Just started watching S1 of Game of Thrones after starting this about a week ago. I'm still in the second act, playing on easy and I have a question;
when do you get to use mutagens?
I started playing on normal but came to a cave full of nekkars and after dying several times switched to easy. Looks pretty damn good on the 360, the level of pop in is a little painful though.(mostly textures however on rare occasion I've witnessed geometry pop in... eesh)
The final few levels of a skill tree. So like, for the first skill tree when you get the vigor and/or deflect arrow skills there is a mutagen slot. You select that slot, select mutate, and then select the mutagen you want.
I find most of the mutagens are pretty useless. And I've found like a total of 6 greater mutagens in two play throughs, and EVERY SINGLE ONE has been vitality. Drop ratio busted, or just bad lack for me?
The, what I'm hearing is, added EE content in Iorveth's path - namely, the
Secrets of Loc Muinne
quest turned out to, surprisingly, be one of the better quests in the whole game; It was one of the prettier quests, surprisingly, the
riddles were actually fun, as was the mindgame with the golem, Cynthia ended up being awesome, and it delved into a few things I imagine will be focused on in TW3 - Geralt was a rider of the hunt!?
And here I was thinking the guy couldn't be any more badass.
Though, the odd way it's structured into the game does make it feel like 'dlc,' I have to admit -
'Save Triss? Save Phillipa from rotting in a dungeon? Nah, let's go play historian with Cynthia...'
- but I commend CDPROJEKTRED so hard for giving that out for free. So good.
The one thing I do regret doing, though, is
wasting my chance at the megascope on Triss.
I feel as if that was the wrong choice, as I basically saw that she was being treated how I already knew, and gleaned no new information from it. Anyone know who'd of been the better choice?
The, what I'm hearing is, added EE content in Iorveth's path - namely, the
Secrets of Loc Muinne
quest turned out to, surprisingly, be one of the better quests in the whole game; It was one of the prettier quests, surprisingly, the
riddles were actually fun, as was the mindgame with the golem, Cynthia ended up being awesome, and it delved into a few things I imagine will be focused on in TW3 - Geralt was a rider of the hunt!?
And here I was thinking the guy couldn't be any more badass.
Though, the odd way it's structured into the game does make it feel like 'dlc,' I have to admit -
'Save Triss? Save Phillipa from rotting in a dungeon? Nah, let's go play historian with Cynthia...'
- but I commend CDPROJEKTRED so hard for giving that out for free. So good.
The one thing I do regret doing, though, is
wasting my chance at the megascope on Triss.
I feel as if that was the wrong choice, as I basically saw that she was being treated how I already knew, and gleaned no new information from it. Anyone know who'd of been the better choice?
They are all kind of worthless. If you load up a save, you can kill them both and watch three at a time. None of them are that valuable.
Spoilers Spoilers
Radovid is playing chess, analogizing it to how he has really placed all the pawns to win.
Roche has been sent to cross the Yaruga because Natalis suspects Nilfgaard is up to something- he is good.
Saskia is all sad face, and Sile is like- you need to act like a queen. And we need you strong (because you are a dragon!)
Dandelion is in a brothel talking about Vergen
The machine blows up after three views, so you don't need to feel guilty from a role playing point of view for handing it over to Nilfgaard.
Yeah, I was mind blown by the Geralt as a rider of the Hunt. I think the information may have been wrong, and he was just seen with the hunt. But he was gone for five years, so it is entirely possible that he was with the hunt. Not sure how the timeline works. Dies, spends some time on Avelloch, then the hunt comes. Chases the hunt for a few years (months?), and then flees the hunt at some point before the beginning of Witcher 1.
oops ...I already sold them off at the end of act 3 to try to get the kingslayer set....wasn't planning on the swords as I can't make boots owing to the gargoyle dust....didn't notice that vitality effect making much of a difference...is it not counted in the damamge stats of the sword? How much do I need to add to t he damage stat to make an assement on which hits harder?
Is the upgrade from Witcher II OG to the Enhanced Edition automatic if I got it from GOG? Or must I manually re-download the game through their system to get the EE?
Is the upgrade from Witcher II OG to the Enhanced Edition automatic if I got it from GOG? Or must I manually re-download the game through their system to get the EE?
oops ...I already sold them off at the end of act 3 to try to get the kingslayer set....wasn't planning on the swords as I can't make boots owing to the gargoyle dust....didn't notice that vitality effect making much of a difference...is it not counted in the damamge stats of the sword? How much do I need to add to t he damage stat to make an assement on which hits harder?
I don't have the maths, but I have noticed significant chunks of vitality coming back. To be fair, my vitality is not very high because it isn't that important of a stat. I don't know if the vitality is just a bonus or if it is treated like life drain. But I do know that once I completed oathbreaker the game felt like easy mode.
edit: Although to be fair, I did jump from +7 armor to +36 armor, and the boots, trousers, and gloves also gave armor and resistance bonuses.
Are you Roche or Iorveth? If Iorveth, the Secrets of Loc Muine has the potential to fight a few more gargoyles. If you don't have the boots, you will be absolutely fine with Caerme (or Dancer if Roche), and Addan Deith/Deithwen/Zerrikanterment. Plus you can use runes, Ysgith for damage is best, the others depend of if you care about their bonus effects.
Is the upgrade from Witcher II OG to the Enhanced Edition automatic if I got it from GOG? Or must I manually re-download the game through their system to get the EE?
Not trying to "pimp my blog," but since I was one of the contest winners that got a review copy of the game for free, I figured I'd share my personal review with you guys.
They are all kind of worthless. If you load up a save, you can kill them both and watch three at a time. None of them are that valuable.
Spoilers Spoilers
Radovid is playing chess, analogizing it to how he has really placed all the pawns to win.
Roche has been sent to cross the Yaruga because Natalis suspects Nilfgaard is up to something- he is good.
Saskia is all sad face, and Sile is like- you need to act like a queen. And we need you strong (because you are a dragon!)
Dandelion is in a brothel talking about Vergen
The machine blows up after three views, so you don't need to feel guilty from a role playing point of view for handing it over to Nilfgaard.
Yeah, I was mind blown by the Geralt as a rider of the Hunt. I think the information may have been wrong, and he was just seen with the hunt. But he was gone for five years, so it is entirely possible that he was with the hunt. Not sure how the timeline works. Dies, spends some time on Avelloch, then the hunt comes. Chases the hunt for a few years (months?), and then flees the hunt at some point before the beginning of Witcher 1.
I didn't. I have a habit of picking the choices I like most, making a hardsave, then loading up a quicksave to play with some of the other options, like killing everybody. Pretty fun fight, too. The male has a multiplication spell, so it is like 4 on 1.
I got this off GoG when it first came out I had some major issues with the quest tracker design and tracker and I got lost so many times, I found the first part of act one to go by so slow and such a struggle. I finally forced myself to sit down and beat the game, loved the story, loved the impact of the choices.
So I went out and bought the 360 version just so I could support these guys some more. hands down my game of the year last year. Got to love when you can have an hour discussion with a friend of how our different choices and path impacted the story.
I've been Yrden exclusively - is it worth upgrading this path or does it become less viable as the game progresses? It has been super helpful so far at crowd control and stunning bigger enemies, I would like to keep playing this way if I can.
The one that connects is OK but it is kind of tricky to set up and when it gets tripped one of the Yrdens will disappear but it is a bit unpredictable as to which one goes (at least it seems that way to me). When i respecced I skipped that node
I hope my Xbox-RPG brethren are aware of the majesty that is this game.
I purchased it last week on 360. Played the opening and became intimidated because I was playing mostly Dark Souls prior, and was confused by the combat present in the Witcher 2.
After having watched a combat tips video made by Gamespot, which was actually quite informative and helpful, my experience with the combat has vastly improved. Now I'm playing on hard, loving how the game looks, the impressive and nuanced decision system and of course, the combat.
The final few levels of a skill tree. So like, for the first skill tree when you get the vigor and/or deflect arrow skills there is a mutagen slot. You select that slot, select mutate, and then select the mutagen you want.
I find most of the mutagens are pretty useless. And I've found like a total of 6 greater mutagens in two play throughs, and EVERY SINGLE ONE has been vitality. Drop ratio busted, or just bad lack for me?
Impregnation doubles the effects of mutagens, which is crucial.
I've only found about 7 greater mutagens from drops, and four of those were Greater Vitality from the Endrega Queens in Chapter 1 from each playthrough (they don't seem to drop anything else). All the mutagens I use (Power) have come from triggering them with the Side Effect perk in the Alchemy tree.
It's pretty crazy how the difficulty shifts in this game from where you start to where you end. I was struggling a bit in the early part of Chapter 1, but by about the middle of the game, combat is completely trivial. I died probably 6 or 7 times in Chapter 1 but never dropped below half health from midway on.
FUCK THIS GAME
I played it for 5 hours loving every single minute of it like few times before then I'm killed by some mermen in the first Troll's lair and then I restart... entering the temple in the frist fucking town in the game. I lost 4 hours of gameplay because the autosave is fucked up in 360! Thank you so fucking much.
Too frustrated for touching it again.
Yeah, I had to keep manually saving after something similar happened to me. Learned my lesson from Mass Effect 1.
Anyway, just finished the game with Roche's path. What an amazing ending. Hopefully this is what's canon. I can't be too sure actually, since I'm gonna start my Iorveth walkthrough right now.
FUCK THIS GAME
I played it for 5 hours loving every single minute of it like few times before then I'm killed by some mermen in the first Troll's lair and then I restart... entering the temple in the frist fucking town in the game. I lost 4 hours of gameplay because the autosave is fucked up in 360! Thank you so fucking much.
Too frustrated for touching it again.
Why is there no compass on the minimap? I love running through the woods outside of Flotsam without any freaking clue what direction I'm going without having to look at the map in the menu. How has this game been out this long and nobody thought of this? *scratches head*
Just finished my Iorveth playthrough, what a fantastic game. Though...I feel like a complete idiot. I
offed Letho, thinking of my deal with Roche and Cynthia's warning, but as the credits rolled I thought on it; Letho was just a fellow witcher just and former friend , getting used as witchers do - him by nilfgard, trying to rebuild his school, Roche was scum - bad ass, but scum nonetheless, and Cynthia was a fucking snake, so I really shouldn't have been surprised that her words were bullshit, but am surprised that I bought into it. I did it. I fucking offed him...WHY
I love this game.
Waiting till I finish building my rig for the Roche run, though the 360 version ran almost flawlessly, and looked better than almost any other 360 game thus far.
I find most of the mutagens are pretty useless. And I've found like a total of 6 greater mutagens in two play throughs, and EVERY SINGLE ONE has been vitality. Drop ratio busted, or just bad lack for me?
Mutagens are pretty poor unless you only use greater ones and have Impregnation levelled up on the Alchemy tree. Also, on the way to Impregnation, you can get an ability that increases the likelihood of getting mutagens while doing alchemy (2%/10%, depending on how far you level it). If you then go into the alchemy screen and make something trivial one at a time (e.g. grapeshot bombs) you will eventually accumulate a ton of mutagens, including greater ones.
What I didn't realize, though (this was my first playthrough), was that the effects of Impregnation aren't retroactive, so you should really get that levelled up before you use any mutagens at all if you want to maximize their bonuses.
FUCK THIS GAME
I played it for 5 hours loving every single minute of it like few times before then I'm killed by some mermen in the first Troll's lair and then I restart... entering the temple in the frist fucking town in the game. I lost 4 hours of gameplay because the autosave is fucked up in 360! Thank you so fucking much.
Too frustrated for touching it again.
How you went 4 hours without doing an actual save is crazy to me. Never rely on RPG autosave systems. Always have 4 or 5 saves to rotate and save over that way you are never too far gone.
How you went 4 hours without doing an actual save is crazy to me. Never rely on RPG autosave systems. Always have 4 or 5 saves to rotate and save over that way you are never too far gone.
It's also why I'm personally starting to hate the prevalence of auto saves. Rather than progressing in allowing us to save anywhere it seems that's largely being skipped in favor of completely hands off saving, especially annoying when it does pop up in an RPG (Costume Quest notably).
Mutagens are pretty poor unless you only use greater ones and have Impregnation levelled up on the Alchemy tree. Also, on the way to Impregnation, you can get an ability that increases the likelihood of getting mutagens while doing alchemy (2%/10%, depending on how far you level it). If you then go into the alchemy screen and make something trivial one at a time (e.g. grapeshot bombs) you will eventually accumulate a ton of mutagens, including greater ones.
What I didn't realize, though (this was my first playthrough), was that the effects of Impregnation aren't retroactive, so you should really get that levelled up before you use any mutagens at all if you want to maximize their bonuses.
That whole mutagen set-up is kind of poor. The fact that impregnation isn't retroactive kind of sucks. You can use a loophole and do impregnation, mutate everything then respec and keep the mutations but respec with very little points in alchemy. It all comes a bit late though; I was pretty much done with the game when I got to that point lol
Just beat the Iorveth path on Dark. Difficulty curve is totally borked, even on Dark. Final boss was way easy, although this was balanced by one hit kills, I guess.
Will probably stick with this as my personal ending, even though there were some elements of the other that I liked better.
Just finished my Iorveth playthrough, what a fantastic game. Though...I feel like a complete idiot. I
offed Letho, thinking of my deal with Roche and Cynthia's warning, but as the credits rolled I thought on it; Letho was just a fellow witcher just and former friend , getting used as witchers do - him by nilfgard, trying to rebuild his school, Roche was scum - bad ass, but scum nonetheless, and Cynthia was a fucking snake, so I really shouldn't have been surprised that her words were bullshit, but am surprised that I bought into it. I did it. I fucking offed him...WHY
I love this game.
Waiting till I finish building my rig for the Roche run, though the 360 version ran almost flawlessly, and looked better than almost any other 360 game thus far.
Yeah, I let him live. Basically for the reasons you stated, and other than Foltest/Demavend, he was only indirectly responsible for the chaos, and for understandable reasons. Plus, if he is dead it is all for naught, especially after Serrit and Auckes bit it
Mutagens are pretty poor unless you only use greater ones and have Impregnation levelled up on the Alchemy tree. Also, on the way to Impregnation, you can get an ability that increases the likelihood of getting mutagens while doing alchemy (2%/10%, depending on how far you level it). If you then go into the alchemy screen and make something trivial one at a time (e.g. grapeshot bombs) you will eventually accumulate a ton of mutagens, including greater ones.
What I didn't realize, though (this was my first playthrough), was that the effects of Impregnation aren't retroactive, so you should really get that levelled up before you use any mutagens at all if you want to maximize their bonuses.
Yeah, I have never used the alchemy tree. If I ever do another playthrough I might give it a shot.
Also, there is a bug with impregnation. you can get it, slot mutagens, and then when you reach a certain plot point that allows you to respec, you can do another path, but the effects of impregnation last.
To my mind a waste of time, because you are about two hours from beating the game at that point. But if you are a true powergamer, I guess that is the way to go.
Anyway, just finished the game with Roche's path. What an amazing ending. Hopefully this is what's canon. I can't be too sure actually, since I'm gonna start my Iorveth walkthrough right now.
Doing Roche's path first and then Iorveth's path is pretty cool as you learn a lot more about certain characters that likely changes your whole perception of the story.
I love the story, the mechanic (minus the QTE stuff), the choices and RPG elements but sometimes it almost like trials and errors when fighting boss or doing stealth mission. I find that I do a lot of restart in this game. > <
Just finished my Iorveth playthrough, what a fantastic game. Though...I feel like a complete idiot. I
offed Letho, thinking of my deal with Roche and Cynthia's warning, but as the credits rolled I thought on it; Letho was just a fellow witcher just and former friend , getting used as witchers do - him by nilfgard, trying to rebuild his school, Roche was scum - bad ass, but scum nonetheless, and Cynthia was a fucking snake, so I really shouldn't have been surprised that her words were bullshit, but am surprised that I bought into it. I did it. I fucking offed him...WHY
I love this game.
Waiting till I finish building my rig for the Roche run, though the 360 version ran almost flawlessly, and looked better than almost any other 360 game thus far.
I dunno, my own personality is very forgiving and kind...but I wanna kick ass in the game.....for no other reason but that I wanted to see how my fighting skills improved from the first letho encounter....I killed Letho....storywise its a no brainer to let him live, but wanted to get the fight in....and it was waaaay easier...too easy....that friggin dragon took me an hour or two to finally beat as it loved using gthe tail sweep and just popo out of nowhere to OHK me. My whetstone was almost gone at the end it took so long; but on Letho all you have to do is run around the middle area lay some traps, throw some bombs and he's done....he was actually harder the first time owing to the close quarters...teh yseriously shoudl have reversed the layouts for these fights.
Sorry, I forgot to mention, that all my mods are only tested with the main game, not the Arena nor the optional tutorial. They 'should' work for the tutorial and at a extremely high chance not with the Arena, it uses its own variables & functions.
Fistfights are my favourite minigame too, but not for good reasons. I just think both dice poker and arm-wrestling have been implemented terribly.
The presentation and execution of the dice game is abysmal compared to Witcher 1 and that arm-wrestling game is complete arseshit. There's little to no 'swing', or back-and-forth, in how the rounds progress - you either nail it all the way to the right first time or you lose, largely due to the peculiar delay in the controls responding to your left/right (on 360 at least) and the downright daft decision of not making your 'window' get wider again - even if by diminishing amounts - as you lose the sweet spot and it returns to the centre.
Across the whole game in fact, even though I'm really enjoying my time playing it, damn if there aren't several things about the UI and implementation of game mechanics which I find poorly executed. The meditation aspect of things for example - considering how it was handled in Witcher 1, I'm floored by the way its handled now. There's practically zero feedback this time, where the first game absolutely communicated to you your actions in useful, subtle ways -- the fade to black as the game world sped up, the little clinks and hisses as you crafted and consumed potions. The first time I made some juice I was certain I'd done it wrong.
Again, I'm having a fun time playing, but it's dismaying to see the game regress in several ways after Witcher 1 when it's taken steps forward in many other areas. Like, CDPR, guys, come on, you had that already.
I have about 200+ saves in Bethesda/Obsidian games and about 100 for each Mass Effect character with the exception of ME3 where everything got automated so much that I stopped caring.
10 save limit for Fallout 1/2 is hardcore. But people who never played WRPGs fall into the trap pretty often.
Holy shit. The guy doesn't have a clue. I mean, wtf:
For people new to the series, you play as the titular witcher, Geralt of Rivia. A witcher is a mutant whose job is to slay monsters for gold. Because witchers aren’t entirely human, they’re looked at with distrust and sometimes outright hate from the populace at large even though they provide valuable services. Despite being a monster hunter, by the time the game ended, Geralt hasn’t done that much monster slaying for profit. Instead, the player gets wrapped up in a nearly impenetrable plot tied together with poorly designed game mechanics.
Those coming into the game looking for a simple hack n’ slash action RPG will be sorely disappointed. If you try to fight that way, even in the game’s tutorial section, you will get destroyed. Despite being tweaked to accommodate an Xbox 360 controller, combat in The Witcher 2 is an overly complicated affair with severe balance issues.
and this idiot just knocked the game down with his 45% score. that's just not fair. fuck Metacritic. CD Projekt doesn't deserve this. The game is a masterpiece.
