventure game popamole", as we already saw on this forum. To each his own, but personally I'm a bit of storyfag so I would play a mod that just do that - flattens the levelling, as I think the game would benefit from that.

 

[Jools]

Congratulations you have reached level 12!
Now you can go fight level 12 drowners that will deal the same fucking amount of damage level 5 drowners did when you were level 5. Oh and if you don't have a level 12 sword they will probably be harder to kill as well.

If anyone actually thinks this is good design, they need to be shot. Dead.

There is no point to leveling in this game. You could have no levels and have all the monsters be the same strength everywhere and it would play exactly the same.

Yeah. And honestly every game is designed like this now. This being the case, I'd rather all these "RPGs" were like Far Cry where there's no actual levels, you just periodically gain points to invest in perks that give you bonuses.

I agree. *cough*Gothic*cough*

 

[Cyberarmy]

Or they could just set the drop rate on those red mutagens to about half of what the others drop at. Playing the game through as a swordsman is harder because CDPR decided to keep those rare for whatever reason.

Isn't it, already? I've a fuckload of blues and greens compared to just a handful of reds.

Especially blues, I'm drowning in greater blue mutagens right now. And that's without counting special monster mutagens.

 

[made]

Red mutagens seem to drop only from certain mobs. I got a bunch of them from Alghuls that so far I have only encountered in a small area south of Novigrad.

I agree that the leveling system is out of whack and suffers from MMO influences. I can't put my finger on it, but I think if the level difference is too big the damage you deal is artificially lowered (presumably to avoid the scenario that you can kill everything at lvl 1 if you're just patient enough like in Gothics).

But I also really don't know what they could have done to stay true to lore, have meaningful character progression, keep the game challenging from start to finish, have an open world, not have level scaling - all at the same time. Every single RPG breaks sooner or later, open world in particular.

Bottom line is, despite all its faults, exploration in TW3 is fun. Coming from a supposedly meticulously balanced RPG like POE which turned out to be no fun at all this is quite refreshing.

 

[Jools]

Let's face it, the consoletard school of game design made combat redundant. Combat is like bloom, it's just flavour and packaging. Nobody wants it to be either interesting, nor challenging, nor anything else but "visually pleasing" and "incl00sive"

The fact that combat is very easy, and that there's loads of filler combat, is proof to this. Not to mention all the "cinematic" mini-finishers, the gore, the xplosions, the cleaving people in half. Yes it's great when you see it the first time, it's still a nice touch after 15 times, and it's just fucking trite after 20. The same for the encounters themselves. I ended up skipping most filler encounters around the countryside: I'd just run past and ignore them, because there is no point really. Combat provides no xp, no entertainment, no relevant loot, nothing relevant at all to the game's or character's progression. The only combat worth engaging with is the one that's quest-related, and even then, it's not worth because of its own properties (eg: fighting is fun), but mostly because it's an obstacle on the path to the rest of the quest (trigger warning: storyfag here). I even preferred TW2's trash-mob farming in the forest, in order to craft those totally OP but good looking armour sets: that, at least, gave me some purpose.

So, to summarize, combat is:
1.piss easy
2.lots of it
3."flashy"
Therefore it's just there for the average angsty teen to vent some anger and feel "mature" because of the gore.

Add, on top of this, that combat still is all about dodge/roll and slashing: I got the feeling that signs are even less powerful and relevant than they were in TW2 or TW1. So far the only (kinda) mandatory one is Yrden, and only when fighting Wraiths.

"Big" bosses, the ones with the white healthbar (griffins, cockatrices, etc) are no exception: run around, kite, dodge, wait for opening, strike. Rinse and repeat.


On my first playthrough, I went for "normal" settings. Next, I might even save myself the pain and go for "easy", which should remove some of the pointless combat, a complete waste of time as it is now.

 

[J_C]

"Big" bosses, the ones with the white healthbar (griffins, cockatrices, etc) are no exception: run around, kite, dodge, wait for opening, strike. Rinse and repeat.

I don't know how is this a problem. Have there ever been an action RPG where battles are different? Gothic, Dark Souls, you name it. What else would you like?

 

[deranged]

Let's face it, the consoletard school of game design made combat redundant. Combat is like bloom, it's just flavour and packaging. Nobody wants it to be either interesting, nor challenging, nor anything else but "visually pleasing" and "incl00sive"

....

On my first playthrough, I went for "normal" settings. Next, I might even save myself the pain and go for "easy", which should remove some of the pointless combat, a complete waste of time as it is now.

I've started on Death March and while I am still only level 4 every encounter is challenging and demanding. You have to watch the enemy animations dodge at the right point and use the bestiary. 2-3 hits will drop you. It was the same with Witcher 1, too easy on normal, very good on hard, cause you had to use alchemy and time your attacks wisely. The only way to play the witcher series is on the higher difficulties.

 

[Jools]

"Big" bosses, the ones with the white healthbar (griffins, cockatrices, etc) are no exception: run around, kite, dodge, wait for opening, strike. Rinse and repeat.

I don't know how is this a problem. Have there ever been an action RPG where battles are different? Gothic, Dark Souls, you name it. What else would you like?

I always dreamed of an RPG whese bosses were more than an exercise in patience, but actually brought more challenge and "strategy" to the table, and are more than just "inflated HP". But hey, I'm a dreamer (actually, some MMORPGS got better, at this, with bosses actually requiring something vaguely resembling "tactics").

I'm taking some Brownie Points from you, for mentioning Dark Souls.