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The Witcher III: Blood & Wine |OT| One last contract, one last plough

There were several moments during the main quest that honestly felt a little disjointed and made me wonder if I'd actually missed something. Mid-to-late game spoilers follow:

The reveal of Rhena being Syanna felt super brief, Detlaff had his tantrum then buggered off to Tesham Mutna to chill out. He says bring her to me within three days or else. Syanna reunites with her sister who imprisons her. Then three days pass with Regis and Geralt just.. doing what exactly? They know Detlaff went to Tesham Mutna and they know where Syanna is, why not try to convince Anarietta to release her, or try to discuss things with Detlaff? They wait three days, do nothing and the city is attacked just like he said. It felt weird there was no gameplay before the three days was up.

It was also kind of weird to have Regis and Detlaff going off together and then showing up unexpectedly (like at Orianna's house and then at Dun Tynne). It felt unusual for those two characters to have so much off-screen time together. I would've liked to have spent more time with those two characters before everything goes to shit.

The whole Syanna thing felt quite rushed tbh. We hear about her for the first time, then we meet her and she's revealed to be Rhena, then she's imprisoned, then dead. Obviously this would change depending on the ending you choose, but still.

Just venting really.

I thought it was odd that Detlaff attacked Beauclair prematurely. Did three days really go by with Geralt and Regis doing nothing? I thought the timeline was that they stormed the castle, and it was during their subsequent meeting with the Duchess that Detlaff and his vampires attacked without warning

Regis stated that Detlaff was impulsive, headstrong, and easily guided by his emotions. However, he also mentioned that he is not malicious towards humans. I find it odd that he chose to attack Beauclair in order to force Syanna into a meeting. It would've made more sense if he confronted Geralt and Regis instead of taking out his frustration on innocents.

You'll learn more about Syanna's character and life story if you choose to help her instead of seeking the Unseen Elder.

i think that anna henrietta would't let her go. plus, you find out why she's not exactly...easy to get to to bring her to detlaff. detlaff did feel a bit underutilized especially since his fate doesn't change much between the two and when it does it's pretty...bland. as for attacking the city, didn't regis say that while he wouldn't outright attack humans, he generally only did things for those that were kind to him, i.e. that one person who gave him an apple irrc. so it didn't feel too far out there for pissed off angry detlaff to do that. it definitely changed him from somewhat sympathetic anti-hero to "fuck this guy" guy. in the end he was really more a vehicle for the story, not the focus of it, with that being mainly on geralt and regis and anna and syranna
 
Having some odd stuttering issues with this version.

I even uninstalled my texture mod but seem to be stuttering every 10 seconds, cranked down my settings to all high on a 970 but it doesn't seem to do anything.
 
since I got that "place of no return" pop-up for the main quest I've been doing every sidequest I had. I have a couple more in my list and then the 3 witcher contacts I found. Probably will finish those off tomorrow.
 
i think that anna henrietta would't let her go. plus, you find out why she's not exactly...easy to get to to bring her to detlaff. detlaff did feel a bit underutilized especially since his fate doesn't change much between the two and when it does it's pretty...bland. as for attacking the city, didn't regis say that while he wouldn't outright attack humans, he generally only did things for those that were kind to him, i.e. that one person who gave him an apple irrc. so it didn't feel too far out there for pissed off angry detlaff to do that. it definitely changed him from somewhat sympathetic anti-hero to "fuck this guy" guy. in the end he was really more a vehicle for the story, not the focus of it, with that being mainly on geralt and regis and anna and syranna
It's funny cause Hearts of Stone, just like this expansion, had a sympathetic anti hero and a manipulative villain. I feel hearts of stone did these two character archtypes way better in the end
.
 
since I got that "place of no return" pop-up for the main quest I've been doing every sidequest I had. I have a couple more in my list and then the 3 witcher contacts I found. Probably will finish those off tomorrow.
Wait you're talking about the "turning point" message right? I can't be close to the end of the dlc?
 
Given the level of most of the early sidequests, I assume they want you to knock a lot of them out early before diving too deep into the main story line. A lot of level 36-39 side stuff to do
 
So what's the intended way to get mad gold? Most I've ever had was 15k or so and apparently people had like 80. This DLC is making me feel like real life
 
I have trouble performing strong attacks/Rend after using Axii on enemies. I don't understand why. Is it a glitch? This happens with a mouse/keyboard and controller.
 
Getting underwater smuggler caches in Skellige has to be the most terrible type of grinding ever. Could they have made it anymore annoying?
 
I have trouble performing strong attacks/Rend after using Axii on enemies. I don't understand why. Is it a glitch? This happens with a mouse/keyboard and controller.

Rend requires stamina to perform, so you need to wait for the stamina to fill up a little bit. Shouldn't stop you from doing strong attacks though.
 
Working my way towards B&W, finally got that stupid trophy for the Leshen contract that I missed becaused I did the ritual rather than kill it, so got my Platinum Trophy for the base game.
 
I just realised that I haven't gotten a single achievement since starting Toussaint via GOG. Probably bugged again. Don't really care for achievements though, so no worries.

Okay, that's what I'm thinking. Dammit, that's annoying.

If you're using Puppet, then you can't really attack that person until they fall out of Puppet.
 
Someone above mentioned it but do the sidequests before going too far in the main quest.

I was doing the main quest almost exclusively and went from 40 to 48.

All of the sidequests that are 30 or below have given me like 5 exp lmao. I'm just doing them for the enjoyment at this point.

Gonna post pics of my Geralt in end game gear later today as no way in hell am I changing anything after all of the effort I put
 
So I'm at a loss, and basically deciding what I should. The gwent book shows I am missing a card in white orchard, and it still shows the quest active, meaning it has not failed yet. I bought all the cards from the innkeeper, I beat the guy in the inn, and I got the cards from the rescued merchant. I was planning on working towards the plat trophy, and I'm already 30 plus hours into this play through. I'm now trying to figure out if I should restart...or hope it's a bug.

I have the same problem. 1 card in White Orchard and 1 in Velen, can't find them and I'm sure I got the one in WO at the beginning. Trader doesn't have it either.

I don't get it... These arch spores are insane. Everything else has been easy but these fucking things are 3 levels below me and I just can't. My friend tells me igni works for him and I've got a sign build and it doesn't seem to do jack shit for me. What do?

Use Golden Oriole, makes all poisen dmg taken convert to regen of virtality. Works for many of the monsters in this DLC.

Another easter egg: Bastoy Prison, as referenced in the game, references https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastøy_Prison.
Search for the looted letter and see how it translates to the real world prison.
 
Just realized I missed a hidden trophy in the beginning of the DLC
David and Golyiat

Bah! The struggle is real...

I have a save before the DLC but, what a bummer.
 
Someone above mentioned it but do the sidequests before going too far in the main quest.

I was doing the main quest almost exclusively and went from 40 to 48.

All of the sidequests that are 30 or below have given me like 5 exp lmao. I'm just doing them for the enjoyment at this point.

I'm lvl 42 and most sidequests below 40 have been been giving me 2-5 xp each :(
 
Finished it at level 52. This was truly an amazing expansion, tons of quality content. I think you can easily get 15-20 hours out of it if you try to do everything. Slightly underwhelmed by the ending, maybe I think I should have chosen
the other path with the elder vampire
. Probably wouldn't have changed much but I felt like they could have added one more lengthy main mission before the final one. Doesn't matter though, totally worth the money. I am really going to miss this magnificent game, easily the best RPG released in the last 10 years.

I'm lvl 42 and most sidequests below 40 have been been giving me 2-5 xp each :(
You need to be within 5 levels to get the maximum XP. It doesn't really matter though, doing the main missions will make you hit the maximum possible XP attainable faster, everything else is just a slow grind.
 
I've encountered a brutal bug in Turn and Face the Strange. Evidently there should be a portal underwater, but there isn't. I think its because I activated Yen's map while I was in Velen. I'm quite unhappy, I can't proceed with the mutations quest unless I have missed something.

There's a yellow circle on my map and when I use witcher vision I see a little hand where the portal should be.
 
Use Golden Oriole, makes all poisen dmg taken convert to regen of virtality. Works for many of the monsters in this DLC.

Friend gave me that advice finally when he figured it out. Unfortunately I don't have the heal version of Golden Oriole. Still, the version I've got helps a lot.

Why in the world is that not in the bestiary :P
 
Just realized I missed a hidden trophy in the beginning of the DLC
David and Golyiat

Bah! The struggle is real...

I have a save before the DLC but, what a bummer.

I didn't even know it was a trophy or that you could do it until I decided to try it. Such a pleasant surprise.
 
Geralt of Rivia, also known as the Bear*

*Maiden Fair not included

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Using that whirl attack in a corridor with a bunch of enemies is so satisfying, Isaac Clarke will be proud of all the dismemberment.
 
It's funny cause Hearts of Stone, just like this expansion, had a sympathetic anti hero and a manipulative villain. I feel hearts of stone did these two character archtypes way better in the end
.

i think the villain was better in hearts of stone, but i also feel like detlaff was more the villain even if he was a pawn. he either couldn't exist in this world, so you had to kill him, or he got his revenge but at the same time seemed to gain nothing. thought reuniting syanna and anna in peace was a bit more gratifying than saving that other guy's hide.
 
I thought it was supposedly 30 hours?

I've played 17 hours so far, but I'm almost done with the sidequests and I doubt I have much left in the quests. I feel that after finishing the main quests and doing anything left I have in the map I might squeeze a bit over 20 hours, which we have to remember for a DLC expansion to a 100+ hour base game, it's amazing.
 
You need to be within 5 levels to get the maximum XP. It doesn't really matter though, doing the main missions will make you hit the maximum possible XP attainable faster, everything else is just a slow grind.

I know dude, I always do side missions before proceeding with the main quest. Spent hours just exploring the map.

I thought it was supposedly 30 hours?

Really depends on how you play, I've spent 10 hours just running around doing side quests, exploring the map, killing random monsters in the wild, clearing undiscovered locations and admiring the landscape.
 
Trying to afford grandmaster ursine armor. The struggle is real. Think I'm about halfway there.

CD project Red are destroying much of their goodwill with this game with how hard they make it to acquire all the gold needed for the armors.

I don't get it. This is so fucking disappointing

Same thing happened with the runewright in HoS. He's so expensive that I never bothered with it.
 
CD project Red are destroying much of their goodwill with this game with how hard they make it to acquire all the gold needed for the armors.

I don't get it. This is so fucking disappointing

kinda funny how they say ingame how hard it is for witchers to get money for armor
and I sit on 50 000 crowns
 
CD project Red are destroying much of their goodwill with this game with how hard they make it to acquire all the gold needed for the armors.

I don't get it. This is so fucking disappointing

part of the reason I did the white orchard money glitch was exactly to not deal with this shit.

Built 3 of the grandmaster sets with no issues. Didn't want to deal with that shit.
 
What would be better to use with Piercing Cold? Far Reaching Aard or Aard Sweep?

How do you guys not have money at this point? I'm sitting on 80,000 post house upgrades and I have a metric fuck ton of stuff to sell.
 
What would be better to use with Piercing Cold? Far Reaching Aard or Aard Sweep?

Aard Sweep is generally better because you don't have to worry about directing your aards. You can use both though, as the range for the sweep should (?) increase by far reaching aard.
 
kinda funny how they say ingame how hard it is for witchers to get money for armor
and I sit on 50 000 crowns

I thought i was struggling till i sorted my inventory by price. I had like 15k worth of junk just sitting there, another 10k worth of florens and orens..

Have a little bit left over after fully upgrading Corvo Bianco and crafting the Manticore Armor.

end spoilers question:
Couldn't they have done a bit more with your love interest's visit? Triss just sits on her ass for 18 hours and then lies in Geralt's bed fully clothed for the rest. Dissapointed!
 
Holy shit @
the land of a
thousand
fairytales.

As much as i enjoyed that area, I loaded up a previous save and chose to
seek out Elder vampire (looks like he just arrived from Blade 2 movie set). Much better imo especially the whole Orianna thing. Now we know 'A Night to Remember' takes place after B&W
 
As much as i enjoyed that area, I loaded up a previous save and chose to
seek out Elder vampire. Much better imo especially the whole orianna thing

you can do orianna's quest and still go to the other place. i found the elder's cave to be pretty boring and short.
 
CD project Red are destroying much of their goodwill with this game with how hard they make it to acquire all the gold needed for the armors.

I don't get it. This is so fucking disappointing

not really

i had 50k at that start of the expansion. after upgrading the vineyard i was down to 28k. a few hours later after doing some sidequests and exploration, i was back at 50k. gold is plenty, you just need to manage your items properly.

sell weapons to blacksmith
armor to armorers
lots of junk items can be sold for a good price
crafting mats and alchemy items you don't need fetch a good price
runes, glyphs etc you don't need - sell them all
 
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