The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt: Official Thread

I just finished my playthrough, including both expansions. Great game, and while the controls are much better than the previous ones, they're still definitely the weak point of the game IMO. The camera positioning and FOV straight up suck at some points, especially with the faster moving enemies and/or groups. Some of the boss fights can be irritating as well when they teleport and you're left trying to move the camera to see where they went (target lock be damned,) then dodge, and dodge in a proper direction. I used a controller and sometimes I'd lose the left or right trigger - wouldn't parry or fire my sign - until I reloaded a save (didn't have to restart the game at least.)
Its a shame a controller cant properly replace KB/M.
I wonder if the Steam controller can do better (not tried yet).
KB/M still rule on PC.
 
Its a shame a controller cant properly replace KB/M.
I wonder if the Steam controller can do better (not tried yet).
KB/M still rule on PC.

To be fair, I didn't even give KB/M a try with this one. Guess I had flashbacks of when I used KB/M for the first game in the series. That, and somehow I've become accustomed to using a controller for 3rd person games, and I haven't even had a console in ages so not sure where I got that from.
 
I've never had any issues with gamepads in the Witcher 3. Sometimes the you'll get stuck in the environment and Geralt always does move a little jerky, but that's using a KB/M, too.
I think it's just one of those things CDPR has never been great with as the first two games had it, too. There's something up with their collision detection. A game like Assassin's Creed seems to take objects like walls or stumps, or whatever and the game makes your character run/climb/hurdle. In the Witcher it's almost like they aren't sure what Geralt should do when it comes to interacting with those same things.
 
for those with controller issues, are you using a supported controller, or something with an emulator? I use kb/m with a ahk script to control signs. I noticed things become weird in the OS after a time.
 
I'm using a legit xbox 360 wired controller. Not sure why the triggers wouldn't work sometimes, but honestly that only happened maybe half a dozen times in the ridiculous amount of time it took to play thru the game, just seemed to happen at the absolute worst times. Actually once the A button didn't work either, when I did the horse race against the guy in the HoS expansion the first time I was like wtf I can't go faster than a brisk walk in a race?

I agree with Domingo, controls/movement is just something CDPR has always struggled with. Like I said though they made huge improvements since the first one, and it wasn't game breaking, just frustrating in some scenarios. I laughed everytime Geralt decided to roll down a staircase. Roach on the other hand hates bridges and likes to suddenly stop if moving at a canter or faster. In Toussaint there's a few bridges where Roach hits an invisible wall when trying to get on a bridge and even jumping wouldn't work so I'd have to find a spot to go around. I'd jump off Roach and Geralt had no problems walking onto the same bridge though lol.

May not sound like it, but overall I actually quite enjoyed the combat - dodging, rolling, & parrying rather than the more common method of just tanking damage.
 
Outside of improved graphics, it's hard to imagine topping this game without some kind of paradigm shift in technology. At that point a remake would likely be in order more than a sequel.
As clumsy as the first game is, a remake of the events in that one could be a good thing.
That might be part of the reason they aren't doing a sequel and doing a different themed RPG.

So now that I am finally playing this game, and hooked to the max:
When do I get the expansions? Can/Should I wait until the end of the main campaign?
 
Last edited:
I believe the expansions are leveled for the end of the campaign. you can probably do them early but most likely you will have a hard time
 
So just a couple of things I found funny because I am apparently an addict of this game. I was out in the back yard last night in the pitch black trying to find the cat and my brain literally went straight to hit "y" for my cat potion. I was like WTF I am definitely playing this game too much. Also when I am running through populated areas and I hear all the coughing and hacking I sort of want to cringe run faster. Like i'm going to catch something. I think I'm a bit if a germaphobe and the game is really damn immersing too. ;)
 
This game is just so awesome, the attention to detail and depth of story telling is just magnificent. Every side quest is intricately woven and fleshed out with believable characters, makes the game feel so much more atmospheric compared to Skyrim with its recycled dungeons and missions. I also love the nuance and challenge of combat which actually requires strategy, button mashing on the harder difficulties never ends well.
 
I completed Blood & Wine last week, wow, awesome ending to an awesome game/expansions. I have to rank The Witcher series as my favourite games of all time. I played TW3 exclusively via Steam Link and Steam Controller on my plasma TV. Other than a few issues with the camera, it worked perfectly.

I'm at 185 hours and am not just exploring question marks and doing treasure hunts in Toussaint.
 
I gave up on the whole question marks thing. I have tons and tons of them left across all the maps. I still have a bunch of treasure hunts to do and maybe a contract or two. Game was massively dope. I think I am going to continue playing it on and off now on PC since the graphics are amazing!
 
I did all of the ?'s except in Skellige. I went there after doing all of the Novigrad missions, so they were giving me almost no EXP and the loot was much much weaker than what I'd already found.
The key to maximizing your levels seems to be to do only the quests very close to your level. If you go too high, you don't get anything additional and if you wait too long - you get almost nothing.
 
I like doing the question marks and then enjoying a vista point afterward. It forces you to visit all the different and amazingly detailed areas of the maps. The sheer amount of detail that went into creating the visual world it astounding. I especially love following the paths sometimes seeing where they take me... It's sorta reminds me of walking on dirt paths out in rural Virginia wayyy back in the day.
 
I like doing the question marks and then enjoying a vista point afterward. It forces you to visit all the different and amazingly detailed areas of the maps. The sheer amount of detail that went into creating the visual world it astounding. I especially love following the paths sometimes seeing where they take me... It's sorta reminds me of walking on dirt paths out in rural Virginia wayyy back in the day.

Agreed. Also some of the quests that you find have great writing and interesting setups and payoffs. In other words I found them very much worth doing even if loot/XP was nil.
 
Finally won B&W last night. It's a very fitting conclusion. Like the regular game, you gain a lot of XP in a hurry toward the end. I ended up at level 53 and about 90% of the way to level 54. That's enough to construct any item in the game, although I didn't hit level 53 until after the "final" fight.
The game is definitely in my all-time top 10 and maybe even top 5. The clunky movement/interaction would be the only real flaws.
Considering how damn big the game is, I doubt I'll ever pursue NG+. Once I start something I tend to finish it and I just don't have another 200+ hours handy.
 
I have to agree.. having played only about 60% of the content so far (I started a new game a few weeks ago so I could do all the Gwent stuff which I skipped in my first game) I can safely say this is one of my all time favorite games. It's as close to perfection as I've ever seen in a game, of any genre.
 
I have to agree.. having played only about 60% of the content so far (I started a new game a few weeks ago so I could do all the Gwent stuff which I skipped in my first game) I can safely say this is one of my all time favorite games. It's as close to perfection as I've ever seen in a game, of any genre.

I skipped all the Gwent stuff on my first two playthroughs (NG+ on the second go). Gwent just never really clicked for me but I forced myself to give it another honest try and now I'm really enjoying that part of the game.

What a great game, makes me feel bad that I never tried the first two. Starting a brand new game on Death March difficulty (which before was too hard for me) has been very fun, and I hope I can get some different outcomes in quests I may have botched before. Most notably would be that dead lady on Fyke Isle, also some quests in Kaer Morhen which I managed to fail on both my previous games.
 
There's at least 1 quest you're supposed to fail. Apparently there are some borderline glitchy ways to successfully complete everything, but it seems like you're messing with the game's quest logic to do so.
Outside of that 1 quest (a Novigrad quest with a choice) I completed everything except finding all of the Gwent cards. I did leave about 1/3 of the ?'s in Skellige, but they're nothing but throw-away Guarded/Buried Treasure quests.

With Gwent, there was an "ah ha" moment for me when I started appreciating it. I think it's when I first had some back & forth encounters involving multiple spy cards and dummies.
IMO, the biggest key is to have as small of a deck as possible. Stick to nothing but hero cards, spies, dummies, and artillery. The cards that can resurrect others are also nice. I found most of the effect cards to be a waste since they can affect you, too.
 
Man I started playing this game again after like 6 months and I had to drop the difficulty to the lowest because I couldn't remember what the fuck I was suppose to do.
 
I finally hit lev 65 and started blood and wine in NG+. It looks delicious - the colors! I did install a SweetFX reshade which makes things look a little clearer because it seemed like a film was all over everything.
I used this guide to install SweetFX and Reshade, then just dropped in the config file from the link below and bingo - it worked. (PS: backup your x64 dir with the witcher.exe in it before doing this just in case)

Blood & Wine Visibility 1.1
 
Last edited:
I started playing blood and wine on NG+ started it at lvl 38 I think, and I'm getting instakilled by the first vampire you meet. =(

I'm way under leveled but that boss has some cheap ass moves, not to mention, after death you start at the start of thebattle when you reload, not in combat mode, so you have to move a bit before it detects you're in combat which means, she basically gets a free hit with her ranged attack... so I reload to instantly die. =/
 
I was level 65 when I fough her and was totally unprepared for her speed, it was like fighting Blade lol. She is wicked fast. But some igni/quen combo and drive by attacks worked for me. At level 38 your hits probably won't even do damage, do they?
 
I can chip away at her life bar. The Giant was the same, instant kill me in one hit, while I chip away at his life bar.

Every hit is slightly noticeable on the life bar. If she was susceptible to burning, she'd be dead, but shes not.... at least not on my level.
 
Sounds painfully slow. I thought igni was doing something to her.. well maybe not. I still get instakilled if my quen shield is down and I get one swipe from a cyclops level 78... I did manage to kill it after a few tries. Potions and quen shield up all the time. I'm close to 70 now and about to finally make some grand-master gear. The enhanced dimeritium stuff is SOOO expensive! I need more venom extract then I can make my own but I have enough to build one set of Wolven GM gear and I still have 50k left over... and a trunk full of gear I can still sell..
 
Yeap... so I haven't really played after that...

The Giant fight was horrible though. The issue was not the giant himself, since he doesn't have any sudden aoe moves, but all those dumb ass NPCs kept blocking me so I sometimes dodge and get stuck on them. Happened once when he was like 3 hits from deaths or something, and I died from that swipe, it was pretty infuriating.

But this vampire boss is basically impossible for me, I can't dodge everything, so I don't think I'll continue, I might lower the difficulty cuz I don't really care too much, I've been beating monsters 10 to 15 levels plus for the entire game, so I had my fun with that.
 
To kill the vampire keep dodging and if you have a moondust bomb or some igni, light her ass on fire and start slicing and rolling like you are on ice.

I killed it at level 38/39 just fine unless your difficulty is maxed out then you are SOL.
 
I just kept using the short dodge (B button, not A) and Aard on most everything. It either stuns or knocks down, even on the vampires. There is one of the weapon abilities where you hold quick attack and Geralt starts whirling around and doing a long multi-hit combo. After hitting enemies with Aard, if you can't insta-kill them, that move does massive damage, too. You can direct him to spin around behind them and it does big damage and puts them in lockdown.
Quen is also functional if you want to wade in and take some shots to give some shots. In general, boosting Quen, Aard, and Igni is wise. If you want to save some points, don't mess with their alternate functions. From there, boost your normal weapon attacks.
I started B&W at level 34 and died a few times, although mainly on those damned plants and those jumping vampires. You have to use the roll dodge on those most of the time.
 
Ard is a great disrupter.. I should use it more but I love igni. ;) Yeah the plants and the vampires are the two that gave me some grief in B&W so far.. It's been fun to have a bit more of a challenge but not so hard it's annoying.
 
To kill the vampire keep dodging and if you have a moondust bomb or some igni, light her ass on fire and start slicing and rolling like you are on ice.

I killed it at level 38/39 just fine unless your difficulty is maxed out then you are SOL.
Did you kill it at lvl 38/39 on NG+? But yes, I am on Death March, I might tone it down though when I give it another try but that'll have to wait, I got Mad Max and Mankind Divided to play.
 
before I did any of the missions I went and collected and crafted the grandmaster set for signs. it gives you two casts at once which helps a lot.
 
Yeah I am almost there.. I just need to pop level 70 (~700pts to go) then I can wear the GM ones.. I am looking forward to those bonuses. I never did HoS so I don't have that weapon slotting device - which I should probably get so I can slot that sword that comes out of the lake.
 
I think it is just a dude on a lake, you may be able to just go there and he can do the slots, maybe you don't have to upgrade his shop or anything.
 
Did you kill it at lvl 38/39 on NG+? But yes, I am on Death March, I might tone it down though when I give it another try but that'll have to wait, I got Mad Max and Mankind Divided to play.
lol not NG+. You are SOL then. Keep trying I guess :D
 
I think it is just a dude on a lake, you may be able to just go there and he can do the slots, maybe you don't have to upgrade his shop or anything.

Ohh - ok. that would be great. and OMFG B&W looks so nice.. and so much fun to have new good content.. that SweetFX filter makes a difference too. Some of the little towns along a river with little distressed bridges and buildings all colored up - man they look so nice I am wandering around looking at stuff. lol.
 
I never did HoS so I don't have that weapon slotting device - which I should probably get so I can slot that sword that comes out of the lake.

That sword is pretty zany even without the slots, but when you stack a bunch of stun (or poison) runes in it...it's almost too much.
While the slotting dude's quest is insanely expensive when you first do HoS, after going into the B&W areas, it's pocket change. Everything in B&W is worth a small fortune and vendors are all carrying tons of cash, too.
 
B&W is pretty amazing. I didn't think the game could get better.

edit: Work's been a bit over the top lately and man I have leaving a lot of typos lately. I left the word think about of the above. lol.

Well I got HoS and got that enchanter guy all maxed out and enchanted the best sword with preservation so it keeps the grindstone bonus all the time. I might make my medium armor light with another enchantment for the cat school bonus.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top