The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt: Official Thread

Volkum said:
In many situations you do know what you're fighting in advance though. If I'm working on a contract for X monster, I'll check the bestiary to see what it effective against it and check that I have the appropriate oil, decoction, and potions. I'm only level 18 right now and have been spending skill points so as to not have more skills than I have slots right now, but later on I would adjust this too, if needed. Most story line questions result in fights versus humans so I'd use Hanged Man's Venom before I think there will be an encounter. Other quests often provide clues if you find them with the witcher senses. I find it somewhat rare that I have no idea what is going to be there unless it's a meaningless fight versus something like Drowners.
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This. More often than not, you know what you're going to have to fight well enough in advance that you could adjust what skills you have enabled beforehand. There have been a couple of places I've gotten caught off guard, but I don't think manipulating my skills would have helped in those cases.

To me, the real problem with this system is that you don't get enough points for it to matter. I'm at level 17 or 18 now on the "Blood and broken bones" difficulty setting, and I have all the skills I've unlocked enabled. They should have either provided fewer slots, or more points, if they wanted to the player to have to adjust this frequently. As it is, it just seems kind of superfluous.
 
Volkum said:
In many situations you do know what you're fighting in advance though. If I'm working on a contract for X monster, I'll check the bestiary to see what it effective against it and check that I have the appropriate oil, decoction, and potions. I'm only level 18 right now and have been spending skill points so as to not have more skills than I have slots right now, but later on I would adjust this too, if needed. Most story line questions result in fights versus humans so I'd use Hanged Man's Venom before I think there will be an encounter. Other quests often provide clues if you find them with the witcher senses. I find it somewhat rare that I have no idea what is going to be there unless it's a meaningless fight versus something like Drowners.
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I dsagree, there were quite a few times where I would be doing something and I run into something out of the mission's "standard"
RazorWind said:
This. More often than not, you know what you're going to have to fight well enough in advance that you could adjust what skills you have enabled beforehand. There have been a couple of places I've gotten caught off guard, but I don't think manipulating my skills would have helped in those cases.

To me, the real problem with this system is that you don't get enough points for it to matter. I'm at level 17 or 18 now on the "Blood and broken bones" difficulty setting, and I have all the skills I've unlocked enabled. They should have either provided fewer slots, or more points, if they wanted to the player to have to adjust this frequently. As it is, it just seems kind of superfluous.
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You aren't supposed to be mastering everything. And at lvl 17-18, you're hardly close to the peak, of even the first run through. I think I ended with 58 skill points, which was more than enough.
 
I rarely found that the different potions and oils made a huge difference. Some of the red-faced enemies you encounter early in the game are a full 20+ levels above you. No amount of potions or oils make a difference in those fights.
If an enemy is close to your level you probably don't need any help.
They really only matter if you stumble upon an enemy that's say...6-7 levels higher than you. Then they're enough to actually make you do real damage instead of pitter pat and run tactics.
Even then, you still have to prepare yourself before actually stumbling on the enemy. Either that or you need to run away and hope the enemy backs off.
 
Domingo said:
I rarely found that the different potions and oils made a huge difference. Some of the red-faced enemies you encounter early in the game are a full 20+ levels above you. No amount of potions or oils make a difference in those fights.
If an enemy is close to your level you probably don't need any help.
They really only matter if you stumble upon an enemy that's say...6-7 levels higher than you. Then they're enough to actually make you do real damage instead of pitter pat and run tactics.
Even then, you still have to prepare yourself before actually stumbling on the enemy. Either that or you need to run away and hope the enemy backs off.
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What difficulty are you referring to?

Are you speaking just generally with normal packs, or witcher contracts, etc?
 
There is one wyven on an island that was some 20 levels above. 2 hits and toast. but using the quen regen he was fairly easy. it took a long time but was not a complex fight.
 
I got to Velen last night, was trying to explore a bit before continuing the story...yea, I'm getting absolutely demolished by everything. I'm level 4 and most enemies are level 9+ in the general area.
 
Cmustang87 said:
What difficulty are you referring to?

Are you speaking just generally with normal packs, or witcher contracts, etc?
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Any difficulty. The only difference is damage. 2 hits and roll or dodge is universal. Especially with quen to give you some free mistakes.
Witcher contracts give you a heads up so you don't usually "stumble" upon those enemies since you know what level they're for.
The tougher enemies you usually stumble upon are the ones guarding treasure. Some of those can be upwards of level 25-30 and are readily accessible when you're in the single digits. They're beatable, but those fights take forever since you have to hit them literally 100 (or more) times. Even with the best oils possible (which you're unlikely to have at that level) it still takes 75 hits instead of 100.
I killed a bog witch that took me almost 20 minutes...and all I got was some random garbage and a sword that wasn't as good as my current one.
 
I never use oils or potions and dont even repair my armour or weapons.
A little food or water occasionally.
Use of Quen or Igni where most effective and plenty of rolling around while striking.
Some things take a while to kill, but hey.
I take on enemies up to 6 levels higher.

There is so much to do around my level that there is no point in taking on higher level quests that give you lots of experience because you lose it on the quests that you are way higher than.
 
Cmustang87 said:
I got to Velen last night, was trying to explore a bit before continuing the story...yea, I'm getting absolutely demolished by everything. I'm level 4 and most enemies are level 9+ in the general area.
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Did you do the Viper school gear treasure hunt? I had the same problem until I went back and did that series of quests. The game is pretty stingy with the silver swords early on, and you really need a good one to get you through the level 4-8 range. The Viper school quest nets you a decent one.

I'd recommend going back to White Orchard for a little while and doing some side quests there as well. The game punishes you near the beginning for rushing through the main story.
 
Best advice I can give anyone is to go to Skellige ASAP instead of hanging around Novigrad. I did all of Novigrad first and almost every Skellige quest was way below my level. you can do both at once.
 
Domingo said:
Best advice I can give anyone is to go to Skellige ASAP instead of hanging around Novigrad. I did all of Novigrad first and almost every Skellige quest was way below my level. you can do both at once.
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I think I've fallen into the same boat. I'm 18, almost 19, and haven't yet gone to Skellige.
 
RazorWind said:
Did you do the Viper school gear treasure hunt? I had the same problem until I went back and did that series of quests. The game is pretty stingy with the silver swords early on, and you really need a good one to get you through the level 4-8 range. The Viper school quest nets you a decent one.

I'd recommend going back to White Orchard for a little while and doing some side quests there as well. The game punishes you near the beginning for rushing through the main story.
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Yea, I did go back and I completed everything White Orchard had, including both Viper swords... haha.
 
Volkum said:
I think I've fallen into the same boat. I'm 18, almost 19, and haven't yet gone to Skellige.
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Actually, that's just about perfect. Go NOW. I went for the first time when I was level 24. I only gained a single level for the whole area, and there are dozens of quests there. Even if they were technically harder than the quests in Novigrad (which rarely included combat), they're geared for someone who is lower level XP-wise.
 
so I got this on cdkeys.com for $20 and fired it up

It runs pretty well on my gtx780 classy, high settings, hairworks off I'm getting around 45-50 fps. What a beautiful game, though.

I DID have a crash to desktop, though. I will have to dial back the OC to see if that's the root cause.
 
spintroniX said:
I DID have a crash to desktop, though. I will have to dial back the OC to see if that's the root cause.
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For what it's worth, I haven't had a single crash or error so far in my 48-49ish hours of game play. My system is running all stock (I know, not very [H] of me).
 
Volkum said:
For what it's worth, I haven't had a single crash or error so far in my 48-49ish hours of game play. My system is running all stock (I know, not very [H] of me).
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yeah, I'm not inclined to blame the application at this point. it's far more likely that my OC is unstable. TW3 is the most demanding game the system has seen, to date.
 
So I thought I was at the end game
at around Kaer Morhen
but seems I was not. Since then I have now reached level 34 and am still doing quests after quests to advance the storyline. This game keeps on giving. I also killed two pricks that I so wanted to kill and was glad to see that quest in there.

Now doing some final preparations. Such an amazing game.
 
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Hey KickAssCop, I'm extremely glad you are having a great time in the game, as am I, but can you please use spoiler tags when you're talking about various game content, please?
 
This game looks amazing compared to how I remember it. I took a few months break to let them do their thing when World of Warships hit open beta. It also seems more taxing but well worth it.

Saw a Wolf, holy hell. (hairworks maxed)
 
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Having just come back from MGSV, it seems a lot more stuttery than I remember. I don't know if that's because MGS was smoother, or because I've updated the video drivers and it's broken something.
 
Hell yea, got to play about 2 hours last night and progressed the story a little bit:

Going to Heatherton was an incredible treat. The ride there on horseback and looking at the landscape and wondering what was around every corner. Nothing looks repeated, or cookie cutter. It all looks carefully crafted, yet natural how villages and the world exists. Took out some level 9 endrega workers and a warrior when I was level 4, that was a neat change of pace. Just one little path and there was so many things on the way, that I was always being surprised.

ALSO, the effing mounted combat, are you KIDDING ME? I had a skirmish with 4 mounted bandits and I decapitated them bastards. Holy hell that was awesome!

Then the voice acting, and that scene with the Wild Hunt in Heatherton. I decided to go visit the witch in Midcopse instead of the Bloody Baron. We will see what happens next...
 
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I am about 130 hrs in on my first playthrough. The next quest should roll me into act three, but I have been cleaning up treasure hunts, Witcher contracts and other missed quests.

It should be noted that I have very busy the last month or so, and have only been able to play for a couple hours a week; I also tend to not fast travel very much. Will miss a shit load of sidequests and monster dens if you rely solely on message boards and other question mark popping items (books, maps, conversations).
 
So I really thought that this time I am at the end lol. I ended up going out and doing side quests in Skellige instead.
 
130 hrs on first playthrough? I stopped playing the game after NG+ and had 3 playthrough's at about 250 hrs of gameplay. On my first playthrough it took me about 50 hrs.
 
Matthew Kane said:
130 hrs on first playthrough? I stopped playing the game after NG+ and had 3 playthrough's at about 250 hrs of gameplay. On my first playthrough it took me about 50 hrs.
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I can almost guarantee, you did practically nothing but stick to the story first play through.
 
Was finally getting into this game and the story only to reach a part where you have to play as another character...wtf. I hate when games do this, hopefully there will be a skip ****-sequences like the Skip-the-Fade mod for DA1.....
 
it is no secret you play as Ciri. She is really the focus of the witcher book series, so the fact she was left out of the first two games is kind of strange.
 
Eshelmen said:
I can almost guarantee, you did practically nothing but stick to the story first play through.
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Not quite true. I did half of the gwent stuff till I came across some bugged gwent quests, I did all of the side quests on Skeillege, Novigrad and Velen except the School of Cat, Wolf etc gear. This was on 1.02-1.03 and there was a fuckton of bugged quests and glitches, 1.04 messed things up for worse which I did not install and skipped to 1.05 which did not fix any of the problems I had. I was level 35 after my first playthrough. I did use a trainer after halfway through the game because it was so fucking broken.
 
Finished Witcher 3 on my PS4. Phenomenal game. I really hope the expansions cover the rest of the story. 11/10. Haven't had this much fun gaming since forever. Absolutely fantastic game.

Time to put more time in my PC play through. Was about level 36/37. Still a bunch of quests to do. Used mastercrafted cat gear for the final fights and absolutely destroyed everything lol.
 
I did literally everything except reveal some of the Skellige smuggler's caches in 120 hours. 50-60 would still cover a large chunk of the game. I was just having so much fun with it that I wanted to do all of the side stuff. Things didn't get tedious until (again) those Skellige caches turned out to be worthless.
 
jiminator said:
it is no secret you play as Ciri. She is really the focus of the witcher book series, so the fact she was left out of the first two games is kind of strange.
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Not really... there are lots of stories, game stories even more... where the main subject gets put aside for other things temporarily, then is lead back to the main subject.
 
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