The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt: Official Thread

madFive said:
I'm about 90% sure the answer to this question is No, unless I have a lot more of the game left to finish than I thought and didn't get to the mission you're talking about. I've been doing pretty much all of the side missions I could as I found them, but after doing the first big set of missions with Yen, nothing went away or was failed. You can still free-travel and go back to the side-missions later. I'm not sure how the end-game works yet, but I'm under the impression it'll still be open to explore and do side-quests. That way CDPR is free to add in expansions etc later.
Click to expand...

After last battle, it's generally as with all those kind of games - you return to the world pre-last battle stage, so no changes in world, shown in final movie is applied. All the exploration is possible.

BTW - there is no point watching all the credits, there is nothing hidden after them.
 
LurkerLito said:
Yes that's the way it should be. Doing quests should ALWAYS give you more experience. And it's how all RPGs are designed. Though in most they give you the same experience for killing things then add bonus experience for doing a quest. The way it's done in Witcher 3 I think is the best way. It stops the mass murdering types from gaining from their work. I like that they put in a unofficial code of behavior into the game in a reasonable way. You are free to do what you want, just don't expect to gain much from doing it in that manner. I expect many open world type games will learn and copy this feature.
Click to expand...

The same way is done in Pillars of Eternity. You only get XP from quests, and 0 XP from monster kills.
 
LurkerLito said:
I expect many open world type games will learn and copy this feature.
Click to expand...

Not in a million years.

Most RPGs are going to stick with the tried and true method of awarding experience points, by finding a PROPER BALANCE between questing and levelling your character via world exploration.

Of course quests should award you with more points than exploration - where did I say otherwise?

But you're simply not addressing the issue. I mean, are we even playing the same game here?

Players in The Witcher 3 get virtually no points for defeating NPCs out in the wild - not even for defeating NPCs quite a bit above your level. I've checked into this, and you get something like 1 point for defeating an NPC above your present level.

It's completely stupid - and no this is not standard in open world RPGs. Most open world games ALLOW THE GAMER TO CHOOSE between questing and exploring.

And by the way, since you seem to have no understanding of how RPGs are designed, there's a very simple way to prevent gamers from over-levelling, and that's by eliminating re-spawns.

Most RPGs encourage player exploration by actually awarding points for going out into the wilderness and strengthening your character. In this game you do so by having endless conversations with Yennefer while searching for Ciri. And when you are 'challenged' to fight during these main quests it's dead easy, because everyone's at your level.

This game shits all over you if you decide to spend a couple of hours venturing off the beaten path and taking on NPCs that are actually challenging because they are above your level.

Unrewarding.
 
Can't stand the combat mechanics though.

May be I'm not used to yet but I don't yet feel I'm in total control yet. Granted I just started the game. We'll see.
 
LordBritish said:
Can't stand the combat mechanics though.

May be I'm not used to yet but I don't yet feel I'm in total control yet. Granted I just started the game. We'll see.
Click to expand...

Depending on what game you're coming from, it can take some getting used too. Once you learn to counter & parry, when to use heavy and quick strikes and what Signs are good for what it will get smoother. Both my playthroughs had me feeling like a badazz by level 21. I do favor Signs, but from what I've read, ranking up your potions and sword skills is equally as gratifying.
 
Frraksurred said:
Depending on what game you're coming from, it can take some getting used too. Once you learn to counter & parry, when to use heavy and quick strikes and what Signs are good for what it will get smoother. Both my playthroughs had me feeling like a badazz by level 21. I do favor Signs, but from what I've read, ranking up your potions and sword skills is equally as gratifying.
Click to expand...

Yeah, or just spam the attack button, which works 99% of the time.
 
I smell a thread crapping in progress.

The combat isn't up to par with Dark Souls, but it does work. I am able to counter, parry, dodge, roll and attack when and usually where I want. It does get a little wonky with the targeting at times, but overall the combat mechanics get a mark of "good" from me (Dark Souls being "excellent"). I was able to level up to 24 or so just from exploring and not really following the main quest line. If you need money and XP outside of the main quest, take on Witcher contracts. The exploring is just for FUN. If you aren't having fun exploring the vast world, then quit?
 
Ryom said:
I smell a thread crapping in progress.

The combat isn't up to par with Dark Souls, but it does work. I am able to counter, parry, dodge, roll and attack when and usually where I want. It does get a little wonky with the targeting at times, but overall the combat mechanics get a mark of "good" from me (Dark Souls being "excellent").
Click to expand...

Okay, but what's the point of all that?

When NPCs are at your level they're dead easy. All you have to do is spam the attack button. This is how virtually every main quest plays out.

When you're out in the wilds taking on difficult enemies, above your level, then sure you have to go to your arsenal, but the game doesn't reward you with points - so why bother?

This game is its own worst enemy because of the way it distributes points. It's just so... fucked up.
 
Wabe_2.0 said:
Okay, but what's the point of all that?

When NPCs are at your level they're dead easy. All you have to do is spam the attack button. This is how virtually every main quest plays out.

When you're out in the wilds taking on difficult enemies, above your level, then sure you have to go to your arsenal, but the game doesn't reward you with points - so why bother?

This game is its own worst enemy because of the way it distributes points. It's just so... fucked up.
Click to expand...

Then don't play it! How hard is that. Why do you consistently need to make the same point, over, and over, and over, and over again. We get it. The game sucks in your eyes.
 
Wabe_2.0 said:
But you're simply not addressing the issue. I mean, are we even playing the same game here?

Players in The Witcher 3 get virtually no points for defeating NPCs out in the wild - not even for defeating NPCs quite a bit above your level. I've checked into this, and you get something like 1 point for defeating an NPC above your present level.

It's completely stupid - and no this is not standard in open world RPGs. Most open world games ALLOW THE GAMER TO CHOOSE between questing and exploring.

And by the way, since you seem to have no understanding of how RPGs are designed, there's a very simple way to prevent gamers from over-levelling, and that's by eliminating re-spawns.

Most RPGs encourage player exploration by actually awarding points for going out into the wilderness and strengthening your character. In this game you do so by having endless conversations with Yennefer while searching for Ciri. And when you are 'challenged' to fight during these main quests it's dead easy, because everyone's at your level.

This game shits all over you if you decide to spend a couple of hours venturing off the beaten path and taking on NPCs that are actually challenging because they are above your level.

Unrewarding.
Click to expand...
Yes we are playing different games. I am role playing a witcher. Which means I don't kill stuff just to kill stuff. I kill stuff because someone hired me to kill stuff. If I get attacked I defend myself but I understand there won't be much of a reward in doing it so it's better to run from it for now hope someone out there wants it dead and will hire me to kill it and pay me for it. That's called building a world that seems to be more alive than the deadness that is most RPG games where your only goal is to level up and kill stuff.

You are given a choice and allowed to live with the consequences of those choices. You can go around killing everything that moves but you won't be rewarded for it in either money or experience, or you can play the game as an actual character in the world and gain experience and money when people hire you. IT'S COMPLETELY YOUR CHOICE.

As far as stopping spawning, I agree that should be implemented in ADDITION to this. It would finally add a real penalty towards not role playing and figuring out how the world the game created works. I think it would truly make a real difficult game, not artificially hard like Dark Souls where they throw more hitpoints on enemies alone, but a truly difficult game where all your choices even the ones to fight something or not factored into possibly making it impossible to finish the game and get the "good" ending cause you killed too many things outside of quests and didn't get enough experience to be able to beat the final boss.

This game does reward you for exploring, it gives you loot (and stuff you can sell). What it doesn't reward you in is experience for the kill and that is a good thing.
 
Wabe_2.0 said:
Okay, but what's the point of all that?

When NPCs are at your level they're dead easy. All you have to do is spam the attack button. This is how virtually every main quest .
Click to expand...

Unless you're playing on Death March this point holds no water. DM can get easy as you level up, but you can hardly "just spam the attack button."
 
Exploring gets you all sorts of xp, because there are quests everywhere. Main story quests give more xp, no shit. They are more significant. You're also only looking for Ciri for the first 1/3 of the game.

Anyway, it seems the forum has forgotten the MO of one of this forums most notorious shitposters.
 
Wabe_2.0 said:
Not in a million years.

Most RPGs are going to stick with the tried and true method of awarding experience points, by finding a PROPER BALANCE between questing and levelling your character via world exploration.

Of course quests should award you with more points than exploration - where did I say otherwise?

But you're simply not addressing the issue. I mean, are we even playing the same game here?

Players in The Witcher 3 get virtually no points for defeating NPCs out in the wild - not even for defeating NPCs quite a bit above your level. I've checked into this, and you get something like 1 point for defeating an NPC above your present level.

It's completely stupid - and no this is not standard in open world RPGs. Most open world games ALLOW THE GAMER TO CHOOSE between questing and exploring.

And by the way, since you seem to have no understanding of how RPGs are designed, there's a very simple way to prevent gamers from over-levelling, and that's by eliminating re-spawns.

Most RPGs encourage player exploration by actually awarding points for going out into the wilderness and strengthening your character. In this game you do so by having endless conversations with Yennefer while searching for Ciri. And when you are 'challenged' to fight during these main quests it's dead easy, because everyone's at your level.

This game shits all over you if you decide to spend a couple of hours venturing off the beaten path and taking on NPCs that are actually challenging because they are above your level.

Unrewarding.
Click to expand...


Eh, I don't really see this as an issue.

Here is why.

Most RPGs, if not all, give you an array of lands/zones to conquer/explorer. So does Witcher 3. However, TW3 does so with literally hundreds of points of interests/chests and side quests basically around every corner.

If for some reason I wanted to just dick around and kill NPCs and level up, it would indeed eventually become an OP character long before I was even at the appropriate level for the missions.

That's one issue I have with RPGS, doing what you want is kind of exaggerated. What I want to do is explore my own way and quest my own way while not being over powered eventually..
However, TW3 does as good as it can to let you do what you want. They've dumbed down XP from killing beasts and other npcs, I like that. It makes the player not OP so soon and it also makes the player continue forward eventually, with the game.
 
the only thing I don't like about the game is the endless number of smuggler caches. yeah, I know they are optional, but you just don't realize until you have done them all that they are all essentially bullshit. The combat to them is more bullshit. Orient underwater, keep on firing crossbow until all enemies are gone. No aim required. The could just remove all those caches and the game would be better for it.
 
jiminator said:
the only thing I don't like about the game is the endless number of smuggler caches. yeah, I know they are optional, but you just don't realize until you have done them all that they are all essentially bullshit. The combat to them is more bullshit. Orient underwater, keep on firing crossbow until all enemies are gone. No aim required. The could just remove all those caches and the game would be better for it.
Click to expand...

Once I started hitting those in Skellige I got a huge urge to not go hunting for all of the question marks. I think I might just cherry pick everything that's not smuggler caches at this point.
 
CrimsonKnight13 said:
Once I started hitting those in Skellige I got a huge urge to not go hunting for all of the question marks. I think I might just cherry pick everything that's not smuggler caches at this point.
Click to expand...

Yea... I can't imagine that most people weren't disappointed in this. I still went through a lot of them, but I just did those for the sake of doing it, secretly hoping for more places of power on one of those lonely islands.
 
jiminator said:
the only thing I don't like about the game is the endless number of smuggler caches. yeah, I know they are optional, but you just don't realize until you have done them all that they are all essentially bullshit. The combat to them is more bullshit. Orient underwater, keep on firing crossbow until all enemies are gone. No aim required. The could just remove all those caches and the game would be better for it.
Click to expand...



LOL not gonna lie, but I've been standing on my boat each time, timing their swoop attacks and doing one slash at a time.
 
Ouch. I just stand on the boat and crossbow them. 2 shots and they're dead. Slashing them sounds like a huge pain in the ass.
 
Still no tips on GOG Galaxy DLC install? With every update it still calls for an admin pw for each and every file, and that list is getting long.
 
you have have installed your gog stuff in your program files path or some other protected directory, in which case it needs to be admin to modify things
 
Gotta say that I actually agree about the game's lack of rewarding those who kill monsters.
Unless you're just looking for random goods to sell, there isn't much point to it. In fact, with the "guarded treasure" quests, it's usually wiser just to charge after the treasure and run like hell. You can always go back later to kill the stronger guardians, but it's rarely worthwhile. At least twice I spent 5-10 minutes dodging and pitter-patting an enemy 2x or 3x my level only to be rewarded with items I can find in a random barrel.
It's not the end of the world, but it does discourage fighting enemies in general. Unless you have to or are broke, it's better just to haul ass around the world and ignore combat.
 
Domingo said:
Gotta say that I actually agree about the game's lack of rewarding those who kill monsters.
Unless you're just looking for random goods to sell, there isn't much point to it. In fact, with the "guarded treasure" quests, it's usually wiser just to charge after the treasure and run like hell. You can always go back later to kill the stronger guardians, but it's rarely worthwhile. At least twice I spent 5-10 minutes dodging and pitter-patting an enemy 2x or 3x my level only to be rewarded with items I can find in a random barrel.
It's not the end of the world, but it does discourage fighting enemies in general. Unless you have to or are broke, it's better just to haul ass around the world and ignore combat.
Click to expand...

This is basically how I play it.

I do contracts, sidequests, and mains... I go exploring and if I get into something that's cool but I'm not and don't fight every last stray I run across, either.

No idea if I'm really going to hit every last ? on every map or not. We'll see.
 
One thing I found a bit sad was that if you're keeping on top of the Witcher gear then every time an NPC gives you some sort of legendary weapon that's so awesome Geralt thought it couldn't possibly exist as a reward, it's a piece of shit compared with what you've already got. It would be nice if there were a few seriously bad-ass swords out there beyond the (too easy to obtain IMO) Witcher gear.

I just completed the main story for the first time last night and I have to say, I fucking loved every minute of it.
 
How the hell do you beat Eskel in the horse race? I swear they shouldn't have released this game being how damn buggy Roach is. Every single time I hit the bridge to Kaer Morhen Roach just stops while Eskel/Scorpion sprints right by me. Terrible horse mechanics. Roach so much as hits a pebble and he stops.
 
Learn to gallop faster :p
Research before laying the blame!

I would tell you how but I cant quite remember.
I think it was double tapping shift once the horse is going quite quick and then doing it again when the horse slows.
Check online if that doesnt work.
 
jaguax said:
How the hell do you beat Eskel in the horse race? I swear they shouldn't have released this game being how damn buggy Roach is. Every single time I hit the bridge to Kaer Morhen Roach just stops while Eskel/Scorpion sprints right by me. Terrible horse mechanics. Roach so much as hits a pebble and he stops.
Click to expand...

Try jumping? Might be stuck on some little terrain.
 
jaguax said:
How the hell do you beat Eskel in the horse race? I swear they shouldn't have released this game being how damn buggy Roach is. Every single time I hit the bridge to Kaer Morhen Roach just stops while Eskel/Scorpion sprints right by me. Terrible horse mechanics. Roach so much as hits a pebble and he stops.
Click to expand...
How do you f that up? Roach is retarded, sure, but it's not that bad. Also, watch the radar and just block Eskel from passing you.
 
The horse racing seems extremely easy to me. Just get a good saddle so you can outrun the opponent, then stay ahead of them. If you run out of stamina, try to block the other rider from passing you, then when you take back off run into them a little to push them off the path, and you're golden.

There have been a few races I've had to re-do a few times while I learned the track, but besides my own lack of navigation-skills, I haven't had any problems beating the race challenges.

Luckily the NPC riders don't seem to be aggressive at all, and I've never had one bump into me to run me off the road like I'm constantly doing to them. Also, I can't confirm this for sure, but I think they automatically slow down a little to match your speed when Roach runs out of stamina, like NPC's do when you're walking/running along with them. When Roach runs out of steam, I have to let him re-charge for a couple seconds, and the opponent rider will pass me, but it looks like they go into a canter too, so they're normally not hard to catch.

So yeah, really the races are fairly easy, just learn the track, use a good saddle, and be aggressive if you need to overtake.

Edit, oh and I am playing on Normal difficulty, so I may be getting an easier version of the horse racing. That hadn't occurred to me before. I kindof doubt the NPC racing ability is boosted on the other levels, but they might be more aggressive, bumping into you, etc on harder difficulty. I seriously doubt that would change the speeds or make Roach harder to control though.
 
Last edited:
jaguax said:
How the hell do you beat Eskel in the horse race? I swear they shouldn't have released this game being how damn buggy Roach is. Every single time I hit the bridge to Kaer Morhen Roach just stops while Eskel/Scorpion sprints right by me. Terrible horse mechanics. Roach so much as hits a pebble and he stops.
Click to expand...

I almost beat him first time. Just ran out of steam last second. Luckily I didn't care and let the game continue on.
 
I have yet to lose a horse race. Just double tap the run button (A on a 360 pad) and you'll typically get a big lead right away. From there, just stay right in the middle of the path. You'll block others out and they can't pass. Just go full steam until your stamina stars to get low and then back off a little until it comes back...then double tap A again. There are items that make your horse stamina increase, too.
 
I beat Eskel on the first try, I remember running out of steam right before the castle, don't remember if he passed me, but I recovered and made it in first. He gave me some crappy boots, meh, was hoping for a new horse. :p

And I'm using a +75 saddle I found in Skellige currently - that might have helped. And playing on Normal for my first play-through.
What difficulty are you guys playing on? Maybe the NPC riders are just a lot more aggressive on higher difficulties.
 
I absolutely detest Horseback ridding in this game, it's like controlling a retarded mad cow !!

Ridding a mount in Dragon Age Inquisition and Shadow of Mordor was better IMHO.

Other things I don't like in this game are the wind effects on trees and plants, it looks so fake !

I also don't like the water rendering and animation - it just looks wrong. Not realistic at all.

DA:I had some awesome wave animations near the shoreline.

I also don't like that shopkeepers/vendors seem to be working 24/7. They don't seem to have their own sleep/wake/work cycles. It takes away from immersion. In Skyrim, vendors went to sleep which made it more realistic.
 
The mounts in DA:I were terrible imo and didn't at all "feel" like a mount, not to mention how annoying it was having to dismount every single time you wanted to fight some low level thing and how being mounted not only made your companions disappear (how hard would it have been to give them mounts and have them follow you?) plus it stopped all party banter on to of that.

Horses are animals, they do not turn on a dime at full speed.

There are issues , and they could do some slight tweaks (IE how sometimes it turns the wrong way then what you expect, or getting "hung" up on objects, etc. However as far as actual controls/animations go it's a lot better then most other open world rpgs with mounts (Skyrim/Oblivion/DA:I).

Not every game can have RDR or Shadow of the Colossus quality mounts, it'd be nice though.
 
Last edited:
DA:I mounts? Where 3 party members disappear when you climb on?

for the trees, it sees like there are different warp methods, perhaps based on the rendering issues or features used. Sometimes they look rubbery, but usually they look ok.

Shopkeepers.. many do have hours, many sleep (mostly the amateurs). Not all. I don't see a problem here.

as vast and complex as the world is, they did do a really good job.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top