[Megathread] Witcher 3

[May90]

Oh, come on guys... Ciri is hot. She might be essentially protagonist's indirect daughter, but that doesn't make her any less hot. Of course, I wouldn't dare approaching her with a dating proposition, knowing what she can do to me if she deems me pushy. Not to mention what would happen if her "father" learnt of it... I'd rather count Kim Jung Un among my enemies than Geralt.

[Champagne Supernova]

Never had so much frustration at the level 35 contract for the Archgriffin, granted i was level 17 while fighting it, but killing it wasn't the problem. More the fact that occasionally an attack would kill me even with Quen up, not the charge mind you, but the bite. Found that quite odd. Killed it after around 7 attempts of getting clipped by the charge and smacked in the face with the wings after attacking for longer than i should of done.

Think i may opt for a heavy armour with crit stats for a strong attack /alchemy build. With water hag, Troll decoctions / Katakan, - Even on the second to hardest difficulty i still get 1 hit killed by various mobs, and with New game + that problem will probably be frequent for me So, will that kind of build work in NG+? Or is a fast attack light armour build the go to for NG+?

[May90]

I might be wrong, but I get the impression that Witcher 3 uses a system similar to most MMOs, in which the player is artificially blocked from doing the content they seriously underlevel. I tried fighting some level 12 hag in Velen when I was level 7, and I got totally crushed: she literally killed me in 1 hit, even with Quen on. Then I came back at level 10, with pretty much the same gear - and the fight was easy and short. I think the damage the enemies deal is increased if they overlevel you, and your damage is decreased respectively.

[pateuvasiliu]

There's a hidden buff making enemies 10 levels over you have 800% more HP or something.

One more reason BCE is God's gift.

[Aberrict]

Good news PS4 owners! 1.0.9 (among other things) should improve your game's performance. I wonder if the patch will launch with the expansion or before hand.

[Baracuda]

Never had so much frustration at the level 35 contract for the Archgriffin, granted i was level 17 while fighting it, but killing it wasn't the problem. More the fact that occasionally an attack would kill me even with Quen up, not the charge mind you, but the bite. Found that quite odd. Killed it after around 7 attempts of getting clipped by the charge and smacked in the face with the wings after attacking for longer than i should of done.

Think i may opt for a heavy armour with crit stats for a strong attack /alchemy build. With water hag, Troll decoctions / Katakan, - Even on the second to hardest difficulty i still get 1 hit killed by various mobs, and with New game + that problem will probably be frequent for me So, will that kind of build work in NG+? Or is a fast attack light armour build the go to for NG+?

Stop fighting red monsters, sure you can kill them but you're not supposed to, they pretty much have a permanent ancient artifact from wow.

[Champagne Supernova]

Stop fighting red monsters, sure you can kill them but you're not supposed to, they pretty much have a permanent ancient artifact from wow.

That's the thing though, feel the urge to complete the zone i'm in before moving on, Hardly touched Novigrad, but Velen is near enough complete apart from a few map question marks. I guess I'm losing out on Exp though now that the main story quests are grey to me at my level.

[pateuvasiliu]

Get BCE, it removes that stupid artificial difficulty.

[Tech614]

Get BCE, it removes that stupid artificial difficulty.

20th time in this thread where you post "game is too hard, please download mod to cheat and make it easy".

You end up back in Velen anyways toward the end of the game there is no need to "complete" it before you are even half way through the main story.

[May90]

I very rarely resort to playing mods altering in-game mechanics in any way, since I like experiencing games the way they were designed to be played by the developers. Altering the experience to me is like, I don't know, taking a book and replacing a few chapters with another author's writings. Graphics mods - now those I use frequently when playing older games, since they increase the visual fidelity, which is pleasant to an eye. It is more like changing font in a very old yellowed out book with something more easily readable. It changes the presentation of the content, but not the content itself.

The more I play Witcher 3, the more I like its combat. Initially I was a bit hostile towards it, since it is less mobile than that in Witcher 2 Enhanced Edition. But now, I, actually, start appreciating its complexity. In Witcher 2, you just rolled around and hit enemies when their defenses were down, escaping when they were up. In Witcher 3, it is more about timing: dodge, hit the enemy exactly at the moment he is most vulnerable, dodge again, analyse the situation, choose the next enemy you want to hit, try to get in close and prepare another strike... It is some kind of hybrid of Witcher 1 rhythm combat, and Witcher 2 dynamic action combat. I am one of those few people who actually liked Witcher 1 combat, and I liked Witcher 2 combat even more. I still like Witcher 2 combat more than Witcher 3, but Witcher 3 combat has its strong points.

Also, I found that the game is much more enjoyable if I keep rotating story-based quests with random exploration. Velen is huge, and at some point it made me quit the game for 1.5 months, since I was overwhelmed by the amount of random content there. But then I returned back, and when I got to multiple series of quests in Novigrad and start switching between doing Novigrad quests and exploring Velen, the game became very enjoyable. I wonder if I can use the same trick to try to get into MMOs once more, too... Or in Bethesda games...

[Aberrict]

I read an article about how some cultural references are lost translating The Witcher games from Polish to English that I found interesting. Unfortunately I can't find it now. The only example I can remember in depth is from the first game. It goes like this:

Radovid offers Foltest help that he refers to as "fraternal assistance" and Foltest goes off at him. It's something that passes over other players as an odd moment, but those in Eastern Europe will recognize that term and understand the reaction. "Fraternal assistance" was a term used by the Soviet Union as justification to intervene militarily in the countries of the Warsaw Pact that drifted to far out of line with the USSR. It's a hint that Radovid, who appears like an alright guy, is a someone with expansionist ambitions. Which come front and center in the third game.

[pateuvasiliu]

20th time in this thread where you post "game is too hard, please download mod to cheat and make it easy".

Already finished it on Death March in the Vanilla version.

I prefer the BCE version because it makes the game more enjoyable. You should be able to kill a lvl 20 beast as lvl 1, it should simply be extremely hard. BCE makes it possible without making the game easier. The enemies hit much harder in BCE, the only thing removed is the pants on head retarded artificial difficulty that rivals Skyrim in stupidity. ( reduces your damage dealt, increases damage taken by ridiculous amounts )


Also I laugh at you if you think this game is hard enough that someone would need mods to make it easier. It's piss easy. Imlerith is the only boss that resembles difficulty and even he can be bursted down with Whirl long before Phase 2 starts.

[May90]

I read an article about how some cultural references are lost translating The Witcher games from Polish to English that I found interesting. Unfortunately I can't find it now. The only example I can remember in depth is from the first game. It goes like this:

Radovid offers Foltest help that he refers to as "fraternal assistance" and Foltest goes off at him. It's something that passes over other players as an odd moment, but those in Eastern Europe will recognize that term and understand the reaction. "Fraternal assistance" was a term used by the Soviet Union as justification to intervene militarily in the countries of the Warsaw Pact that drifted to far out of line with the USSR. It's a hint that Radovid, who appears like an alright guy, is a someone with expansionist ambitions. Which come front and center in the third game.

I am originally from another Slavic country, with somewhat similar folklore, and I definitely can see some things that people growing up in other cultures wouldn't understand clearly in the games. However, the number of such things was greatly reduced in Witcher 2 and Witcher 3, compared to Witcher 1, probably because these games are much more oriented on the world gaming market, while Witcher 1 was more of an internal product that somehow became unexpectedly popular in the world. In Witcher 1, some monsters were called straight from Slavic mythology, such as koshchey, vodyanoi, kikimore. The dialogues had a higher context, with a lot of things left untold, but clearly understood in Slavic culture. But even in the latest game some references are clear. For example, you will see Geralt sometimes say, "Wind's howling". In the old Slavic religions, parts of which are still alive in today's traditions, a lot of meaning was given to the weather changes, and howling wind specifically often was interpreted as if something bad was about to happen. Rain had a somewhat similar meaning, and Geralt comments on that too (although that probably also had something to do with Geralt hating everything watery and wet; he also comments at the start of Witcher 2 tutorial, "My boots are soaked, yet another boggy shit hole").

What surprised me the most in Witcher 3 though was the name of the card: "Poor Fucking Infantry". It must be the only game I've ever played in which such a strong curse word was used in a title for something. Although all three games are big on all kinds of curses and sexual references. Yet sexual scenes themselves still look clunky as hell for some reason...

[Deleted]

I am originally from another Slavic country, with somewhat similar folklore, and I definitely can see some things that people growing up in other cultures wouldn't understand clearly in the games. However, the number of such things was greatly reduced in Witcher 2 and Witcher 3, compared to Witcher 1, probably because these games are much more oriented on the world gaming market, while Witcher 1 was more of an internal product that somehow became unexpectedly popular in the world. In Witcher 1, some monsters were called straight from Slavic mythology, such as koshchey, vodyanoi, kikimore. The dialogues had a higher context, with a lot of things left untold, but clearly understood in Slavic culture. But even in the latest game some references are clear. For example, you will see Geralt sometimes say, "Wind's howling". In the old Slavic religions, parts of which are still alive in today's traditions, a lot of meaning was given to the weather changes, and howling wind specifically often was interpreted as if something bad was about to happen. Rain had a somewhat similar meaning, and Geralt comments on that too (although that probably also had something to do with Geralt hating everything watery and wet; he also comments at the start of Witcher 2 tutorial, "My boots are soaked, yet another boggy shit hole").

What surprised me the most in Witcher 3 though was the name of the card: "Poor Fucking Infantry". It must be the only game I've ever played in which such a strong curse word was used in a title for something. Although all three games are big on all kinds of curses and sexual references. Yet sexual scenes themselves still look clunky as hell for some reason...

Poor Fucking Infantry is pretty important military unit form last book of saga(like 90% of cards).
Well, they always tried to balance between eastern and western mythology. 1st and 3rd are pretty similliar in this case. 2nd game doesn't have any new monsters known from slavic myths or witcher books.

[Arlee]

I might be wrong, but I get the impression that Witcher 3 uses a system similar to most MMOs, in which the player is artificially blocked from doing the content they seriously underlevel. I tried fighting some level 12 hag in Velen when I was level 7, and I got totally crushed: she literally killed me in 1 hit, even with Quen on. Then I came back at level 10, with pretty much the same gear - and the fight was easy and short. I think the damage the enemies deal is increased if they overlevel you, and your damage is decreased respectively.

Sort of. I mean it is totally possible to kill something way over level but it involves a lot of dodging and twirling around. But honestly it isn't really worth the effort most of the time imo. I generally only went for things higher level if I just really wanted to do a contact because I didn't want to forget about it. And if you are trying to finish every level before moving on... yea you're going to be WAY over-leveled by the end. Plus you're sent back and forth so much there isn't much point in doing everything first anyway

[Kralljin]

What surprised me the most in Witcher 3 though was the name of the card: "Poor Fucking Infantry". It must be the only game I've ever played in which such a strong curse word was used in a title for something. Although all three games are big on all kinds of curses and sexual references. Yet sexual scenes themselves still look clunky as hell for some reason...

The name was established before Witcher 3, probably even the book introduced it.

http://witcher.wikia.com/wiki/Poor_Fucking_Infantry

[pateuvasiliu]

The PFI was a part of the army during the previous Nilfgaardian invasion. One of Ciri's friends in Neneke's temple ( the name eludes me, Ellander? ) was part of it. Basically it was made for the people with no training whatsoever.


Despite having shit training and equipment they were instrumental in winning the war, as they held the line.

[May90]

Interesting, thanks for the insight. I thought PFI was some kind of developers' joke, but it seems it has a solid foundation in the lore.

Sort of. I mean it is totally possible to kill something way over level but it involves a lot of dodging and twirling around. But honestly it isn't really worth the effort most of the time imo. I generally only went for things higher level if I just really wanted to do a contact because I didn't want to forget about it. And if you are trying to finish every level before moving on... yea you're going to be WAY over-leveled by the end. Plus you're sent back and forth so much there isn't much point in doing everything first anyway

I agree, and I also don't do higher level content generally. Unfortunately, there is so much content that, if you choose to do, at least, most of it, you quickly overlevel it. For example, my completionist nature doesn't let me leave Velen yet, as there are still a lot of question marks on the map and a few quests I haven't done - I am already level 19, while there are some level 12-15 quests in my log. Going to Skellige is recommended at level 16, so I am already very late for that.

What I like though is that enemies still present some challenge, even if they are a few levels behind me. The way armor works on Death March makes lower level monsters still deal a ton of damage to the characher, so you still have to dodge and roll. That damn Ignis Fatuus almost made me rage out loud, even though I was 3 levels higher than him. I hate stealthy monsters with passion.

[Deleted]

Sort of. I mean it is totally possible to kill something way over level but it involves a lot of dodging and twirling around. But honestly it isn't really worth the effort most of the time imo.

The satisfaction of killing golems 20 levels above you by being an annoying little mosquite is topnotch.

That damn Ignis Fatuus almost made me rage out loud, even though I was 3 levels higher than him. I hate stealthy monsters with passion.

Those will-o-wisps could have been some interesting horror style monsters but nah, they are just rogues who spam vanish and backstab.

[Deleted]

those story of Olgierd and his mansion reminds me A Grain of Truth short story from I book.