The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt: Official Thread

[Flogger23m]

Eagle vision? you mean Witcher Sense? I hardly used that and I 100% completed the game.

The best part of the story and side quests was the constant acknowledgement that every choice was to some degree morally ambiguous, there was no Paragon or Full Evil playthrough. as for the ending it was more varied that most games based on your choices, certainly more varied that Mass Effect that sold on 'choices matter'. Then again I got the 'best' ending with every witcher alive, all players I could rescue saved, and the proper romance option (Yen).

It just seems like you played a different game, but then again people like different things so I don't expect you or everyone to like the game.

Also 2 years ago there where several games that almost straight copied W3 (Assassins Creed) or incorporated elements, that arguably did it better, but that is kinda the point in improving upon the past.

edit: prior to 2015 there really wasn't a game that combined everything W3 did. open world, rpg, choices matter, very long, tps melee combat, full voiced dialogue, high production value and gfx, etc. after there are plenty.

The ending I received was about 10 minutes or less. You spend more time talking to random people in a village than getting proper closure on whatever the story was supposed to be. The game lingers on for hours with little plot movement before dropping lots of exposition right at the end, without attempting to give the player a reason to care about anything all that much. There is a girl, you like her apparently, and need to save her from super elves. It was very rushed and of course is a problem with the length of the game as well as the pacing.

Choices? Pretty much everything you do in the previous game had zero real affect. No better than Mass Effect there. Main difference between the two is Mass Effect crafted conflicts that came up naturally throughout the game, and you ended up getting closure on many of them. They were build up and allowed you to form opinions and care about most if not all of them. Not so much for Witcher 3. The game leads you through a couple of plot lines - You like character X, you hate thing Y. Make a decision about a villager that won't matter 10 minutes from now, rinse repeat for a few hours before we take you back to the actual story.

I played Assassin's Creed Origins and Odyssey, and cannot see how they copied Witcher 3. Odyssey has more in line with MMO style upgrades and grinding, with a more awkward and cheesy leveling system. The levelling system in Witcher 3 wasn't too bad, and more or less was just a way to dole out new attacks, just at an excessively slow pace. Yeah they added dialogue options but that isn't unique to Witcher. Aside from being long, 3rd person and having swords, not much else is similar between the two. Odyssey sucked. Witcher 3 felt like they tried at least.

 

[Archaea]

The ending I received was about 10 minutes or less. You spend more time talking to random people in a village than getting proper closure on whatever the story was supposed to be. The game lingers on for hours with little plot movement before dropping lots of exposition right at the end, without attempting to give the player a reason to care about anything all that much. There is a girl, you like her apparently, and need to save her from super elves. It was very rushed and of course is a problem with the length of the game as well as the pacing.

Choices? Pretty much everything you do in the previous game had zero real affect. No better than Mass Effect there. Main difference between the two is Mass Effect crafted conflicts that came up naturally throughout the game, and you ended up getting closure on many of them. They were build up and allowed you to form opinions and care about most if not all of them. Not so much for Witcher 3. The game leads you through a couple of plot lines - You like character X, you hate thing Y. Make a decision about a villager that won't matter 10 minutes from now, rinse repeat for a few hours before we take you back to the actual story.

I played Assassin's Creed Origins and Odyssey, and cannot see how they copied Witcher 3. Odyssey has more in line with MMO style upgrades and grinding, with a more awkward and cheesy leveling system. The levelling system in Witcher 3 wasn't too bad, and more or less was just a way to dole out new attacks, just at an excessively slow pace. Yeah they added dialogue options but that isn't unique to Witcher. Aside from being long, 3rd person and having swords, not much else is similar between the two. Odyssey sucked. Witcher 3 felt like they tried at least.

Wow!

I don’t see how you could arrive at this conciliation unless you purposely skipped all the cutscenes and dialogue options that explain the story.

You say none of your choices affect the game world? Here’s how they affect the major battle towards the end. Not to mention the 36 different ending variations you can have. People on the street talk to you about previous quest lines, even attack you on sight because of choices you made, games world order leadership is chosen based on your nods. It affects the game world and the story as much as any game has managed to do. You get a lot of the backstory by reading the ‘books’ you find along the way, or exploring extra dialogue options in conversations. I had not played a Witcher game before, and had no familiarity on the subject whatsoever, but I certainly knew what was going on in the game. Every aspect was explored if you took the time to do so. Even how young boys become Witcher’s as a memorable side quest I believe in the Blood and Wine expansion.

Read this short blurb to see just how complex and detailed the game world changes made by your choices became for a single battle as an example:

https://www.vg247.com/2016/05/05/the-witcher-3s-battle-of-kaer-morhen-took-a-lot-of-work/

 

[Flogger23m]

You say none of your choices affect the game world?

Yeah, ending of W2 made practically zero difference to W3. Game may as well have not existed, save for a minor side quest that pops up.

Not to mention the 36 different ending variations you can have.

We've seen this in many games in the past. There are really 2-3 endings, with a few combinations of small dialogue options which multiply. Same with every other game that has done this in the past. I don't consider Mass Effect 3 as having dozens upon dozens of endings because the cutscene was slightly different at the end, or because a few characters appeared or didn't based on choices. Same deal with W3.

Only real major variation in W3 is if Ciri becomes a witcher or empress. But it matters little, because out of a 70-80 game, anything related to Ciri's plot line that could shape this happened within a few hours. It simply has such little impact and little importance given what the game tasks you to do.

People on the street talk to you about previous quest lines, even attack you on sight because of choices you made, games world order leadership is chosen based on your nods.

Same deal with Mass Effect 2/3. As with those games, the impact is minimal and more or less a subtle nod. Angry shop keeper at the citadel won't deal with you in ME2. Different people in leadership. Matters little. Same with W3.

And many other games have done this, like Dishonored.

It affects the game world and the story as much as any game has managed to do.

At its best, it rivals previous games. Which is my point. Nothing stood out as being great, right down to the limited and clunky sword combat. It isn't bad, just more of the same.

 

[polonyc2]

Geralt of Rivia statue- $1449

The 1/3 scale monument is constructed of "polystone and other materials," stands roughly three feet in height with a maximum diameter of just under two feet, and weighs about 57 pounds...Geralt's right hand grips his "iconic" monster-killing silver sword, while in his left are the recently severed heads of a trio of harpies who made the mistake of messing with him...he's wearing his classic Kaer Morhen armor, and stands upon a base emblazoned with a large, LED-lit Wolf School medallion

The pièce de résistance of this massive slab of man is the swappable head, enabling a Geralt for every mood. Four unique heads are included:

Normal Geralt
No-Beard Geralt
Hearts of Stone Mark Geralt
Toxicity Geralt

 

[Blade-Runner]

Modders are awesome part 593:

 

[Jumpem]

Modders are awesome part 593:

With all of the game's success I would have expected CD Projekt Red to have already done this.

 

[Blade-Runner]

With all of the game's success I would have expected CD Projekt Red to have already done this.

On its way apparently...

https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/4/2...-free-upgrade-console-xbox-ps5-pc-ray-tracing

 

[Jumpem]

On its way apparently...

https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/4/2...-free-upgrade-console-xbox-ps5-pc-ray-tracing

Interesting. I never got around to playing it. I will wait for this.

 

[AlphaQup]

The HD Reworked mod is amazing. I've ran it on my last 3-4 playthroughs. I honestly can't even remember what vanilla looks like anymore.

But don't stop there! Go nuts with the modding! https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3?tab=popular+(all+time)

This is most of them I run (not all get added to NMM, some you have to manually add):

I'll absolutely be doing another playthrough once this game gets RT .

 

[T4rd]

The HD Reworked mod is amazing. I've ran it on my last 3-4 playthroughs. I honestly can't even remember what vanilla looks like anymore.

But don't stop there! Go nuts with the modding! https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3?tab=popular+(all+time)

This is most of them I run (not all get added to NMM, some you have to manually add):

View attachment 314272

I'll absolutely be doing another playthrough once this game gets RT .

There a trick to getting this to download? I'm trying to download the Mod Manger for the HD Reworked Project Ultimate (9.8 GBs) and the download won't start even after clicking the link to force the download if it doesn't start automatically. Tried in both Chrome and Edge and have no ad-blockers installed or anything (just use Pihole for DNS filtering and ad blocking for my whole network - which it's not showing any blocks on the query log from that site either).

 

[MavericK]

Hmm...maybe I'll try playing this for a third time with the RT update. For whatever reason I would get like 10-20 hours in and then just lose interest or something, I'm not sure why.

 

[AlphaQup]

There a trick to getting this to download? I'm trying to download the Mod Manger for the HD Reworked Project Ultimate (9.8 GBs) and the download won't start even after clicking the link to force the download if it doesn't start automatically. Tried in both Chrome and Edge and have no ad-blockers installed or anything (just use Pihole for DNS filtering and ad blocking for my whole network - which it's not showing any blocks on the query log from that site either).

I'd have to dig next time I'm at my comp, but if I remember correctly, the HD rework is 3 standalone. exe's (approx 4GB, 4GB and about 500MB each last time I installed it) , you shouldn't need to use NMM for that specific mod.

If you check my screenshot, it's not listed in there.

NMM should only be used for mods that have the NMM download link right next to the normal download button.

EDIT: tomorrow AM ill re-download the new new one and see if what I wrote above is still true. Maybe it's been repackaged since I did it last.

 

[GoldenTiger]

Interesting. I never got around to playing it. I will wait for this.

Same here. I got it at launch off of GOG, then the complete version from steam, and still haven't touched it.

 

[Krenum]

Same here. I got it at launch off of GOG, then the complete version from steam, and still haven't touched it.

What the heck are you waiting on?! Its one of the greatest games ever made.

 

[GoldenTiger]

What the heck are you waiting on?! Its one of the greatest games ever made.

I'm building my new system finally tomorrow.

 

[DFenz]

Anyone know of any mods that make the difficulty more consistant throughout the game? I would like something that made enemies a little more aggressive and faster, maybe give monster abilities a buff, I'm find with humans being weak because a Witcher would be stronger than a human. I use FCR3, would be nice to have something that worked along with it, but would be willing to drop FCR3 for something that fully rebalances combat.

 

[Armenius]

There a trick to getting this to download? I'm trying to download the Mod Manger for the HD Reworked Project Ultimate (9.8 GBs) and the download won't start even after clicking the link to force the download if it doesn't start automatically. Tried in both Chrome and Edge and have no ad-blockers installed or anything (just use Pihole for DNS filtering and ad blocking for my whole network - which it's not showing any blocks on the query log from that site either).

You need to be logged in with an account to download mods over a certain size (20MB if I remember correctly). In NMM there should be a way to set your login credentials in the options.

 

[Krenum]

Anyone know of any mods that make the difficulty more consistant throughout the game? I would like something that made enemies a little more aggressive and faster, maybe give monster abilities a buff, I'm find with humans being weak because a Witcher would be stronger than a human. I use FCR3, would be nice to have something that worked along with it, but would be willing to drop FCR3 for something that fully rebalances combat.

Here is a popular one on W3 Nexus. Not sure if its any good though.

https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/3762

 

[DFenz]

Here is a popular one on W3 Nexus. Not sure if its any good though.

https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/3762

I'll check this one out and may give it a shot before I try out Ghost Mode, I know I will probably have to redo most my mods if I install that though.

 

[Archaea]

Remember than CD Projekt Red is supposed to be releasing a HD rework of Witcher 3 first party. I’ll hold off my first replay for that time.

 

[TaintedSquirrel]

Remember than CD Projekt Red is supposed to be releasing a HD rework of Witcher 3 first party. I’ll hold off my first replay for that time.

Maybe this will finally be the time I play Witcher 3. I suppose the remaster update will break all existing mods, unfortunately. Might have to wait for those to be updated.

 

[Krenum]

Remember than CD Projekt Red is supposed to be releasing a HD rework of Witcher 3 first party. I’ll hold off my first replay for that time.

Won't be better than Halk Hogans. Keep waiting.

 

[Archaea]

Won't be better than Halk Hogans. Keep waiting.

Unless Halk Hogan is a full ensemble of like 500 developers that CD Projekt Red has at their disposal, then I’d take that bet.

 

[Krenum]

Unless Halk Hogan is a full ensemble of like 500 developers that CD Projekt Red has at their disposal, then I’d take that bet.

You're on.

 

[Parja]

Unless Halk Hogan is a full ensemble of like 500 developers that CD Projekt Red has at their disposal, then I’d take that bet.

Right, because there is definitely a solid history of developers doing visual overhauls better than the modders.

 

[Armenius]

Won't be better than Halk Hogans. Keep waiting.

He won't be able to add ray tracing or HDR to the game.

 

[DFenz]

Well I'm not getting my hopes up on CDPR textures after seeing Cyberpunk 2077 not hopping on that hype train. Denroth and HalkHogan's work has been incredible in Witcher 3.

My hopes is they don't poorly implement HDR. I would also like to see DLSS if they are adding DXR/RTX features because otherwise it wouldn't be viable at 4K anyways so it would be pointless for me.

 

[Krenum]

He won't be able to add ray tracing or HDR to the game.

I thought we were talking about textures?

 

[w35t]

So like, is gwent fun to many of you? I've always completely dismissed it but am thinking of trying it out this play through.. Is it 'like' anything?

 

[horrorshow]

......... Yeah, it's alright.

*knows nothing about card games what-so-ever*

 

[DFenz]

So like, is gwent fun to many of you? I've always completely dismissed it but am thinking of trying it out this play through.. Is it 'like' anything?

I recommend Gwent Redux if you want a more expanded version of the game, it's pretty good, been using it in my current playthrough.
https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/4287?tab=description

 

[polonyc2]

Witcher 3 RTX 3090 4K- Vanilla Lighting and weather 2.0 update5 | 50+Mods

 

[Domingo]

Witcher 3 RTX 3090 4K- Vanilla Lighting and weather 2.0 update5 | 50+Mods

While really amazing looking when he's walking in a straight line, it gets super jittery whenever the camera moves at all. That would drive me bonkers.

 

[Colonel Sanders]

While really amazing looking when he's walking in a straight line, it gets super jittery whenever the camera moves at all. That would drive me bonkers.

there's also the fact that it really doesn't look any better than default Witcher 3, just slightly different

 

[polonyc2]

Witcher 3 Director Has Left CD Projekt Red Amid Workplace Bullying Accusations

CDPR conducted a months-long investigation into Witcher 3 lead director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz' behavior which ultimately found him not guilty of wrongdoing...nevertheless, Tomaszkiewicz announced he was leaving CDPR in an email to staff, in which he acknowledged he had created “bad blood” within the company and left many with feelings of “fear, stress or discomfort when working with me.”

in addition to directing The Witcher 3, Tomaszkiewicz was a secondary director and producer for Cyberpunk 2077, and was expected to again step into a leadership role for CDPR’s next major Witcher project...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...or-leaves-embattled-game-developer-cd-projekt

 

[Krenum]

Witcher 3 Director Has Left CD Projekt Red Amid Workplace Bullying Accusations

CDPR conducted a months-long investigation into Witcher 3 lead director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz' behavior which ultimately found him not guilty of wrongdoing...nevertheless, Tomaszkiewicz announced he was leaving CDPR in an email to staff, in which he acknowledged he had created “bad blood” within the company and left many with feelings of “fear, stress or discomfort when working with me.”

in addition to directing The Witcher 3, Tomaszkiewicz was a secondary director and producer for Cyberpunk 2077, and was expected to again step into a leadership role for CDPR’s next major Witcher project...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...or-leaves-embattled-game-developer-cd-projekt

Well, that sucks. It probably goes deeper than just Konrad. Its more than likely a company wide issue.

Money and fame ruin everything.

 

[Armenius]

The creator of the HD Reworked project is apparently in talks with CDPR to have his mod, or at least parts of it, used in the "next gen" upgrade for the game. Makes sense since the mod is great and most of the legwork in upgrading models and textures has already been done.

https://www.overclock3d.net/news/so...may_be_added_to_the_game_s_next-gen_version/1

 

[polonyc2]

The Witcher 3 is getting free new DLC based on the Netflix show

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has been out on PC for almost six years now: Its grand finale, the Blood and Wine DLC, has been around for more than five years...despite its advanced age, new content is on the way: A "next-gen update" is coming later this year for the Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and PC, and there's going to be some new DLC content based on the Netflix series, too...

https://twitter.com/witchergame/status/1413568916920602625

 

[MavericK]

Maybe with the update I'll finally get around to actually playing this game all the way through...lol. I am not sure why but I get a dozen or so hours in and then just start to lose interest for some reason.

 

[polonyc2]

adding ray-tracing to Witcher 3 should take an already gorgeous looking game to another level of eye candy!...I wonder if if they can go back and add it to the previous two games...