I just finished all the Baron's missions. He said there would be money, but I wouldn't know because I repaired my sword and now I'm broke.
I'm always broke. Whatever money I scrape together goes into repairing my weapons and armor. Now I'm trying to find a boat to Skellige and I don't have money to pay the fee to see the King of Beggars area. How do you have money in this game?
Don't just sell everything to whoever's closest. Vendors will pay higher prices for things relevant to their interests than other items. I.e. tanners/trappers will pay more for skins, barkeeps will pay more for alcohol, etc.
On a second play-through, I messed with the order of the Black Baron finale:
I freed the tree spirit before even going to the Crones village. I'd like to say that it was the Best Way to complete the quest, but its really just kind of a mess.
The Crones still give you the mission, and you still go to the village to get the quest with no dialogue changes until then. When you tell the village leader that you've already freed the spirit, he freaks out then gives you his ear.
Once that happens, you go back and get the Crones reaction. The dialogue breaks down here - to the point that even the editing joining the dialogue pieces seems sloppy. You never learn what happens to the children - the Baron's wife is scolded for something but you don't really get the context - and the children are gone from the village. In the end, you save her and the Baron takes her away to heal. The next time you go to the village, everyone except the leader is lying around dead.
Since I already knew how it played out without the sequence breaking, I assumed that wife made a deal with Black Beauty to save the children without my involvement, but it is never spelled out. The quest log also doesn't go into it. In that version, the children just vanish.
On a second play-through, I messed with the order of the Black Baron finale:
I freed the tree spirit before even going to the Crones village. I'd like to say that it was the Best Way to complete the quest, but its really just kind of a mess.
The Crones still give you the mission, and you still go to the village to get the quest with no dialogue changes until then. When you tell the village leader that you've already freed the spirit, he freaks out then gives you his ear.
Once that happens, you go back and get the Crones reaction. The dialogue breaks down here - to the point that even the editing joining the dialogue pieces seems sloppy. You never learn what happens to the children - the Baron's wife is scolded for something but you don't really get the context - and the children are gone from the village. In the end, you save her and the Baron takes her away to heal. The next time you go to the village, everyone except the leader is lying around dead.
Since I already knew how it played out without the sequence breaking, I assumed that wife made a deal with Black Beauty to save the children without my involvement, but it is never spelled out. The quest log also doesn't go into it. In that version, the children just vanish.
Although the fact that there's a way to finish it in the wrong order and STILL get a modicum of a story you can piece together, that shows more dedication to CDPR making sure the story flows than most other RPGs I've played.
I wish they had a PC version of the expansion with physical gwent cards. I am tempted to get the PS4 one just for the cards.
They actually had a compromise if you had purchased the expansion/season pass digitally you could email them proof of purchase and they would give you a code to buy the decks from Jinx. That's how I got mine.
On a second play-through, I messed with the order of the Black Baron finale:
I freed the tree spirit before even going to the Crones village. I'd like to say that it was the Best Way to complete the quest, but its really just kind of a mess.
The Crones still give you the mission, and you still go to the village to get the quest with no dialogue changes until then. When you tell the village leader that you've already freed the spirit, he freaks out then gives you his ear.
Once that happens, you go back and get the Crones reaction. The dialogue breaks down here - to the point that even the editing joining the dialogue pieces seems sloppy. You never learn what happens to the children - the Baron's wife is scolded for something but you don't really get the context - and the children are gone from the village. In the end, you save her and the Baron takes her away to heal. The next time you go to the village, everyone except the leader is lying around dead.
Since I already knew how it played out without the sequence breaking, I assumed that wife made a deal with Black Beauty to save the children without my involvement, but it is never spelled out. The quest log also doesn't go into it. In that version, the children just vanish.
Although the fact that there's a way to finish it in the wrong order and STILL get a modicum of a story you can piece together, that shows more dedication to CDPR making sure the story flows than most other RPGs I've played.
I'd like to talk to someone who broke the sequence accidentally and unknowingly. Since I knew what was supposed to happen, I could see the gaps. I wander if they would have been apparent to someone who wasn't looking for them.
I wish they had a PC version of the expansion with physical gwent cards. I am tempted to get the PS4 one just for the cards.
They actually had a compromise if you had purchased the expansion/season pass digitally you could email them proof of purchase and they would give you a code to buy the decks from Jinx. That's how I got mine.
Darn. I missed that deal. The redemption page says it ended Nov. 5.
Are the gwent cards the same as the CE ones or are they a different set?
I wish they had a PC version of the expansion with physical gwent cards. I am tempted to get the PS4 one just for the cards.
They actually had a compromise if you had purchased the expansion/season pass digitally you could email them proof of purchase and they would give you a code to buy the decks from Jinx. That's how I got mine.
Darn. I missed that deal. The redemption page says it ended Nov. 5.
Are the gwent cards the same as the CE ones or are they a different set?
I could use more assistance, Witching. I play a ton of Bloodborne and unfairly make comparisons. I'm only Lvl 10 and don't care to craft equipment, instead relying on whatever special Witcher caves appear. What weight armor (and its respective armor bonus perk) should I invest in? I'm stuggling with Geralt's crowd control, using Igni to get groups of enemies to shut up for a bit. Should I focus on boosting Aard instead like in Witcher 1?
-The best, coolest looking armor in the game is crafted. You should craft.
-Crowd control: Igni is good, burning enemies won't attack. Hitting them with your sword cancels the burn though. All of the signs have some CC value, really. I never found Aard to hit very hard, except on weak enemies. Yrden is really good for splitting up groups and locking down wraiths. It also slows slow enemies to a crawl. Axii can do a stun, or a charm if it's leveled. Quen lets you absorb that one hit, useful against single, hard hitting foes.
I could use more assistance, Witching. I play a ton of Bloodborne and unfairly make comparisons. I'm only Lvl 10 and don't care to craft equipment, instead relying on whatever special Witcher caves appear. What weight armor (and its respective armor bonus perk) should I invest in? I'm stuggling with Geralt's crowd control, using Igni to get groups of enemies to shut up for a bit. Should I focus on boosting Aard instead like in Witcher 1?
Crafting isn't a big deal in the game if you just focus on whichever Witcher School gear suits your playstyle. You can buy maps to the diagrams from vendors or just run across them in the wild. Each one has a pretty cool story and at least one hidden dungeon with neat payoff attached.
It's also worth doing the master craftsmen quests, but they're also both worth doing on their own. One is one of the best mini-questlines in the game if you play it right.
0
Options
ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
-The best, coolest looking armor in the game is crafted. You should craft.
-Crowd control: Igni is good, burning enemies won't attack. Hitting them with your sword cancels the burn though. All of the signs have some CC value, really. I never found Aard to hit very hard, except on weak enemies. Yrden is really good for splitting up groups and locking down wraiths. It also slows slow enemies to a crawl. Axii can do a stun, or a charm if it's leveled. Quen lets you absorb that one hit, useful against single, hard hitting foes.
I did a respec when Hearts of Stone came out and went pretty deeply into Aard. It doesn't hit like Igni does, and doesn't zap arrows out of the sky like Yrden, but it's a hell of a lot of fun to knock every enemy on the field down and stab them through the gut one by one.
I could use more assistance, Witching. I play a ton of Bloodborne and unfairly make comparisons. I'm only Lvl 10 and don't care to craft equipment, instead relying on whatever special Witcher caves appear. What weight armor (and its respective armor bonus perk) should I invest in? I'm stuggling with Geralt's crowd control, using Igni to get groups of enemies to shut up for a bit. Should I focus on boosting Aard instead like in Witcher 1?
All of them have their advantages. Light armor does by far the most damage and, heavy armor is the most protective, medium armor has an amazing amount of stamina regen.
In general crowd control can be had with bombs better than signs initially. So uhh craft. Other than that base signs are perfectly fine for CC but largely depend on the enemy. Some enemies are weak to fire and so igni is great. Some enemies are weak to knock around. Some enemies are best with slowdown.
The main thing you will figure out is that CC is generally not that strong. You will do better by stringing enemies out with movement and counter attacking with good use of dodging/side stepping/counter attacking. And knowing which is best for the enemy you're dealing with.
Bomb crafting is super-easy, too. You just press a button once you have the ingredients, and then it auto-replenishes whenever you rest... as long as you don't run out of alchorest, which I never have because I loot things.
Want to find me on a gaming service? I'm SwashbucklerXX everywhere.
I just finished all the Baron's missions. He said there would be money, but I wouldn't know because I repaired my sword and now I'm broke.
I'm always broke. Whatever money I scrape together goes into repairing my weapons and armor. Now I'm trying to find a boat to Skellige and I don't have money to pay the fee to see the King of Beggars area. How do you have money in this game?
You constantly sell off like 3/4 of the low level weapons and armour that you're picking up off dead bandits and finding in treasure caches(and you're breaking down the rest for crafting ingredients).
Fixes issue whereby quickslots could disappear if game difficulty level was changed during combat.
Fixes exploit involving Superior White Raffard's Decoction and skill named Delayed Recovery.
Fixes rare issue whereby skill named Flood of Anger incorrectly enabled Signs Tree and enhanced Sign Intensity permanently.
Introduces fix whereby special bonus granted by Superior Blizzard will take effect only when slow-motion is triggered.
Fixes a number of issues affecting potion called Chort decoction.
Fixes rare issue whereby some mini-bosses could become immortal under certain circumstances.
Fixes misleading message displayed when players attempted to cast Signs in combat, while enveloped by a cloud resulting from the detonation of a Dimeritium Bomb.
GUI
Fixes issue whereby items in merchants' stores could not be compared to currently equipped items.
Fixes exploit whereby some items (runes, glyphs) could be upgraded infinitely.
Introduces UI enhancement whereby herb name is now displayed above available interaction.
Fixes issue whereby keys/controls (mouse and keyboard) were not unbound from current setting when attempted.
Fixes issue whereby Toggle HUD button would not always work correctly during set scenes.
Introduces enhancement whereby ingredients required for a pinned formula and in possession of a merchant are now highlighted in said merchant's Shop screen.
Improves quest tracking by enabling tracking of objectives across different game regions.
Fixes issue whereby Witcher Medallion and statistics bar could disappear if game difficulty level was changed during combat.
Introduces enhancement on PC systems whereby weapon and armor repair kits can now be applied via drag and drop.
Fixes issue on PC systems whereby toggling HUD did not work correctly on QWERTZ and AZERTY keyboard configurations.
Living World
Fixes issue whereby treasure hunt titled Shortcut would not complete correctly.
Fixes issue whereby destroyed monster nests would respawn after a time.
Fixes rare issue whereby Shop screen would not open correctly for traveling merchants.
Fixes issue whereby NPCs failed to return to abandoned settlement named Ruined Inn.
Quests
Fixes issue whereby some human foes could have empty Vitality bars and thus could not be killed.
Fixes rare issue whereby some players could not talk to Fergus during quest titled Master Armorers.
Fixes rare issue whereby a monster disappeared incorrectly during quest titled Contract: Phantom of the Trade Route.
Restores notice regarding quest titled Races: Crow's Perch to notice board at said ingame location.
Fixes premature display of objective involving placement of a book on a pedestal in quest titled The Witchers' Forge.
Fixes rare issue whereby relevant reward was not granted for completion of Contract: The Creature from the Oxenfurt Forest.
Fixes issue whereby encounter with caged wyvern near Oxenfurt was inactive.
Fixes a number of rare issues with blacksmith in Mulbrydale in quest titled Person in Distress.
Fixes issue whereby quest titled Novigrad, Closed City II would incorrectly be tagged as failed if completed prior to installation of patch 1.10.
Introduces balance improvement whereby prices of goods throughout Skellige drop by 10% after Geralt kills the giant and agrees to take all the credit for it in quest titled The Lord of Undvik.
Fixes issue whereby quests titled The Nobleman Statuette and The Soldier Statuette were incorrectly and prematurely deactivated and could not be completed.
Fixes incorrect map-pin in treasure hunt titled Freya Be Praised!
Fixes rarely occurring technical glitch whereby older patch fixes failed to work correctly.
Fixes rare issue whereby players could not talk to Hattori after completing quest titled Of Swords and Dumplings.
Fixes rare issue whereby Nidas would fail to appear in Novigrad during quest titled Black Pearl.
Fixes issue whereby treasure hunt titled Temerian Valuables would not complete correctly.
Fixes rare issue whereby quest titled Get Junior would remain active in Journal after game was completed.
Fixes issues whereby some Character glossary entries were displayed incorrectly in game.
Fixes issue whereby quest titled Free Spirit could not be completed.
Visual
Fixes appearance on screen of unwanted visual artifacts after Geralt was teleported to new locations.
Improves transitions between distinct scenes and gameplay sequences.
Code
Fixes issue whereby launching The Witcher 3 on systems running the Windows OS discarded sRGB settings in users' ICC profiles.
Other
Fixes rare issue whereby NPC animations would playback at reduced speed after quest titled On Thin Ice.
Fixes issue whereby quest titled Faithful Friend would incorrectly remain tagged as failed after quest titled Something Ends, Something Begins was completed.
Sasha at the gwent tournament is starting to really piss me off.
Every goddamn card she plays pulls another card from her deck or my deck.
And she's got endless fucking spies.
It's what I imagine playing me is like.
Spies and Scorch are my most hated cards. I obviously love using them, but they boil my piss when an opponent has a hand full of them. My entire strategy seems to be enticing an opponent into wasting Scorch so I can then use my (if I'm lucky and drew them all) five Blue Stripes Commandos without reprisal.
Are people generally in favor of the lack of scaling in The Witcher 3?
I know there used to be a crowd that would scoff at any game which scaled the enemies to the player. I don't know if that has changed in recent years. Personally, I don't really overly care one way or the other, as long as the game does what it wants to do and does it well.
I don't think the Witcher 3 does it well. Having contracts and armor you can't do yet/ wear yet, when you are playing motherfucking Geralt of Rivia, it just doesn't feel right.
The game has other aspects I find really not that appealing at all, like the skill tree, things which should probably be essential to get right if you are making an RPG. Yet... the game is still amazing. The things that bother me I can put to the back of my mind while playing, and only reflect on after I've finished a session, because I am so immersed and having a good time in general. The game is funny that way. I'm having a hard time discerning if what I disagree with is as offensive as I think it is, or if it's just unflattering by comparison.
Are people generally in favor of the lack of scaling in The Witcher 3?
I know there used to be a crowd that would scoff at any game which scaled the enemies to the player. I don't know if that has changed in recent years. Personally, I don't really overly care one way or the other, as long as the game does what it wants to do and does it well.
I don't think the Witcher 3 does it well. Having contracts and armor you can't do yet/ wear yet, when you are playing motherfucking Geralt of Rivia, it just doesn't feel right.
The game has other aspects I find really not that appealing at all, like the skill tree, things which should probably be essential to get right if you are making an RPG. Yet... the game is still amazing. The things that bother me I can put to the back of my mind while playing, and only reflect on after I've finished a session, because I am so immersed and having a good time in general. The game is funny that way. I'm having a hard time discerning if what I disagree with is as offensive as I think it is, or if it's just unflattering by comparison.
I get what you're talking about, and they're viable complaints. The issue is in a free roaming game, there really isn't a good way to tackle the issue. Scaling everything to your level makes it so you're never running from OP enemies, but it also loses a lot of challenge with the game, along with making the big hunts a little underwhelming. The other way would be gating areas away until you're a certain level, which removes the free roaming aspect of the game to a point.
There needs to be a progression, there needs to be a grind of some sort to get better equipment and tackle better hunts, otherwise the RPG element feels wasted. If you want a story-based reason for the progression, Geralt lost his memory in 1 and didn't fully get it back until 2. He had a long time to forget his skills, and in 3 finally has all his faculties back and is slowly shaking the rust off. The hunts and missions have recommended levels, but you don't have to work with them, and it's pretty easy to slip away from fights if you get in over your head.
Personally I think it does a good job of teetering between being a freeroam action RPG while having real progression and real challenge, and letting you tackle the world however you want. It's the best parts of Dark Souls and Skyrim with a VERY lore-filled world to get lost in.
I think you can do progression, and enemy escalation, without impeding the player with solely numbers. What I mean by that is, when the game first came out I did a Leshen contract at like level 12. It's a level 25 quest. I did complete it, and while it is a somewhat positive memory for the game (for its sheer absurdity), it was also the most tedious fight I had in the game by a mile, and a solid reminder to myself right now to not do that again. And it was tedious because numbers. It had vastly more health/armor/idk what than I was prepared to deal with. And I even learned later that I had NPC's helping with that fight.
In other games I understand wanting to show the player how far they have come by the end of the game. Its fun to stomp on enemies that gave you trouble in the early game, and to prove yourself to the bigger baddies.
But in The Wild Hunt, you start the game literally eviscerating people and monsters with ruthless efficiency, in-lore. When Geralt is on the verge of conflict, its not so much about self-preservation as it is mercy and restraint. Every single encounter the Witcher has with hostile humans is the quintessential bandit toll moment found in RPG's, in which the offending party is quick to realize how hard they fucked up.
When I last played the majority of the game at launch, I didn't feel like I was getting overly more powerful as the game progressed. I mean, numbers were going up and I did have maybe 1-2 extra things I could do in combat, but I don't remember feeling like that much had actually changed. Geralt was still a badass, the monsters were still terrifying and extremely dangerous. Some lesser creatures and most humans got much easier, which I didn't like. But mostly, the biggest change was that I was now able to do the contracts which were effectively gated previously. They were gates which I could have spent a couple hours bashing open with a rock, but gates nonetheless.
As for "the bigger hunts", I dunno man... Obviously the Leshen and the Devil By the Well are on different levels from eachother, but I don't think you need to separate the two by the gap they did. It could have just been a factor of player skill and general difficulty/ preparedness required going into the fight, rather than what it actually is. The Wild Hunt is such a unique game that it's hard for me to find a similar one to point at and say "they should have done it this way!", but I definitely don't think it's impossible. I think they made the game they wanted to make on every level, it's just not what I would have preferred.
Yeah I really think the Witcher 3 could have benefited from enemy scaling. Or at least re-arranging Velen. The way it is now you'll find level 15 enemies in the same area as level 5 enemies and there isn't really any logical separation. Fortunately you can easily run away, but a lot of random monsters seemed really out of place. Not to mention if you do manage to take out a higher level monster you're rarely even rewarded for the trouble.
I think it'd also be nice to scale-up up quests that you've out-leveled so they're actually still a decent threat. There were a few contracts I skipped in the early parts of the game and now I'm just waiting until I play through the game again so I get at least some sort of challenge. 1-hitting dudes and slicing them up is fun for like five minutes then it just gets stupid. Especially when the look exactly the same as the stronger enemies you're currently facing.
+1
Options
Iron WeaselDillon!You son of a bitch!Registered Userregular
A couple of things:
1. Boys' Night Out at Kaer Morhen was incredible. I lost it at,
"Fuck yeah, summon the bitches!
2. I'm now working on Bald Mountain. How much game is left? And also (boss spoiler)
Holy cow, how do I deal with the Crones as Ciri? They're really tough!
Currently Playing:
The Division, Warframe (XB1)
GT: Tanith 6227
Are people generally in favor of the lack of scaling in The Witcher 3?
I know there used to be a crowd that would scoff at any game which scaled the enemies to the player. I don't know if that has changed in recent years. Personally, I don't really overly care one way or the other, as long as the game does what it wants to do and does it well.
I don't think the Witcher 3 does it well. Having contracts and armor you can't do yet/ wear yet, when you are playing motherfucking Geralt of Rivia, it just doesn't feel right.
The game has other aspects I find really not that appealing at all, like the skill tree, things which should probably be essential to get right if you are making an RPG. Yet... the game is still amazing. The things that bother me I can put to the back of my mind while playing, and only reflect on after I've finished a session, because I am so immersed and having a good time in general. The game is funny that way. I'm having a hard time discerning if what I disagree with is as offensive as I think it is, or if it's just unflattering by comparison.
I found the combat to get boring about 10 hours in. The skill tree is the worst/least interesting I have seen in an rpg. The amount of items and crafting is staggering, but I mostly ignored it and found it all tiresome and mostly useless. The menus and inventory are cumbersome and annoyed me endlessly. There are way too many quests that can easily bog you down, and the size of the world is daunting to put it lightly. If you go in with a completionist mentality it could drive a person mad.
Yet I've put around 100 hours into the game, and loved every minute of it. It is the definition of the sum being much greater than the parts. I don't think I've ever felt more engrossed and part of a world in a game before. Just taking in the scenery at different times of the day is a treat, and would constantly take my time going from quest to quest just to take all of the wonderful details in.
+1
Options
Iron WeaselDillon!You son of a bitch!Registered Userregular
Ah, solid advice. I'll try hitting them with my sword, too.
Kite them and regen health. Ciri's charge attack does a decent amount of damage to them, but dodging to the side and landing a few hits before dodging again is generally the highest DPS method. Also, focus on one at a time.
So I got enough into Skellige to get a gist of what I'm in for. Without spoiling much of anything, and with just a yes or no answer, can someone tell me if it's possible for me to pull the right strings and create my own little Pixar's Brave in this region?
So I got enough into Skellige to get a gist of what I'm in for. Without spoiling much of anything, and with just a yes or no answer, can someone tell me if it's possible for me to pull the right strings and create my own little Pixar's Brave in this region?
Because I... really want to do that.
Yes.
Want to find me on a gaming service? I'm SwashbucklerXX everywhere.
You can set people on fire, knock them into their comrades, then light them all up with flammable gas.
You can parry arrows mid-flight and send them right back at the shooter, then blind 'em with Samum while you close the distance.
You can mind-control bandits into fighting their own guys, then push them all off of a cliff with Aard.
You can pop a Golden Oriole and fill the battlefield with poison gas, whilst remaining blissfully immune.
Just gotta mix it up a little. Anybody can kill a monster. Witchers kill monsters with style.
I'm honestly not sure why I found the combat so boring. I think it was mostly the encounter design and pace of it that struck me the wrong way. There are a bunch of tactical options, but I never felt very incentivised to use them.
I played a sign-focused build, and at some point in the game it became clear that channeled igni was by far the most efficient option, and anything else was just me messing around for fun. This got worse as enemies got more and more proficient at parrying, until I reached a point where pretty much every time I tried to hack at a humanoid enemy they simply parried my blows for a while and then counterattacked me. I could have used signs to open them up to attack, and often did, but at that point I could have just used igni and not bothered with the sword at all.
I've been playing Dragon's dogma lately, and boy does that game show you how fun this style of combat can be.
You can set people on fire, knock them into their comrades, then light them all up with flammable gas.
You can parry arrows mid-flight and send them right back at the shooter, then blind 'em with Samum while you close the distance.
You can mind-control bandits into fighting their own guys, then push them all off of a cliff with Aard.
You can pop a Golden Oriole and fill the battlefield with poison gas, whilst remaining blissfully immune.
Just gotta mix it up a little. Anybody can kill a monster. Witchers kill monsters with style.
I'm honestly not sure why I found the combat so boring. I think it was mostly the encounter design and pace of it that struck me the wrong way. There are a bunch of tactical options, but I never felt very incentivised to use them.
I played a sign-focused build, and at some point in the game it became clear that channeled igni was by far the most efficient option, and anything else was just me messing around for fun. This got worse as enemies got more and more proficient at parrying, until I reached a point where pretty much every time I tried to hack at a humanoid enemy they simply parried my blows for a while and then counterattacked me. I could have used signs to open them up to attack, and often did, but at that point I could have just used igni and not bothered with the sword at all.
I've been playing Dragon's dogma lately, and boy does that game show you how fun this style of combat can be.
It's very easy to get into a rhythm with The Witcher. I'm slowly working through a New Game + while waiting for the next DLC to drop, and I'm surprised how much more I am enjoying it this time. The chief reason is that, with all the unlocked skills, excess points and cheap respec potions, I'm actually moving beyond the rote Slash/Dodge/Slash approach I took my first time through.
It's still not great combat. Even with the improved movement, the system is just too loose and janky for the precision dodge/parry/attack flow they want to achieve.
0
Options
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
edited January 2016
Finished up Hearts of Stone last night. Really enjoyed it and can't say enough good things about it. Really enjoyed the story arc.
Felt it was a great addition to the lore and a neat way to callback to a character you probably completely forgot about. I'll admit, I barely remembered the encounter with him. I've played 80'ish hours of Witcher since White Orchard. It was still a really cool callback once I thought about it for a second.
Now I'm down some deep dark internet hole reading fan theories about who O'dimm actually is (the most common being that he's basically this world's Satan).
Now I need to go finish the main game, after almost a year, hehe.
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
And just like that, done! I was really close obviously.
Man, what a game...what a fucking game. I just don't have enough good things to say about this game. Even for all it's warts, it's just such a master work. No question that it's my personal game of the year for 2015. Really looking forward to Blood and Wine now so I have an excuse to jump back in to this world.
For now, it's on to the rest of my deep backlog...but this game will stick with me for a bit.
Man the random loot drop for upgrades is killing me. I spent all night hitting hidden treasure spots and monster den's without finding any of the superior oils I need (hybrid, relict, cursed, and incestoid), nor the superior Northern Wind I really want.
Posts
Don't just sell everything to whoever's closest. Vendors will pay higher prices for things relevant to their interests than other items. I.e. tanners/trappers will pay more for skins, barkeeps will pay more for alcohol, etc.
Gaunter O'Dim was a pretty scary villain. Out of all the monsters Geralt's had to face, he reeeeeaally dodged a bullet with this one.
You know you've made it in the halls of evil-dom when children start singing creepy nursery rhymes about you.
The Crones still give you the mission, and you still go to the village to get the quest with no dialogue changes until then. When you tell the village leader that you've already freed the spirit, he freaks out then gives you his ear.
Once that happens, you go back and get the Crones reaction. The dialogue breaks down here - to the point that even the editing joining the dialogue pieces seems sloppy. You never learn what happens to the children - the Baron's wife is scolded for something but you don't really get the context - and the children are gone from the village. In the end, you save her and the Baron takes her away to heal. The next time you go to the village, everyone except the leader is lying around dead.
Since I already knew how it played out without the sequence breaking, I assumed that wife made a deal with Black Beauty to save the children without my involvement, but it is never spelled out. The quest log also doesn't go into it. In that version, the children just vanish.
Although the fact that there's a way to finish it in the wrong order and STILL get a modicum of a story you can piece together, that shows more dedication to CDPR making sure the story flows than most other RPGs I've played.
They actually had a compromise if you had purchased the expansion/season pass digitally you could email them proof of purchase and they would give you a code to buy the decks from Jinx. That's how I got mine.
I'd like to talk to someone who broke the sequence accidentally and unknowingly. Since I knew what was supposed to happen, I could see the gaps. I wander if they would have been apparent to someone who wasn't looking for them.
Darn. I missed that deal. The redemption page says it ended Nov. 5.
Are the gwent cards the same as the CE ones or are they a different set?
Didn't think about that. Well looks like Collector's Edition came with Northern Kingdom and Nilfgaard while the expansion came with Scoiatel and Monster decks. I hope they give another chance at the collector's decks since I'd love to have each set.
They are really nice cards with the pictures straight out of the game. IIRC it was only $10 + S&H.
-Crowd control: Igni is good, burning enemies won't attack. Hitting them with your sword cancels the burn though. All of the signs have some CC value, really. I never found Aard to hit very hard, except on weak enemies. Yrden is really good for splitting up groups and locking down wraiths. It also slows slow enemies to a crawl. Axii can do a stun, or a charm if it's leveled. Quen lets you absorb that one hit, useful against single, hard hitting foes.
Crafting isn't a big deal in the game if you just focus on whichever Witcher School gear suits your playstyle. You can buy maps to the diagrams from vendors or just run across them in the wild. Each one has a pretty cool story and at least one hidden dungeon with neat payoff attached.
It's also worth doing the master craftsmen quests, but they're also both worth doing on their own. One is one of the best mini-questlines in the game if you play it right.
I did a respec when Hearts of Stone came out and went pretty deeply into Aard. It doesn't hit like Igni does, and doesn't zap arrows out of the sky like Yrden, but it's a hell of a lot of fun to knock every enemy on the field down and stab them through the gut one by one.
All of them have their advantages. Light armor does by far the most damage and, heavy armor is the most protective, medium armor has an amazing amount of stamina regen.
In general crowd control can be had with bombs better than signs initially. So uhh craft. Other than that base signs are perfectly fine for CC but largely depend on the enemy. Some enemies are weak to fire and so igni is great. Some enemies are weak to knock around. Some enemies are best with slowdown.
The main thing you will figure out is that CC is generally not that strong. You will do better by stringing enemies out with movement and counter attacking with good use of dodging/side stepping/counter attacking. And knowing which is best for the enemy you're dealing with.
You constantly sell off like 3/4 of the low level weapons and armour that you're picking up off dead bandits and finding in treasure caches(and you're breaking down the rest for crafting ingredients).
Every goddamn card she plays pulls another card from her deck or my deck.
And she's got endless fucking spies.
It's what I imagine playing me is like.
Spies and Scorch are my most hated cards. I obviously love using them, but they boil my piss when an opponent has a hand full of them. My entire strategy seems to be enticing an opponent into wasting Scorch so I can then use my (if I'm lucky and drew them all) five Blue Stripes Commandos without reprisal.
I have yet to be able to do that.
I know there used to be a crowd that would scoff at any game which scaled the enemies to the player. I don't know if that has changed in recent years. Personally, I don't really overly care one way or the other, as long as the game does what it wants to do and does it well.
I don't think the Witcher 3 does it well. Having contracts and armor you can't do yet/ wear yet, when you are playing motherfucking Geralt of Rivia, it just doesn't feel right.
The game has other aspects I find really not that appealing at all, like the skill tree, things which should probably be essential to get right if you are making an RPG. Yet... the game is still amazing. The things that bother me I can put to the back of my mind while playing, and only reflect on after I've finished a session, because I am so immersed and having a good time in general. The game is funny that way. I'm having a hard time discerning if what I disagree with is as offensive as I think it is, or if it's just unflattering by comparison.
I get what you're talking about, and they're viable complaints. The issue is in a free roaming game, there really isn't a good way to tackle the issue. Scaling everything to your level makes it so you're never running from OP enemies, but it also loses a lot of challenge with the game, along with making the big hunts a little underwhelming. The other way would be gating areas away until you're a certain level, which removes the free roaming aspect of the game to a point.
There needs to be a progression, there needs to be a grind of some sort to get better equipment and tackle better hunts, otherwise the RPG element feels wasted. If you want a story-based reason for the progression, Geralt lost his memory in 1 and didn't fully get it back until 2. He had a long time to forget his skills, and in 3 finally has all his faculties back and is slowly shaking the rust off. The hunts and missions have recommended levels, but you don't have to work with them, and it's pretty easy to slip away from fights if you get in over your head.
Personally I think it does a good job of teetering between being a freeroam action RPG while having real progression and real challenge, and letting you tackle the world however you want. It's the best parts of Dark Souls and Skyrim with a VERY lore-filled world to get lost in.
In other games I understand wanting to show the player how far they have come by the end of the game. Its fun to stomp on enemies that gave you trouble in the early game, and to prove yourself to the bigger baddies.
But in The Wild Hunt, you start the game literally eviscerating people and monsters with ruthless efficiency, in-lore. When Geralt is on the verge of conflict, its not so much about self-preservation as it is mercy and restraint. Every single encounter the Witcher has with hostile humans is the quintessential bandit toll moment found in RPG's, in which the offending party is quick to realize how hard they fucked up.
When I last played the majority of the game at launch, I didn't feel like I was getting overly more powerful as the game progressed. I mean, numbers were going up and I did have maybe 1-2 extra things I could do in combat, but I don't remember feeling like that much had actually changed. Geralt was still a badass, the monsters were still terrifying and extremely dangerous. Some lesser creatures and most humans got much easier, which I didn't like. But mostly, the biggest change was that I was now able to do the contracts which were effectively gated previously. They were gates which I could have spent a couple hours bashing open with a rock, but gates nonetheless.
As for "the bigger hunts", I dunno man... Obviously the Leshen and the Devil By the Well are on different levels from eachother, but I don't think you need to separate the two by the gap they did. It could have just been a factor of player skill and general difficulty/ preparedness required going into the fight, rather than what it actually is. The Wild Hunt is such a unique game that it's hard for me to find a similar one to point at and say "they should have done it this way!", but I definitely don't think it's impossible. I think they made the game they wanted to make on every level, it's just not what I would have preferred.
I think it'd also be nice to scale-up up quests that you've out-leveled so they're actually still a decent threat. There were a few contracts I skipped in the early parts of the game and now I'm just waiting until I play through the game again so I get at least some sort of challenge. 1-hitting dudes and slicing them up is fun for like five minutes then it just gets stupid. Especially when the look exactly the same as the stronger enemies you're currently facing.
1. Boys' Night Out at Kaer Morhen was incredible. I lost it at,
2. I'm now working on Bald Mountain. How much game is left? And also (boss spoiler)
The Division, Warframe (XB1)
GT: Tanith 6227
I found the combat to get boring about 10 hours in. The skill tree is the worst/least interesting I have seen in an rpg. The amount of items and crafting is staggering, but I mostly ignored it and found it all tiresome and mostly useless. The menus and inventory are cumbersome and annoyed me endlessly. There are way too many quests that can easily bog you down, and the size of the world is daunting to put it lightly. If you go in with a completionist mentality it could drive a person mad.
Yet I've put around 100 hours into the game, and loved every minute of it. It is the definition of the sum being much greater than the parts. I don't think I've ever felt more engrossed and part of a world in a game before. Just taking in the scenery at different times of the day is a treat, and would constantly take my time going from quest to quest just to take all of the wonderful details in.
The Division, Warframe (XB1)
GT: Tanith 6227
Because I... really want to do that.
You can set people on fire, knock them into their comrades, then light them all up with flammable gas.
You can parry arrows mid-flight and send them right back at the shooter, then blind 'em with Samum while you close the distance.
You can mind-control bandits into fighting their own guys, then push them all off of a cliff with Aard.
You can pop a Golden Oriole and fill the battlefield with poison gas, whilst remaining blissfully immune.
Just gotta mix it up a little. Anybody can kill a monster. Witchers kill monsters with style.
I'm honestly not sure why I found the combat so boring. I think it was mostly the encounter design and pace of it that struck me the wrong way. There are a bunch of tactical options, but I never felt very incentivised to use them.
I played a sign-focused build, and at some point in the game it became clear that channeled igni was by far the most efficient option, and anything else was just me messing around for fun. This got worse as enemies got more and more proficient at parrying, until I reached a point where pretty much every time I tried to hack at a humanoid enemy they simply parried my blows for a while and then counterattacked me. I could have used signs to open them up to attack, and often did, but at that point I could have just used igni and not bothered with the sword at all.
I've been playing Dragon's dogma lately, and boy does that game show you how fun this style of combat can be.
It's very easy to get into a rhythm with The Witcher. I'm slowly working through a New Game + while waiting for the next DLC to drop, and I'm surprised how much more I am enjoying it this time. The chief reason is that, with all the unlocked skills, excess points and cheap respec potions, I'm actually moving beyond the rote Slash/Dodge/Slash approach I took my first time through.
It's still not great combat. Even with the improved movement, the system is just too loose and janky for the precision dodge/parry/attack flow they want to achieve.
Now I'm down some deep dark internet hole reading fan theories about who O'dimm actually is (the most common being that he's basically this world's Satan).
Now I need to go finish the main game, after almost a year, hehe.
Man, what a game...what a fucking game. I just don't have enough good things to say about this game. Even for all it's warts, it's just such a master work. No question that it's my personal game of the year for 2015. Really looking forward to Blood and Wine now so I have an excuse to jump back in to this world.
For now, it's on to the rest of my deep backlog...but this game will stick with me for a bit.
Shitty Tumblr:lighthouse1138.tumblr.com