The Witcher 3 Pre-Expansion Thread

[Surf Solar]

Yeah that fight was pretty hard. Especially in his second 'stage'.

Does anyone know when the expansions are due to come?

And what armor class is the wolf set in?

 

[bonescraper]

Does anyone know when the expansions are due to come?

The first one (that adds content to Oxenfurt), somwhere in november. The second one, which hopefully will add an entire new region (Toussaint), somwhere in 2016.

 

[Echo Mirage]

And what armor class is the wolf set in?

Medium, and like the swords has the highest base stats of all the Witcher sets.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

I too was disappointed that I couldn't bone more random wenches, like they got me used to doing in TW1. Jeesus, that Nymph was darn epic.

Yeah, I was hoping for some random dryads or nymphs or some weird stuff like that. Sums up The Witcher for me.

Yen and Keira did not disappoint, though.

 

[adddeed]

How is this game compared to Witcher 1 in atmosphere? The first game just nailed that dark depressing feeling, and its kept throughout the game. And it starts right with the main menu which has incredible music and sets the perfect tone. And 1:40 is just gold.

Second one is just so colorful I feel like im in Disneyland.

 

[Jools]

How is this game compared to Witcher 1 in atmosphere? The first game just nailed that dark depressing feeling, and its kept throughout the game

Nowhere near it.

It only gives some "gloomdark" vibes worthy of TW1 during the Velen's part of the game: the rest is fairly colourful (both visually and metaphorically speaking) and not so grimdark even in quest content and writing.

 

[Carrion]

I never found TW1 "grimdark" at all. It's vivid and even quite light-hearted at times, dealing with some dark stuff but also consistently balancing that with plenty of funny moments, which I guess can be said about Sapkowski's books as well. Velen is really much darker in its overall tone, both the story and the setting in general, although TW3 does of course also have its fair share of lighter moments especially later in the game. All of the main areas have a very different feel to them, but atmosphere-wise it generally falls somewhere between the first two games, managing to inject more of that Eastern European feel to it than TW2 had (reusing some of the music from the first game definitely helps) but also having a bit of the pomp of the second game. It's cool.

 

[RK47]

Too much cinematics in this game.
Honestly, some quest lines in Novigrad are the biggest offenders.
If you count non-combat segments vs combat there'd be like 7 to 3 ratio going on unless you do the sandbox content over n over.
I usually don't mind this but the length and quality matters. Some fights were hyped for too long and didn't live up to the promise. Only a few felt worthwhile. Boss fights were lengthy due to longer health-bar and not due to fun gameplay. In a whole, there was hardly a fight where I felt satisfied with how it played out.

 

[yes plz]

The Novigrad questline was fucking bizarre. It opens up with you watching mages get burned to death, then finding Triss' house fucked up and looters about to break in, you then track down a guy called the King of Beggars - a crime lord holed up in his own walled off section of the city - who tells you he has stuff planned for Novigrad... and then you spend most of the rest of the time running around talking to Dandelion's whores and staging and taking part of a play.

Spoiler

Yes, I'm being somewhat facetious here but not by much. There were a lot of routes they could've gone with Novigrad's main quest line and yet they went with the most moronic one.

 

[hivemind]

What difficulty setting do you people use?

I'm currently in Novigrad/Velen and after initially dealing with HP bloated drowners and ghouls on death march which only wasted my time I have decided to use the difficulty slider like this:

Main Quest trash mobs = Just the story
Exploration and side quest trash mobs = Story and Sword
Main Quest bosses and witcher contract bosses and side quest bosses = Third highest difficulty(not sure what the name is)
Ciri segments = Just the story

For example when I was exploring the elven ruins with Kiera I had it on just the story because fuck dealing with annoying time wasting drowners and wraiths but when I came to the wild hunt guy I turned it to the third highest because I thought that the fight was pretty well designed and fun.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Deathmarch for everything.

 

[hivemind]

Do you enjoy the combat system that much?

 

[Carrion]

Death March is the only way to go, really, at least after you've reached level 10 or so. It forces you to utilize the different aspects of the combat system in a better way and makes the combat much more interesting, especially since it's the only difficulty level where low-level enemies are actually able to hurt you. I never understood the whole "turn the difficulty down to make combat less tedious" thing, it's pretty much the opposite for me.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Do you enjoy the combat system that much?

It's not that difficult. The margin for error is smaller I guess, because enemies tend to hit like a truck until you seriously outlevel them so it's all about not getting hit. I went half alchemy/half signs and even most bosses/witcher contract monsters tend to die quickly to Igni burn. For serious combat you can buff yourself up with 2 decoctions and 4 or 5 potions and still have room toxicity-wise for 1 or 2 emergency potions. Alchemy stronk. I think I have +150% sign intensity from the blue mutagens alone, add in griffin techniques+griffin armor, greater igni glyphs, sign intensity runes and you'll deal some redonkulous damage with your signs. Even against hard-hitters like earth genie, gargoyles etc you can just stack so many yrdens that they're moving in super-slowmo while you happily hack away at their back without really being in danger.

 

[Gerrard]

Play on the hardest difficulty, then exploit the bad design.

Or you could not be a faggot.

 

[Rivmusique]

Yeah but lots of people do feel obliged to play through a game after buying it and/or going through the hassle of downloading it. So it's not surprising that he didn't just drop it immediately.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

It would help if you'd make a list of skills one can safely pick without exploiting bad design. Thanks in advance.

 

[Brayko]

I hated Gwent at first but now I'm starting to love it. After getting your ass beat by the baron 100 times each time a lesson pounded into your skull you start to become a formidable player.

 

[DeepOcean]

Play on the hardest difficulty, then exploit the bad design.

Or you could not be a faggot.

To be fair if you wanted to not exploit bad design you would be forced to not play Witcher 3.

 

[Veelq]

If this game is in any way difficult its in early levels ( at least as a sign witcher ). Your stamina regen is slow, your sign intensity is weak, so you need to use your sword more and dance with enemies. Later on it becomes a cakewalk.
In a system where your stamina is regenerating faster and faster as the game progress and your sign intensity improves crowd control effects like slow from Yrden, knockdown from Aard and burning dance from Igni - combat most of the time looks like this :
- you use Igni once or twice and watch them burn because Igni is a damage + crowd control + healing ( with a decoction ) spell
- you use Aard and knockdown all opponents with that aoe upgrade and 1hitKO like 3 guys till the first one starts to move but you have full stamina at this point so you Aard again
- you slap 2 Yrdens and 1 trap on the ground and pretty much walk away from their attacks instead of dodge or roll because they are so slow
- you mix first 3 options ... idk just for fun

Basicaly find yourself a way to apply DoTs ( burn, poison, bleed ) and you will be set for almost all the fights in the game ( played as a sign witcher ).

 

[made]

Płotka armor inc!

 

[Carrion]

They really love having trolls in their DLC.

 

[Starwars]

Is there anyway to screw the Baron cunt over in his questline? It seems to me you can kinda chastize him a bit but I'm kinda missing an option to fuck him over good. Probably white-knighting/SJWing here but his story really reminds me of when I was working in an institution where I saw way too many abusive cunts who pretended to stop drinking/drugging/being assholes only to get right back into it after a month or two.

Or is the only way to just refuse to take his quests? When he met his daughter and wife in the swamp I kinda just wanted to have the option to say "no, get away from this fat fuck and never return" to the women but that didn't seem to be an option.

 

[Surf Solar]

Baron is a bro. Why would you want to fuck him over?

 

[Starwars]

Is there anyway to screw the Baron cunt over in his questline? It seems to me you can kinda chastize him a bit but I'm kinda missing an option to fuck him over good. Probably white-knighting/SJWing here but his story really reminds me of when I was working in an institution where I saw way too many abusive cunts who pretended to stop drinking/drugging/being assholes only to get right back into it after a month or two.

Or is the only way to just refuse to take his quests? When he met his daughter and wife in the swamp I kinda just wanted to have the option to say "no, get away from this fat fuck and never return" to the women but that didn't seem to be an option.

He seems pretty screwed any way you play his storyline. For maximum butthurt you could

Spoiler

release the spirit from the tree so his wife gets killed and the baron commits suicide.

Overall, while I sympathize with your point of view, I see the baron's story as a bit more complicated than just an asshole beating his wife.

Thanks for the info.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the nuances in the character. It's one of the best characters I've encountered so far in the game probably. But yeah, through my working life, I've heard that "I'm a better person now, just come home to me again and all will be grand, forget about all the horrible shit I've already put you through" so many times (in all kinds of situations actually, but mostly the abusive husband/boyfriend trying to get his family back). And then the abuse starts again. Haven't seen enough "happily ever after" stories to make me believe in the Baron's ability in the slightest.
The Baron character really struck that nerve far harder than I expected a game would, games usually don't bring out that kind of reaction in me (TRIGGERED!). I guess in a way that's a testament to the writers but I wish the game kinda had a more active path where you could really oppose him.
But yeah, this is all very personal feelings obviously. Was mainly curious as to what the options were regarding him.