The Witcher 3 Pre-Expansion Thread

[WhiskeyWolf]

enemies seem even more of "waiting in a line to fight you" now

Stop being a sissy and turn up the difficulty.

 

[Tigranes]

enemies seem even more of "waiting in a line to fight you" now

Stop being a sissy and turn up the difficulty.

I'm on Hard for this first time. With every Witcher game I seem to forget how to fight after a while. Is it different on Death March?

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

enemies seem even more of "waiting in a line to fight you" now

Stop being a sissy and turn up the difficulty.

I'm on Hard for this first time. With every Witcher game I seem to forget how to fight after a while. Is it different on Death March?

I'm on hard and enemies are defiantly 'in your face, all the time'.

 

[Tigranes]

Really? I mean, it's not consistent for me - sometimes I'm surrounded by drowners front, side and back, but when I fight humans in particular, let's say the roaming bandits in Velen, the melee ones seem to hang back and wait quite often.

 

[1451]

Finished the game on Blood and Broken Bones. Was difficult at first, but towards the end it became easy. Would be nice if the skill tree added new moves and skills instead of simply empowering existing ones(alternative sign usage is too minor to be considered as customization). Dunno maybe they went this route to retain lore accuracy or something but from a gameplay perspective it narrowed the experience.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Finished the game on Blood and Broken Bones. Was difficult at first, but towards the end it became easy. Would be nice if the skill tree added new moves and skills instead of simply empowering existing ones(alternative sign usage is too minor to be considered as customization). Dunno maybe they went this route to retain lore accuracy or something but from a gameplay perspective it narrowed the experience.

They went that route because its easy and lazy.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

My CE finally arrived! The box is rather humongous. :D

Post a pic of the statue so we can lol at the paintjob.

 

[Perkel]

Spoiler

Where the hell did the sunstone come from? Ciri just go to the tower and stop the White frost, but it doesn't show you how,( and how does she survive?) . What happens to the Lodge of the Sorceresses/Fillipa Eilhart after Nlfgaard/Djikstra's victory( I'd not question Emhyr's reliability had he not pulled a "You've outlived your usefulness" on Letho). What the hell happened Saskia and Iorveth(some scoieltae rebels said Iorveth was dead, that's it?). Vergen just got overrun, rendering everything you've done in Iorveth's path in TW2 moot? That's it? You gather the lodge of sorceresses for the final battle yet you don't get to see them doing anything. These are a few things that are on top of my head ATM.

And the story feels padded, most of the game is essentially a wild goose chase that felt unnecessary, bioware-like. The entire baron quest I felt could have been a side quest(instead of just he last bit).

Spoiler

1. It was artifact to call Ain Elle from Geralt world. When you go for sunstone with Philippa Avallah says everything about it from where it came and what it does.
2. That was the point of ending. It wasn't Geralt story/job to do. It was Ciri's quest/story. In the end we as players don't know if she accomplished it actually. She/game says it was ok but we don't know that actually.
Bigger problem with it imo is that it happens right after you killing Eredin. Which imo slightly doesn't make sense. Why just right after Wild Hunt attack ?

IMO explenation is that Eredin at that time was king of Ain Elle so his death naturally probably would lead to rebelion or some such and it wouldn't actually deal with Wild Hunt problem as in future they would continue to hunt her under different ruler. Since Elves are almost immortal White Frost cataclysm is something for them real like for humans dying from old age and it already happened in one of their worlds (part of Through time and space quest)
This is why she decided to do something about.

Bad ending also doesn't say she was dead. Geralt doesn't know that. Last crone also doesn't tell that. She could just move to other world as she was fed up with geralt world and partially she didn't feel that much attached to him anymore. It is suggested she died but we don't know it.

3. Pretty much depends on ending. They don't have slide for them but ending pretty much sums up how they will end.

Yennefer says they got pardon from Emhyr if they help with Ciri problem. Ciri only in one case "lives" as she becomes Empress. That part of being empress means that Fillipa and rest of lodge will be guiding her (lodge talk alone with her is nessesary for this ending).

If she "dies" Then it depends on who wins war but picture isn't really good for them.

Dijkistra - He will hunt Fillipa and i doubt he would not hunt rest of lodge after what Fillipa did to him
Radovid - clear here. They would hunt them down eventually. (They already got almost all of them aside from Fillipa, Vigo, Triss, Francesca, Francesca other mage). Vigo also at that time was also prisoner to Emhyr so in reality Fillipa,Triss and two elven mages.
Yennefer never was part of Lodge.
Emhyr - Best option for them but in Nilfgard mages have 0 power so soon they would be probably tried for treason.

Their plan in TW3 means putting Ciri on Nilfgard throne.

4. Lodge made sure Wild Hunt ship won't run away after realizing it is trap. You see all of Lodge on hills around bay. They made some sort of barrier and their job was to keep it up until Wild Hunt will be dealt off.

5. I don't understand why some of character "must" be in TW3.. Iorweth i think is dead. Aerdin didn't have any chance when war started as this was local conflict between Hanselt and Stanis. Either way with Stanis dead considering books Saskia wouldn't be able to hold Upper Aerdin because most of the kings would try to grab that land.
As of Saskia herself. If she was "queen" then probably is dead or run away never to be seen again.

IMO biggest problem with story is Empress ending. It doesn't make a sense because:

- Cirrilla is actually already Empress of Nilfgard. Her double that is. So either they kill her off which is possible considering what happens(but people would notice her being different person ?) in books or she takes different name.
IF she would use her real name then it would be like that King emhyr Queen - Ciri. His daughter Ciri

Either way i didn't meet with Emhyr after initial talk because fuck that guy so i don't exactly his plan for her

As of last part... Travel is game theme. It is perfectly good reason to travel world in search for answers

Spoiler

. Later part with gathering allies is almost entirely optional actually. I am kind of interested how it plays out when you have almost no one to help.

 

[Perkel]

heh i like how game fallows on some quest choices. Like that quest in WO where you had to find Bastien.

I did that quest then later in game i came back to WO for a while and i explored a bit houses then i found up Dany hose and his wife L something. Then i noticed Nilfgardian in farm clother with a hat and Bastian working field.

It is not the first and last time though. For example that dude who murdered that cart driver near Nilgradian camp in WO is camping in woods if you allow him to leave.

Other interesting thing. In Novigrad i fallowed Yennefer did some stuff and then later she told me to meet up later. I noticed she standed up and walked away without teleporting so i fallowed her to see if she actually will go through whole city.

So i fallowed her then she decided to go into some alley. I though AI bugged out. Nope. She goes into alley turn into another small alley this time dead end and then she teleports.
And then it struck me. Mages were banned in Novigrad and Witch hunters and all that stuff.

I mean they could just say fuck it and just teleport her (in game design term not using teleport) to her place...

I'm on Hard for this first time. With every Witcher game I seem to forget how to fight after a while. Is it different on Death March?

Replaying currently on Blood and Bones compared to my full Death March i say AI is definetely more easy. They don't attack as often as on Death March.

Also moster HP doesn't bloat on death march is a lie. Or maybe damage needed is different ?

Either way NoonWraith took me on DEath March around 10-15 hits with other wreights coppies where on blood and bones i took her down in like 4-5 hits without even oil with first sword.

 

[WhiteGuts]

Spoiler

There's an encounter near the Hanged Man's Tree, around the Redanian outpost on the way to Novigrad, where a bunch of bandits are going tu burn down a small village. I tried to fight them off but I was too underleveled. When I came back there, way after, nothing remained but ashes. I thought that was neat.

Also, I killed Keira. The dumb bitch forced me to do it. Was there a way to prevent her from going to Radovid without killing her ?

A nice bittersweet ending for the Baron.

Finally at Novigrad, and it's very impressive. You feel the weight of the city when you're walking in the streets. The transition from Velen is so sharp, the contrast between a warn-torn No Man's Land and the propesperous Novigrad is clear as water. Nice world-building.

Triss needs to stop being so cute and lovely.

 

[Minttunator]

Post a pic of the statue so we can lol at the paintjob.

I'd say the paintjob is okay - the details could be a bit better (such as Geralt's hair) but I've seen much worse.

 

[cvv]

So apparently you need like 9 ekimmara hides for oils and there are only 3 ekimmaras in the game. Debug console to the rescue.

 

[APGunner]

Just out of curiosity, you who have already beaten the game, what was your final level?

I was 32lvl when I've beaten the game, still had some side-quests unfinished.

 

[Doktor Best]

Just like Planescape, or Arcanum, or Fallout New Vegas, or Vampire Bloodlines, or like... 80% of all alltime classics that are praised here so often...

I think someone didn't play any of those games.

So can you elaborate what the fuck is so special about the character development system of those games? Or are you just talking out of your ass and glorify games of your youth? Those games are all good rpgs, but not for those reasons witcher 3 is criticized for. Lets face it, those points are very secondary to much more important parts of a game: setting, questdesign, writing, pacing, choice and consequence.

 

[toro]

Just out of curiosity, you who have already beaten the game, what was your final level?

I've just beaten the game at Lvl 35. I made tons of side-quests and almost all the Witcher contracts and Treasure quests.

Also counted ~70 hours to do all this shit.

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

Just like Planescape, or Arcanum, or Fallout New Vegas, or Vampire Bloodlines, or like... 80% of all alltime classics that are praised here so often...

I think someone didn't play any of those games.

So can you elaborate what the fuck is so special about the character development system of those games? Or are you just talking out of your ass and glorify games of your youth? Those games are all good rpgs, but not for those reasons witcher 3 is criticized for. Lets face it, those points are very secondary to much more important parts of a game: setting, questdesign, writing, pacing, choice and consequence.

maybe they dont have "+1% of potions duration time" or "+3% for fast attack damage" as a fucking skills faggot? ffs just look at the vast amount of different builds Arcanum offers in a fucking character creator

 

[Gerrard]

So apparently you need like 9 ekimmara hides for oils and there are only 3 ekimmaras in the game. Debug console to the rescue.

Yeah, I noticed. Fucking amazing performance from CDPR once again.

Mods will fix it!

 

[DeepOcean]

What I watched from the Witcha 3 made me convinced it is a pretty cool storyfag game, the potatoes simply shit over all other modern popamole makers (including modern Obsidian) in terms of dialog and characterization. The characters are witty, feel natural, little dialog tricks make them feel alive and the whole "focus on the human suffering" thing is really cool, even the kings and emperors are fucked up and miserable people on the Witcha world and I liked that. The art design is really impressive too, all other popamole open world games are ashamed by the witcha, a colourful game on 2015? Impossiblu! Actually the warm colours on the world clash with the grimdark stuff and make the impression of a world that was once happy and now is broken what makes things more depressive than if it was all dark, brown and grey.

I don't know if the good story telling is the result of they having a ton of material from the books or what but it is pretty good anyway.

I just get worried when people that are too excitable start shouting this game should be on the codex top 10, that is just silly and extreme fanboyism, the game is pretty cool and push my storyfag buttons what make me want to buy it on the future but this game, in terms of gameplay, is just a Dragon Age Inquisition made by people that aren't depraved degenerates and actually care into doing a good work on the story. The problem is that the character system simply sucks, loot sucks and you have a superpopamole power called dodge that works pretty much like hide behind cover to heal up from third person popamole shooters it is a cheap and easy way to deal with most stuff and this alone makes it pretty silly to compare this game with Gothic.

The Witcha 3 is a popamole adventure hack and slash game with a progression system that is pretty entertaining but it should be compared with other popamole adventure hack and slash games with a progression system like Dragon Age Inquisiton, Ass Creed and Batman games and it pretty much shits on them. The Witcha 3 gameplay systems aren't robust enough to be compared with proper RPGs, when CDPR make a game with stat checks, attributes, multiple character builds with a shitton of different skills and classes that aren't +5% for this or that, different character concepts and all that stuff... maybe... but now is just a good storyfag game with banal gameplay.

This game reminds me alot of the only MMO I liked ever, The Secret World, awesome storytelling and atmosphere with banal gameplay.

 

[toro]

Some ideas about the ending and the game:

Spoiler

Geralt ends up alone and Ciri's fate is unknown. Basically I got the shit ending.

Now I've searched the net and it seems that Ciri always dies if you bring her to the Emperor. Which is retarded but whatever.

The timing of the fight with the White Frost is completely wrong. The end should have been after the fight with Eredin but for some reason more drama was required.

I honestly don't know what to say about the game. I feel pretty numb, perhaps relieved that is over. Did not have the patience to watch the entire credits.

Visually the game is staggering and technically there are few things to criticize. This is the first time I see frozen ice floes in a game.

There was one quest that surprised me pleasantly: Through Time and Space. For me this quest shines like a diamond in a pile of shit. It was wild, refreshing and despite its simplicity it managed to stimulate my imagination more than everything else from the game.

I should mention the Bestiary cause the game features some of the best designed monsters: Leshens and Fiends.

But none matters cause CD Projekt failed to design a compelling game world:

• Combat is a joke even on Death March! There are not words to describe this clusterfuck. The system is clearly designed for pad but that's not the only problem. It's simply bad.
  
• The skills system is useless. The game can be finished without allocating any ability points. In fact I've played 30 hours without assigning any skills to slots and that's why I had problems with many mobs (yes, I'm that retarded). However everything changed once I've assigned the skills to slots with mutagens: the game became easy cause my damage output multiplied x5.
  
• Blind C&C. Things happen because of the player decisions. However most of the time (1) the player has no way to know what are his options before making a decision and (2) most consequences are equivalent to pulling a rabbit out of a hat. It's a fucking lottery.
  
• Quest design is lame and repetitive. There is no penalty in missing most secondary quests cause they suck anyway. Even the Witcher contracts became boring by the end of the game.
• Quest compass is required by most quests. It is possible to do some quests without it but ... I simply don't see how or why do it (!?) unless someone is a masochist.
• Alchemy is fucked up. First of all there is no point in gathering herbs; it's much simpler to buy all the ingredients. Then there is absolutely no logic or order in using the ingredients. I suspect that this system is present just as a flavour thing.
• Crafting suffers from the same problems as Alchemy. The thing is that the Witcher armours are the only ones that count. I gathered all the diagrams but a normal player should go with just one set.
• There are two loot systems: Good loot is in chests and regenerating shit loot is in everything else. Smart players would save a lot of time looting just chests.
• Fast travels system is somewhat gimped. For example there is no fast travel inside Crow's Perch and you always have to go on foot from the bridge through the entire village. This is not the only place where a Fast Travel point is missing not to mention that Fog of War mechanism is badly needed by the game.
• Ciri's fight segments are pointless. Her abilities make her almost IMBA therefore playing them is mostly a waste of time.
  
• Story is the biggest failure cause the Baron quest line was as good as it gets. Dandelion quest line is shit and everything else is just unappealing. There are other moments of good writing but ultimately the game fails to deliver. Or to keep someone's interest for the entire game.
• The UI is simply awful and non-intuitive. They managed to fuck up even a simple grid inventory.

As a cinematic experience, it can be entertaining. As a story it's not even close to Fallout: New Vegas. As a game, it is a failure, closer to an adventure game but certainly not a classic RPG.

To be honest, I continued to play with the hope that things will get interesting after the Baron quest-line but in reality the game kind-of died exactly after that moment. The experience is uneven, there is no cadence to it, there is no taste left lingering in your mouth.

I cannot recommend it with full heart. It's barely worth one play just for the main story quests.

 

[Echo Mirage]

Damn, I got the wrong killer during "Cardinal Sins"

I knew something was wrong about the whole thing.

 

[Malpercio]

FFS, items weight still there? No one ever liked that shit, especially when you have to stop picking item every 5 seconds

I also find funny that Geralt can't kill NPC but you are free to lot all their houses and such. :D

 

[deranged]

OH MY GOD dat drinking scene in Kaer Morhen

I think I legitimatelly pissed myself.

But after seeing this my longtime suspicion checked out - CDPR was never really interested to make an RPG. They wanted to shoot a cracking Witcher movie. A videogame novel. And they succeeded big time. As an RPG it's really nothing special. Character development is bad and the itemization is a complete joke. But as a piece of interactive entertainment it's a peach.

Just like Planescape, or Arcanum, or Fallout New Vegas, or Vampire Bloodlines, or like... 80% of all alltime classics that are praised here so often...

Witcher 3 is absolute heaven for storyfags or people who like good C&C, for everyone else its atleast "just good". Definitely deserves a spot in top10 of kurator list imho.

Character development in PS:T is unparalleled.

 

[Toffeli]

About Redania’s Most Wanted

Spoiler

Does anything change if I go to talk to Triss about it. Unfortunately, I was forced to do the mage saving quest before I could tell her about it and sent her to Kaer Morhen.

 

[Echo Mirage]

About Redania’s Most Wanted

Spoiler

Does anything change if I go to talk to Triss about it. Unfortunately, I was forced to do the mage saving quest before I could tell her about it and sent her to Kaer Morhen.

Yes. You get an extra scene with some VERY interesting infomation. Yen could also do it I hear but you need to have meet her on the islands first.

 

[Toffeli]

About Redania’s Most Wanted

Spoiler

Does anything change if I go to talk to Triss about it. Unfortunately, I was forced to do the mage saving quest before I could tell her about it and sent her to Kaer Morhen.

Yes. You get an extra scene with some very interesting infomation. Yen could also do it I hear but you need to have meet her on the islands first.

Okay, if Yen can do it too, just want to see what has become of Philippa. Heading to Skelligge soon.

 

[Echo Mirage]

About Redania’s Most Wanted

Spoiler

Does anything change if I go to talk to Triss about it. Unfortunately, I was forced to do the mage saving quest before I could tell her about it and sent her to Kaer Morhen.

Yes. You get an extra scene with some very interesting infomation. Yen could also do it I hear but you need to have meet her on the islands first.

Okay, I Yen can do it too, just want to see what has become of Philippa. Heading to Skelligge soon.

Just be sure to not start Redania’s Most Wanted until you have met Yen. Then come back and start it. Once you have the crystal Geralt should mention giving it to her.