slightly offtopic, how (and/or when) is the HoS expansion accessed? I just started my first playthrough (and compared to games like Skyrim, or Dragon Age, Witcher 3 seems to be able to hold my attention); just curious if the expansion should be played story-wise at a certain point.
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How I learned to love The Witcher 3
- Thread starter OrbitalBeard
- Start date
Hari Seldon
Member
You can do any of it as soon as you reach the appropriate level to start it off. Personally I would beat the main story line before starting it but you don't have to.
Hate is a strong word, I don't feel that strongly against TW3. I think I'm in the same boat as a lot of other people - I started the game right after I finished Bloodborne. TW3 is beautiful and has a well built world with interesting characters, but it just bored me to tears. I made it about 10 hours before I stopped playing, I may give it another try some day.
RespectThySole
Member
You can start it once you reach lvl 30. I would recommend beating the main quest first, but you can tackle it however you wish since it's a standalone story.
OrbitalBeard
Member
Guys.
GUYS.
I like this game now. A lot!
Clearly I didn't know much about this game going in. Novigrad.
NOVIGRAD!!!
I love big cities in games. LOVE them. And this is one of the best! It actually feels like a real place! This area has really impressed me.
Other than that, I've just really warmed up to just about everything in the game. Yes, even the combat. Being away from
for a few days has allowed me to get used to this game's combat and even though I don't think I'll ever love it, it's more than serviceable for me now.
I've played a ton of really cool side quests and a bit of the Bloody Baron quest line, which has been awesome. Weapon degradation is no longer an issue. I have a lot more money and a TON of repair kits!
I played for six hours last night! I obviously turned a corner here with my opinion on the game and can honestly say I'm excited to play more tonight!
GUYS.
I like this game now. A lot!
Clearly I didn't know much about this game going in. Novigrad.
NOVIGRAD!!!
I love big cities in games. LOVE them. And this is one of the best! It actually feels like a real place! This area has really impressed me.
Other than that, I've just really warmed up to just about everything in the game. Yes, even the combat. Being away from
Bloodborne
I've played a ton of really cool side quests and a bit of the Bloody Baron quest line, which has been awesome. Weapon degradation is no longer an issue. I have a lot more money and a TON of repair kits!
I played for six hours last night! I obviously turned a corner here with my opinion on the game and can honestly say I'm excited to play more tonight!
WetTreeLeaf
Neo Member
And all is right with the world.
Denton
Member
Hahaha. Ah yes, Novigrad.
Such a lovely city, so utterly terrible at this time of history
Still, people going about their business
Also...when you meet a certain red haired sorceress, don't finalize your relationship with her until you meet a certain raven haired one..
Might be time to rename the thread, huh ?
Yeah novigrad made me feel for the first time the generation leap between ps3 and ps4.
Before it was just pretty graphics to me, but the way the city works without loading times and with so many detailed structures (and sewers) totally blows my mind.
wild wild rice
Member
Funny because many people cite Novigrad as their least favorite part of the game. Anyways, welcome aboard!
Imru al-Qays
Banned
I think it was the Bloody Baron quest that did it for me, but if that hadn't Novigrad certainly would have. Glad you're enjoying it!
I didn't say it responded to player actions, though it does - whether and how you help or interact with Solaire in Dark Souls or Eileen in Bloodborne or any of a number of other NPCs in the series will decide their fates, sometimes in unpredictable ways. I said it required player agency. You have to pay attention to figure out what's going on. That doesn't just mean reading item descriptions, because most of the story isn't told in item descriptions. It means paying attention to dialog, paying attention to the names and layouts of areas, to the way enemies look and behave, to what items show up where, etc etc. You gather enough clues and eventually you can figure stuff out. You can't figure everything out, but that's fine - the point of these games is exploration and discovery, and so why shouldn't there still be some mysteries left at the end?
What you're doing is reading a long, narrative poem, let's say Eliot's The Waste Land, and complaining that you don't know what's happening, that you don't know who the characters or what their motivations are, you don't know whether there are any answers or if it's all just open to interpretation. You're totally missing the point.
wild wild rice
Member
I greatly enjoy it
Less fighting
I came to love it. The reason Novigrad was initially disappointing (to me, anyway) was because the Bloody Baron quest was so incredibly good it was a tough act to follow.
RespectThySole
Member
Novigrad is one of the best designed cities in gaming. It's rare to find ones that actually feel "real" and are scaled appropriately." It's truly a testament to the greatness of the other areas in the game that it isn't my favorite region. Velen/No Man's Land is probably my favorite. I love how oppressive the atmosphere is.
criesofthepast
Member
She appears before the red haired one though. She is the first person you see when starting the gameAlso...when you meet a certain red haired sorceress, don't finalize your relationship with her until you meet a certain raven haired one..
And I mean, who could say no to her? She is the only correct choice.
Logsi
Member
Strangely enough this is also where my interest increased exponentially. Novigrad is awesome!
RP walk the hell out of it.
Hearts of Stone is pretty epic. Been playing that tonight.
Denton
Member
She appears before the red haired one though. She is the first person you see when starting the game
And I mean, who could say no to her? She is the only correct choice.
You are right that Yennefer is in the intro and shortly before going to Velen, but at that point new Witcher people still do not know much about her...I have seen this complaint quite often, that people go with Triss all the way and only after that get to Skellige where they change their mind and want to be with Yennefer..only to suffer the terrible consequences
I agree Yen is the only correct choice of course, as much as I like Triss.
Glad you realized it has nothing to do with Bloodborne and there is actually more than fighting. Don't make threads about such huge games after six hours, I guess, especially when it's a story-oriented game whose predecessors you haven't played. You're missing out on many awesome moments if you haven't played the other two or aren't familiar with the books, sadly. I really felt like meeting all the characters I already knew, especially when it was to my surprise, with the great dialogues and the way you can affect them was easily the best thing about the game. I'm really not sure if I would have even enjoyed any of this without prior knowledge.
Thread title change then? It's pretty awful.
RespectThySole
Member
You are right that Yennefer is in the intro and shortly before going to Velen, but at that point new Witcher people still do not know much about her...I have seen this complaint quite often, that people go with Triss all the way and only after that get to Skellige where they change their mind and want to be with Yennefer..only to suffer the terrible consequences
I agree Yen is the only correct choice of course, as much as I like Triss.
Act 2 spoilers:
I think it's worth going with Triss just to get the scene where Yen is angry and teleports Geralt to the middle of a lake lol
D
Deleted member 752119
Unconfirmed Member
It just takes a while to get going as the OP found out per their recent post. I was new to the series and didn't super get into it until Novigrad as well.
The combat etc. is hardest early on as well, but was pretty easy after hitting level 10 or so. I played mostly on Normal, which is odd for me with WRPGs as I tend to hate the combat and just play for the story, characters, dialogue, exploring, questing etc. so I end up on easy a lot. I did drop it down for a few fights in the first DLC though.
The combat etc. is hardest early on as well, but was pretty easy after hitting level 10 or so. I played mostly on Normal, which is odd for me with WRPGs as I tend to hate the combat and just play for the story, characters, dialogue, exploring, questing etc. so I end up on easy a lot. I did drop it down for a few fights in the first DLC though.
Denton
Member
As hilarious as that is, I don't think I will ever be able to do that in any of my future playthrough
Hell I will even have to watch the other endings on youtube someday, because I don't see myself playing differently in that regard either, in future playthroughs.
OrbitalBeard
Member
A mod can change the thread title if they'd like.
The thing is, my OP was very honest and I went out of my way to not senselessly bash the game. I was very clear that these were my opinions and that the game is likely fantastic, even if I can't appreciate it (thankfully, I can now). I also completely reject the notion that you need dozens of hours to decide if a game is for you or not, though to be fair, in this case it did end up taking around 15 hours before I came around to it lol
My main complaint, the combat, has not really improved, so I stand by it. Fortunately, the elements the game does do well have really started to impress me as I've continued playing.
Glad to hear you've come around on it. It really is a great game if you can look past the slightly underwhelming combat. The sheer size of Novigrad combined with the fact that it's totally seamless in the world (No Bethesda loading screens) was really impressive for me.
In terms of quests and plot, I liked the main Skellige the most out of Velen, Novigrad, and Skellige actually (act 1+2 with plot-relevant sidequests). But the game already grabbed me fairly early personally. It is from Novigrad on that the game truly opens up and shows it's variation in locations.
Denton
Member
Oh man, this video from the new visual mod..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6YLpPOzNcU
So good. He uses Witcher Reflex mod which makes Geralt even quicker leveled up, looks awesome.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6YLpPOzNcU
So good. He uses Witcher Reflex mod which makes Geralt even quicker leveled up, looks awesome.
OrbitalBeard
Member
Agreed! This is a really great thing.
RespectThySole
Member
Yup. The constant loading screens for entering and exiting every building in Fallout 4 are really annoying and it makes me appreciate The Witcher 3's world even more.
johnnydrama
Banned
Glad you're enjoying it, man. I fucking love this game. It's one of the best, if not the best game I've played since I got into gaming.
Novigrad is probably the best designed city since Baldur's Gate. Only time I ever felt a city that was large enough and filled with enough content inside of it to match it.
Glad you've come around to it quicker than I did. It took a second playthrough in order for me to love it.
Steve Youngblood
Member
Opinions and all, but I honestly feel the exact opposite about the Witcher series. And it's not just defined vs. not defined. I think I enjoy that you start off as a character of note right from the beginning. Sure, there's the amnesia conceit in the first two games to sort of make it video gamey enough to have an excuse to need to level up the character and re-learn things. But one thing that grows a tad tiring over many years and many video games is that there's often this necessity for an arc to require someone to grow from humble beginnings to the world's messiah over the course of the game.
And what I like about Geralt is that he's neither. He's not some nobody that people should have no business trusting to accomplish tasks. But he's also not clearly the noble, purely altruistic hero that should have the weight of the world on his shoulders either. He's not the One. He's just a guy who's really adept at killing monsters who has a somewhat morally unclear but ultimately defined moral code.
And despite being a well-defined character, the world around him still allows for some of the most interesting choices in video games. Now I'm not saying to hell with character creators. I understand the appeal of unique builds and why that type of avatar stand-in is so popular in the genre. But I just feel like this mold works really well for CD Projekt Red. If we are indeed done with Geralt here, I really hope the next game does move on to Ciri as the playable character and doesn't just decide to allow for a "make your own withcer/mage/sorceress" player character.
I liked the Witcher 3, but it definitely has some major flaws that stop it from becoming something special. The story line is amazing, might be one of the coolest and deep stories in all of video games. That being said, finishing the game a few days before MGSV came out and playing MGSV very shortly after finishing the Witcher 3 made me realize that the controls and combat of Witcher 3 are something left to be desired. I also wasn't happy that the graphical quality had taken a rather noticeable decrease once the game officially released.
I can't wait for essenthy's mod! I use his swamp mod, and it makes such a huge difference in the swamp's atmosphere.
RespectThySole
Member
Great post. It's refreshing not to be playing as the "savior." It would be sad if The Witcher 4 has create-a-character. There are plenty of other RPGs that are adept at providing that fix.
Agreed. Tiny cities in games with open worlds are immersion killers for me.
I avoided this thread for a while thinking it would be a shitshow, but now I finally look to see that the OP has actually come around on the game during the part that a lot of fans of the game like the least.
I'm just kind of shocked.
Glad you're warming up to the game OP. I too liked Novigrad, but I do think the pacing gets a bit odd there.
Overall thoughts on witcher: While far from a perfect game, it excels at things that I've been looking for in games for a long time. It's a beautiful and incredibly coherent world that manages to have a wide variety of stories to tell and memorable characters to meet. It has scale, but it's intimate.
It's not a bethesda open world game, that's for sure. It doesn't have the interactivity and freedom afforded from that kind of design. You are Geralt, you can't be everything. But that's just the kind of adventure I want. I prefer linear, story driven games over games that let you tell "your" story, so this game often felt like it was an open world game designed for me. Geralt is by far one of my favorite game protagonists. He's so well suited to an RPG. You can push him down an altruistic route if you want, or make him a bastard, but both fit who he is without making him a complete blank state. He has a role in that world, he's part of it, not a stranger.
A lot of people have issues with controls and combat, but I never really saw these. While I can't say the controls or combat were anything to shout about, they were enjoyable to play and I thought the game challenged you to think about what you were putting points into and how to approach different encounters.
Anywho, the pacing in the game is weird. I thought the pacing kind of went off the rails in Novigrad, because i felt compelled to do as much as I could there before moving on to Skellige, however the game isn't really designed for that. It kind of wants you to go to Skellige earlier than that, and it was reflected in the quests that were available for me when I got to the islands. Skellige is big and has cool side quests, but not a lot of story quests. It's a bit weird. However, once I got past that part and went to the isle of the mists, everything post that is incredibly coherent, compelling, and awesome.
Also thematically, I love the way it handles (Gigantic spoilers)
I'm just kind of shocked.
Glad you're warming up to the game OP. I too liked Novigrad, but I do think the pacing gets a bit odd there.
Overall thoughts on witcher: While far from a perfect game, it excels at things that I've been looking for in games for a long time. It's a beautiful and incredibly coherent world that manages to have a wide variety of stories to tell and memorable characters to meet. It has scale, but it's intimate.
It's not a bethesda open world game, that's for sure. It doesn't have the interactivity and freedom afforded from that kind of design. You are Geralt, you can't be everything. But that's just the kind of adventure I want. I prefer linear, story driven games over games that let you tell "your" story, so this game often felt like it was an open world game designed for me. Geralt is by far one of my favorite game protagonists. He's so well suited to an RPG. You can push him down an altruistic route if you want, or make him a bastard, but both fit who he is without making him a complete blank state. He has a role in that world, he's part of it, not a stranger.
A lot of people have issues with controls and combat, but I never really saw these. While I can't say the controls or combat were anything to shout about, they were enjoyable to play and I thought the game challenged you to think about what you were putting points into and how to approach different encounters.
Anywho, the pacing in the game is weird. I thought the pacing kind of went off the rails in Novigrad, because i felt compelled to do as much as I could there before moving on to Skellige, however the game isn't really designed for that. It kind of wants you to go to Skellige earlier than that, and it was reflected in the quests that were available for me when I got to the islands. Skellige is big and has cool side quests, but not a lot of story quests. It's a bit weird. However, once I got past that part and went to the isle of the mists, everything post that is incredibly coherent, compelling, and awesome.
Also thematically, I love the way it handles (Gigantic spoilers)
The Father and Daughter relationship between Geralt and Ciri. The game encourages you to not be doting and to let ciri figure things out for herself. It's a theme that's woven into the game's choices and it feels so natural. It's also an earned relationship: you spend time as Ciri and understand her plight while also spending a majority of the game being Geralt and searching for her. You get why he's protective but also why she needs confidence.
Yes, like I said before when you hated it, you are having literally the exact same experience that I did. To a tee.
Well, I have some bad news for you. There's gonna be a series of Novigrad quests that seem to assume you know some previously established characters that drag on FOREVER that's gonna make you doubt whether you want to continue again. It's pretty bad. But since you know the mechanics now, you'll press on.
Not long after that, the game hits god mode. Keep sticking with it. Ended up at my number 2 this year. Amazing game.
Glad to see OP came around on this one. I'm not as far as he is, but have been playing consistently for the last couple of days and am obsessed with this game.
I don't think any character I could ever make would be as cool as Geralt. He's pretty rad.
I don't think any character I could ever make would be as cool as Geralt. He's pretty rad.
OrbitalBeard
Member
Cool, thanks for the info! I'll definitely keep pressing on.
WhiskeyKnight
Member
OP, I feel the exact same way and it bums me out.
I really wanted to like Witcher 3, but I just couldn't get into the combat.
I really wanted to like Witcher 3, but I just couldn't get into the combat.
Yeah, Velen is rough looking, which is intentional. You're there for a while, so the game's quite refreshing when you hit Novigrad and its surrounding areas. It's a neat moment in the game because it really feels like you actually made this journey from one land to another. That's something I haven't really felt in other open world games. Then the game takes you to skellige which is a jaw dropper. It feels so completely different than the other areas. And then you even get to go to other cool areas with their own distinct feel.
It's an open world game that actually feels like a journey, like you're moving across the land, rather than just doing a bunch of stuff in one big sandbox. Not only do the areas look distinct, but they all have their own tone and pacing unique to them.
As for the combat, definitely put thought into what bombs, signs, and poisons you're using for different encounters. Use your tools. It's not necessarily supposed to be a straight action game like bloodborne.
Denton
Member
Have you read OP's recent posts ? Since the thread eventually ended up as "I think I love Witcher 3"
I love how the game looks vanilla, but the mod looks incredible too. I hope Essenthy will fully polish it and finish it before Blood and Wine so I can use it for my second playthrough.
OrbitalBeard
Member
fuck me this game is good
what was I thinking GAF
what was I thinking GAF
Imru al-Qays
Banned
I think you were being pretty rational: usually it's not worth it to suffer through a combat system that seems terrible in the hopes that the narrative will be so stupendous as to outweigh all the frustration. Game narratives usually aren't stupendous enough to do that.
But in this one case it just so happens that it really is worth it.
How do you feel about the combat now and what difficulty are you playing on?
Dynasty8
Member
Yeah it's pretty damn amazing.
orthodoxy1095
Banned
Everything here, just preach on. Totally agreed. Character creation is actually seemingly a bit more common now, and I liked having Geralt fleshed out before I went into the game. It was a nice change of pace for me.
OrbitalBeard
Member
I'm playing on the default normal setting. I can't recall what it's named.
The combat is serviceable. I've been putting a lot of points into magic, which has made it a lot more fun and interesting for me.
The world itself, however, has completely blown me away. And Gwent is soooo awesome.
Linkstrikesback
Member
Indeed. The world in witcher is standout. Cannot wait for blood and wine.
I'm the other way. I hate making my own characters, because they're never as well developed in game as a well defined person. I'm not Geralt, obviously, but I prefer the idea of role playing as a well defined character like Geralt rather than a self insert in to the world.
TerryLee81
Member
I lost my first round of Gwent, at the beginning at the Inn in White Orchard, and didn't touch it for a long long time.
Oh what a mistake that was! First thing I do now if I stumble upon a new NPC is check if I can play against him or if he has cards for sale.
Houses are burning and people are dying in the background, fuck it, let's play some Gwent!