The Witcher 3 Pre-Expansion Thread

[bonescraper]

Haha not even Larian fans would defend this mechanic in Divinity 2 pre-DKS and Original Sin. Kielbasa brains go the extra mile.

Well i haven't tested it they way Roxor did, i didn't know about the 6 level difference damage reductions, but all i know i killed a level 30 ice elemental on level 20 and 2 level 26 gargoyles nearby with not much effort. I used the correct sword oil, Yrden and Cleave. I'm having troubles fiding other high level enemies atm because i'm way overleleled. Maybe it's worse at low levels, IDK.

 

[cvv]

Nope. Level scaling means that the mobs properties (HP, speed or some other shit) depend on the player level.
In Witcher 3 mobs become easier to kill proportionally with the level difference between the mob and Geralt.

Ok, level scaling is when mob stats and gear change in relation to players level. And true, TW3 uses one tiny element of level scaling - skull mobs have an enormous DR. But that's it. I think the rest of their stats is fixed.

Neither From Software or PB's games have this level gating as you call it.

That's exactly why they fail. In Gothic, Risen or DS you an kill anything on level 1, with reasonable skill and patience. As I said level gating must be fucking hard to implement in an action game due to the fact that action combat is way easier to cheese than TB.

 

[hivemind]

Gothic

not in the first one

 

[Athelas]

That's exactly why they fail. In Gothic, Risen or DS you an kill anything on level 1, with reasonable skill and patience. As I said level gating must be fucking hard to implement in an action game due to the fact that action combat is way easier to cheese than TB.

I wouldn't describe playing well as cheesing the game and the possibility to do so a failure of game design.

 

[WhiteGuts]

The possibility of killing everything at level 1 is by design, and thus not a failure.

 

[Dookins]

Haha not even Larian fans would defend this mechanic in Divinity 2 pre-DKS and Original Sin. Kielbasa brains go the extra mile.

Well i haven't tested it they way Roxor did, i didn't know about the 6 level difference damage reductions, but all i know i killed a level 30 ice elemental on level 20 and 2 level 26 gargoyles nearby with not much effort. I used the correct sword oil, Yrden and Cleave. I'm having troubles fiding other high level enemies atm because i'm way overleleled. Maybe it's worse at low levels, IDK.

It's not fixed like that, I think. I killed enemies 14 levels higher than me without any cheesing or higher than expected difficulty, but they weren't marked with skulls. I think as you level the range widens, by level 14 level 28 enemies aren't marked that way. Also, what the two guys above me said. At the risk of setting the eternal Codex argument off again, ultimately RPGs are games of numbers. If you're able to game the system to your benefit, you should be rewarded for it. Scaling is equivalent of moving the goalpost and thus detrimental as a whole.

 

[cvv]

Gothic

not in the first one

Really? It's been like 10 years since I played the first Gothic, I was pretty sure you can.

I wouldn't describe playing well as cheesing the game and the possibility to do so a failure of game design.

Depends, getting enemies stuck behind a tree or a rock is cheesing in my book.

 

[hivemind]

The way gothic one works is :

each enemy has a defense stat
you have a strength stat
your weapon has a damage stat

you add your strength and weapon damage stats and then reduce the enemy defense stat from it to get the damage number you do to an enemy

so in a situation like this

enemy def : 100
your str: 50
your weapon: 40

You will not deal any damage to the enemy because the sum of your strength and weapon damage doesn't exceed the enemy defense stat.

 

[Athelas]

Depends, getting enemies stuck behind a tree or a rock is cheesing in my book.

It is, but what does that have to do with anything? What you describe can be done regardless of whether there's level scaling. If anything, there would be more of a need to make use of such exploits in a game with level scaling.

 

[bonescraper]

Haha not even Larian fans would defend this mechanic in Divinity 2 pre-DKS and Original Sin. Kielbasa brains go the extra mile.

Well i haven't tested it they way Roxor did, i didn't know about the 6 level difference damage reductions, but all i know i killed a level 30 ice elemental on level 20 and 2 level 26 gargoyles nearby with not much effort. I used the correct sword oil, Yrden and Cleave. I'm having troubles fiding other high level enemies atm because i'm way overleleled. Maybe it's worse at low levels, IDK.

It's not fixed like that, I think. I killed enemies 14 levels higher than me without any cheesing or higher than expected difficulty, but they weren't marked with skulls. I think as you level the range widens, by level 14 level 28 enemies aren't marked that way. Also, what the three guys above me said. At the risk of setting off the eternal Codex argument off again, ultimately RPGs are games of numbers. If you're able to game the system to your benefit, you should be rewarded for it. Scaling is equivalent of moving the goalpost and thus detrimental as a whole.

I don't really know. Anyway, the game doesn't force you to fight enemies way over your level, it's the player who forces himself to do that, so it's just sperging for the sake of sperging. I don't see the issue here, and as i said, i killed 10 levels higher monsters, and those fights were some of the best i had in this game. Different strokes for different folks.

 

[cvv]

The possibility of killing everything at level 1 is by design, and thus not a failure.

I guess the problem with aRPGs is this - character progression is a keystone in an RPG. Without progression all you have is an action adventure. So being able to beat the entire content without progressing an inch is not a good RPG design in my book. Great for speedrunners, not so great for the rest.

Problem is how to do it? What is a good way to stagger the content without bullshit railroading ("you can't go further, there's been a rockslide which will get magically cleared once you reach lvl 7", you get my point). One is to have strong monsters guarding the phattest lewt. But if you can cheese the monsters and get the godmode sword on lvl 3 then the whole world balance goes to shit and you can stop playing and uninstall.

That's the reason CDPR went with level gating certain areas and items. Philosophically it's the right thing to do, it's just the implementation in TW3 is quite frankly terrible.

(Hiding items behind stat requirement is fine, you couldn't use Master Sword on lvl1 in G2 either).

 

[adddeed]

I guess the problem with aRPGs is this - character progression is a keystone in an RPG. Without progression all you have is an action adventure. So being able to beat the entire content without progressing an inch is not a good RPG design in my book.

The irony is that despite that, the Gohic and Risen games have the best feeling of progression in any RPG ive played, and that's because of the zero scaling.

Sure, you CAN beat everything at level 1, but mostly for shits and giggles. 99% of players DO level up and progress normally.

Very few RPGs can even come close to Gothic and Risen when it comes to character development and how its implemented.

 

[toro]

Neither From Software or PB's games have this level gating as you call it.

That's exactly why they fail. In Gothic, Risen or DS you an kill anything on level 1, with reasonable skill and patience. As I said level gating must be fucking hard to implement in an action game due to the fact that action combat is way easier to cheese than TB.

1) You can beat Gothic/Dark Souls at lvl 1 but you cannot cheese it. You are free to take on any mob and win if you are good enough. Each defeat is caused solely by your own mistakes. This favors exploration.

2) In Witcher 3 you cannot beat higher level mobs not because of your skills but because the DR reduction (HP bloat) makes the fight tedious and shitty. This mechanism drags down exploration, especially when you see the level over the monster's head.

Honestly, I don't care so much about this awkward level scaling implementation. It's manageable when compared to the rest of issues.

 

[krist2]

Haha not even Larian fans would defend this mechanic in Divinity 2 pre-DKS and Original Sin. Kielbasa brains go the extra mile.

Well i haven't tested it they way Roxor did, i didn't know about the 6 level difference damage reductions, but all i know i killed a level 30 ice elemental on level 20 and 2 level 26 gargoyles nearby with not much effort. I used the correct sword oil, Yrden and Cleave. I'm having troubles fiding other high level enemies atm because i'm way overleleled. Maybe it's worse at low levels, IDK.

It's not fixed like that, I think. I killed enemies 14 levels higher than me without any cheesing or higher than expected difficulty, but they weren't marked with skulls. I think as you level the range widens, by level 14 level 28 enemies aren't marked that way. Also, what the three guys above me said. At the risk of setting off the eternal Codex argument off again, ultimately RPGs are games of numbers. If you're able to game the system to your benefit, you should be rewarded for it. Scaling is equivalent of moving the goalpost and thus detrimental as a whole.

I don't really know. Anyway, the game doesn't force you to fight enemies way over your level, it's the player who forces himself to do that, so it's just sperging for the sake of sperging. I don't see the issue here, and as i said, i killed 10 levels higher monsters, and those fights were some of the best i had in this game. Different strokes for different folks.

Seems like you play on a 16:10 screen as your HUD elements aren't in the corners, this can fix that:

7. Fix the position of HUD elements at aspect ratios higher than 16:9

Navigate to "...\Documents\The Witcher 3" and open the "user.settings" file with a text editor, then find and tweak the following variables:


For 16:10 aspect ratios:

uiVerticalFrameScale=1.125

A compendium of tweaks and fixes for the PC version

 

[bonescraper]

Lol, i was unaware of that issue. Thakns, bro!

 

[Carrion]

I guess the problem with aRPGs is this - character progression is a keystone in an RPG. Without progression all you have is an action adventure. So being able to beat the entire content without progressing an inch is not a good RPG design in my book. Great for speedrunners, not so great for the rest.

Problem is how to do it? What is a good way to stagger the content without bullshit railroading ("you can't go further, there's been a rockslide which will get magically cleared once you reach lvl 7", you get my point). One is to have strong monsters guarding the phattest lewt. But if you can cheese the monsters and get the godmode sword on lvl 3 then the whole world balance goes to shit and you can stop playing and uninstall.

That's the reason CDPR went with level gating certain areas and items. Philosophically it's the right thing to do, it's just the implementation in TW3 is quite frankly terrible.

I think the current power curve is so steep that they could've achieved a similar effect without any bullshit mechanics, and quite easily even. At the start of the game your swords do around 100 damage per hit, by level 10 you'll probably have doubled that, and by the endgame your damage is maybe around 400. That's just the weapon stats, ignoring all other benefits you get from abilities, mutagens and level-ups. Some kind of Gothic-like damage threshold system would've therefore suited the game very well. A golem that absorbs 200 damage of your every hit would still be practically unbeatable for level 1 characters, for instance, and its stats wouldn't need to depend on the PC's level in any way. You could of course adjust the system in some way, like not making the DT absolute like in Gothic but always letting some damage through, effectively turning it into a very high damage reduction similar to the current system with the skull enemies. The downside of such a power curve is that it quickly trivializes combat against low-level enemies, which is a notable problem in TW3.

Another, perhaps a more fitting solution for a Witcher game, would be to flatten the power curve but increase the importance of alchemy and preparation, perhaps making certain enemies extremely hard to beat without the right oils, potions and possible other equipment like traps or crossbows.

 

[Gerrard]

I spent over 10 minutes fighting a level 32 elemental near Kaer Morhen at level 22, only got him down to like 60% after using up all of my Thunder potions.

 

[J_C]

Angry Joe, goshing over TW3:
10/10

 

[Gerrard]

Also what the fuck happened to potato version Thaler, he sounds nothing like in the first game. Kurwa.

 

[Cromwell]

2) In Witcher 3 you cannot beat higher level mobs not because of your skills but because the DR reduction (HP bloat) makes the fight tedious and shitty. This mechanism drags down exploration, especially when you see the level over the monster's head.

Honestly, I don't care so much about this awkward level scaling implementation. It's manageable when compared to the rest of issues.

Whats dragging down exploration is the fact that theres nothing to find. Killing a very strong monster or taking on enemies way above my level because technically I could defeat them (which I cant here more or less) is only needed if theres something to explore, possibilities of a sttory piece to experience, probably very good loot or at least interesting loot. The difference between a game in which defeating way stronger enemies is piossible but not forced and witcher where it is also not forced is that in witcher its absolutely unnecessary and even counter productive. You will waste your time.

You will even get better loot if you do it when you have the right level since loot is scaled, and the unscaled loot you would get has level requirements, and if you have the right level for that theres always witcher gear which is better. Theres nearly nothing to explore apart from "hey jack we got killed but we totally buried our awesome loot beforehand" - sites.

 

[bonescraper]

Angry Joe, goshing over TW3:
10/10

And people were wondering why CDPR invited Youtube reviewers for their exlusive preview event. Over 700k views and a 10/10 score. That's how you do business

Oh, and BTW, this is one of my favorite tracks, unfortunately it's not included in the official soundtrack.

 

[Doktor Best]

Its not levelscaling. Enemies in the game have a certain DR against attackers that are on a lower level than them. The level becomes some sort of stat. Those enemies also have this form of DR against other npcs.

Levelscaling means that actual game content shifts with your levelprogression, which deeply disturbs the coherence of the gameworld because everything resolves around the player giving him some kinda godlike shaping abilities. This is not the case here, enemies still have a consistency, a fixed powerlevel clearly representing their standing in the food chain.

Ofcourse this level based DR system is still artificial and i very much would have prefered a more natural progression and gatin system like in gothic, but its not nearly as bad as actual levelscaling in bethesda games.

 

[TedNugent]

I think the point is that they're both problematic, just in different ways.

 

[Veelq]

Its not levelscaling. Enemies in the game have a certain DR against attackers that are on a lower level than them. The level becomes some sort of stat. Those enemies also have this form of DR against other npcs.

Levelscaling means that actual game content shifts with your levelprogression, which deeply disturbs the coherence of the gameworld because everything resolves around the player giving him some kinda godlike shaping abilities. This is not the case here, enemies still have a consistency, a fixed powerlevel clearly representing their standing in the food chain.

Of course this level based DR system is still artificial and i very much would have prefered a more natural progression and gatin system like in gothic, but its not nearly as bad as actual levelscaling in bethesda games.

From my observation its more of a HP bloat than DR ( it can be both just different enemy types ) which is worse cuz with DR you can see that you are doing almost to no dmg so that makes you sure that enemy you are fighting is just to strong. With this HP bloat mechanic you acuallly do dmg, very similar to your normal and still fucker is not dying, then you come back with more lvls, kill him with basically the same dmg and its fine. It makes me feel like my dmg ( that comes from progress, items ) is meaningless.

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

Angry Joe, goshing over TW3:
10/10

obligatory

do we really care about this faggot "opinion"?

 

[fizzelopeguss]