The Witcher 3

skerry · 02-12-2017 2:17pm

[Deleted User] wrote: »

How does this game fit on a DVD?! Have to say, having just reached Skellige I'm really starting to feel burnt out. Fantastic value for money (especially as i only paid 20 euro for the goty edition). But i have to admit i'm wishing the game would end soon. Go here, find this, go there, find that. I'd love to just bomb through the story but I know I need level 30 for the dlc..

I reached that point a couple of times so gave it a break and came back to it refreshed and raring to go again.

The story is too good to be skipping through it for me so your better off playing something else for a while once you get to the stage when it's becoming a chore

Potential-Monke · 02-12-2017 2:44pm

I picked up the GOTY edition as I never played the DLC. It's sitting there, waiting to be played, but I don't know if i'm ready to play through the campaign again, as I don't want to get bored of it!!

Evade · 02-12-2017 2:47pm

Potential-Monke wrote: »

I picked up the GOTY edition as I never played the DLC. It's sitting there, waiting to be played, but I don't know if i'm ready to play through the campaign again, as I don't want to get bored of it!!

You can start a game with an appropriate level character for the DLC and just jump into it.

ItsHoggie · 02-12-2017 2:49pm

Same with me, got as far as Skellige in the base game and felt a bit burnt out so I traded it in. Picked up the GOTY edition on sale a few months ago and got as far as just before leaving to go to Skellige and haven't played it since, that was around 2 months ago. Saying that though, I had a dream last night I was playing this game so might jump on later tonight :pac:

martyos121 · 02-12-2017 3:52pm

That’s mad, exact same thing happened to me upon reaching Skellige, surprised to hear I’m not the only one. Finished it after a short break followed by all the DLC which was sensational, now that I have a Pro I’m going to do a NG+ on Death March once I get the 4K TV to take full advantage of it.

Might have to trademark Skellige Syndrome though, it seems to be a thing. :pac:

Shiminay · 02-12-2017 4:35pm

I forgot I'd never finished the DLC for this, so I fired it up last night and I'm wrapping up all the side quests before I finish the last bit of Blood and Wine. Just hit Level 50 and so most things are dying quickly which is probably a good thing cause I'd completely forgotten how to do all the dismembering things

Potential-Monke · 02-12-2017 7:26pm

Evade wrote: »

You can start a game with an appropriate level character for the DLC and just jump into it.

I played it originally on PC, so don't have a save!

Evade · 02-12-2017 8:40pm

Potential-Monke wrote: »

I played it originally on PC, so don't have a save!

There's an option to start a brand new game at level thirty-something so you can jump straight into the DLC and not have to do the rest of the game first.

Potential-Monke · 02-12-2017 9:51pm

Evade wrote: »

There's an option to start a brand new game at level thirty-something so you can jump straight into the DLC and not have to do the rest of the game first.

Nah, it'll be the first time playing it in 4K, so i'll play through it all again at some stage! We normally get a lull after Xmas, so i'll probably play then!

Shiminay · 04-12-2017 12:08am

Oh wow... Just when I thought I'd seen everything this game had to offer, I'm currently

wandering through the fairy tales land and just killed the 3 little pigs.

Genuinely bowled over that on top of everything else, they've put this in too

04-12-2017 12:33am

Shiminay wrote: »

Oh wow... Just when I thought I'd seen everything this game had to offer, I'm currently
wandering through the fairy tales land and just killed the 3 little pigs.

Genuinely bowled over that on top of everything else, they've put this in too

They went all out and did a tonne of homages, see if you can find a

bonfire

you can get Geralt to

kneel at it

Actually I think you can get a weapon out of that too ?

Shiminay · 04-12-2017 1:02am

Feck, I missed that

[EDIT]
HA! Spoke too soon. Just found it

CatInABox · 20-12-2017 12:40pm

This is showing up in the Xbox One X Enhanced list now, so the patch for it will be out in a day or two. Might be time to have another play though of this....

EDIT: It's out now, with a 4k mode, a 60FPS mode, and HDR. Nice.

List of changes for Xbox One X:
2 new graphic modes: 4K Mode and Performance Mode
support for 4K resolution
HDR support
enhanced shadows, ambient occlusion and texture filtering
higher resolutions textures
dynamic resolution scaling (from 1080p to 4K)

TitianGerm · 20-12-2017 10:05pm

Anyone else try it yet? I'm trying to test Performance Mode but the slider keeps flipping back to 4K when I close the menu.

Stone Deaf 4evr · 21-12-2017 11:45am

emmetkenny wrote: »

Anyone else try it yet? I'm trying to test Performance Mode but the slider keeps flipping back to 4K when I close the menu.

its a bug, its actually in performance mode once you back out of the menu. to go back to 4k mode, you have to slide it to performance, then back to 4k.

CatInABox · 21-12-2017 3:49pm

emmetkenny wrote: »

Anyone else try it yet? I'm trying to test Performance Mode but the slider keeps flipping back to 4K when I close the menu.

Looks great in either mode, in my opinion. There's a little less jaggies on the horizon in 4K mode, but I'll probably stick to performance mode on my next play through, as I didn't really notice any distracting resolution drops.

I only played it for an hour mind, so it's not an indepth test or anything. Of course, I only loaded it up for a quick 5 minute test, but sure there was a quest only a few minutes away.....

brianregan09 · 21-12-2017 7:39pm

Bought this when it released got up to the 1st Wild Encounter with Kiera Mezz and don't know what happened but I got way layed with something else and ended up trading it and always regretted it

Anyway got the GOTY edition on PSN last week playing it since absolutely love this game , I'm only after reaching Novigrad now and I can't get enough of it , I can't help but think how amazing a Star Wars game would be made the same way . I would never leave the room haha

Billy86 · 21-12-2017 7:44pm

You're going to be so f***ing happy that you bought the GOTY version - you've basically got three full games (one absolutely huge - main game, one a legitimately pretty big standalone game - B&W, and another shorter one that's still as long as an Uncharted or Tomb Raider type game with some of the most amazing characters and story of the three.

Sadly a Star Wars equivalent would involve tonnes of loot boxes no doubt full of the worst Gwent cards.

brianregan09 · 21-12-2017 8:20pm

Oh I know EA would never dream of making a game of the sort , they can go **** , I loved the old Knights of the Old Republic games by Bioware and Jade Empire after it , Always wanted an old style Lord of the Rings style one and Witcher 3 has nailed it for me , the scope is so big , characters are brilliant and there isn't many boring quests at all

But Geralt is the icing on the cake such a great character and sarcastic as **** love the game

Skerries · 22-12-2017 10:29am

30-12-2017 12:08am

Picked up the GOTY edition in the Xbox sale as I fancied another run at it and a separate achievement list to work on and enhanced visuals now on the one X. 1st thing I noticed on loading in was how much older and battered Geralt looks now with the enhanced visuals even in 1080p. Probably something PC players have seen since launch but to me it's given me a different mind set in that detail alone.

I'd be gameplay over visuals all day every day but that gave me pause, and made me see Geralt differently to how I viewed him when I played the game at launch. It's one thing knowing and being told his history etc but when you can see it on his face it's quite different.

Sephiroth_dude · 30-12-2017 12:35am

Deleted User wrote: »

Picked up the GOTY edition in the Xbox sale as I fancied another run at it and a separate achievement list to work on and enhanced visuals now on the one X. 1st thing I noticed on loading in was how much older and battered Geralt looks now with the enhanced visuals even in 1080p. Probably something PC players have seen since launch but to me it's given me a different mind set in that detail alone.

I'd be gameplay over visuals all day every day but that gave me pause, and made me see Geralt differently to how I viewed him when I played the game at launch. It's one thing knowing and being told his history etc but when you can see it on his face it's quite different.

Did you 100% it before? I was thinking of getting the ps4 goty, well worth the money!

30-12-2017 10:54am

Yeah got 100% last time out, 20 euro for that amount of quality content is really good value.

01-01-2018 10:19pm

Uugghh forgot what a pain death march was early on. 100's of hours on my 1st play through when it came out and now here on my 2nd do I only now discover because I pressed the wrong button that you can actually use axii to calm roach in battle !!!!

Billy86 · 01-01-2018 10:43pm

Same here, think I was up to level 6 before I went back to that early Noonwraith, also having a nightmare with werewolves at the sec!

01-01-2018 11:50pm

Billy86 wrote: »

Same here, think I was up to level 6 before I went back to that early Noonwraith, also having a nightmare with werewolves at the sec!

Wild at Heart quest? Just finished it. at level 4 on death march took me about 50 minutes in total and a lot rage. If it's that one you're on run back out of the cave and let the 3 wolves chase you and deal with them there the game should then let you save so you don't have to worry about them in later attempts.

Also you get an ability point at the places of power so you can get an extra 6 in White Orchard and put them all into muscle memory skill if you haven't already.

Billy86 · 02-01-2018 12:08pm

Yeah there was that one as well as the Whispering Willock one (the spirit in the tree that... well you know. Don't free it!). I'm doing this playthrough with the 'Ghost Mode' overhaul-ish mod, am on and have tweaked up some difficulty settings a bit. I love the free camera aspect of it, basically that you control the camera during fights yourself entirely independently and have to use it to manually aim. I've found this is great, great fun for dodging and weaving between swarms of enemies, slashing them to bits at will without getting him much (nekkers, drowners, humans, etc). It's also great for ghouls and the likes since you can really zone in on one at a time to stop them regenerating, but it makes it a nightmare against fast moving enemies that hit very hard and regenerate health. Can't remember if it's the base game or the mod, but due to scaling if I do a level 7 mission while I'm on level 10, all the enemies in it move up to level 10 also.

I also got my first real moment of "I don't have Roach, but I wonder what could be at this undiscovered loca.... OH F*CK, A DRAGON 20 LEVELS HIGHER THAN ME RUN RUN F***ING RUN RUN RUUUUUUNNNN!!!!" Always loved the sheer terror that little red skull elicits the moment you see it!

Also had maybe my single favourite exchange in the game last night, 'boatses protects boatses' - gotta love the rock trolls.

dr.kenneth noisewater · 02-01-2018 12:20pm

Got the GOTY edition in the sales last year and been playing over the Xmas but feeling very jaded since I got to Skellige, gonna start PUBG and hopefully go back to it

Potential-Monke · 02-01-2018 2:50pm

Has anyone else noticed some inventory lag on the Pro? It's taking a few seconds to load each tab. Used to be fine. Googled it and only found people giving out about it, and that CDPR were going to patch it, but I don't know if that happened!

noodler · 03-01-2018 3:03am

dr.kenneth noisewater wrote: »

Got the GOTY edition in the sales last year and been playing over the Xmas but feeling very jaded since I got to Skellige, gonna start PUBG and hopefully go back to it

Getting to Skellige actually revitalised my interest in the game!

Billy86 · 03-01-2018 1:28pm

I highly recommend a small mod to get rid of the HUD - I actually play with it on for the most part, though this allows you set it to small so it's not particularly noticeable... or to turn it off if you're standing up high in the posh end of Novigrad, in Skellige, etc and wind up with an amazing view you want to take a screenshot or whatnot of, it's a great tool. It's also just an option in the pause menu, so really easy to flick on/off instantly.

Silver For Monsters is the best fighting music in any game ever made, bar none. That's really all I came here to post.

03-01-2018 11:06pm

I'd forgotten some of the humour in this , like in the Baron's place the Pulp Fiction reference

In other news I'm over the death march hump and have decent gear and don't fall down when a drowner looks at me. Going poison blades and alchemy this time. My OCD has also kicked in and am doing my usual check every question mark. Hated the Barons part the first time around and not enjoying it this time either. Real low point in an otherwise great adventure.

Billy86 · 03-01-2018 11:13pm

My favourite is the two beggars in Novigrad complaining about the healer taking away their 'profitable cases of leprosy' and leaving them broke and with no means to support themselves. Right out of Monty Python!

Quick screenshot without the HUD at sunrise near the top of Novigrad, love this feature.

The game is also still winning Steam awards two years later - http://store.steampowered.com/news/36044/

ShadowHearth · 04-01-2018 2:49am

I was a massive witcher series fan. Played witcher 1 and 2 before it was "cool". For some reason always wanted to play third one, but never got around it.
So I got myself xbox one x yesterday and first game I bought was witcher 3 goty.
Only started out and my god how beautiful they made it. Played other games on pc, but this time playing it on tv with 60fps is fantastic. The detail in world is jaw droping. And its already almost 3 year old game! Cd project red is still my favourite dev!

Billy86 · 04-01-2018 3:23am

You're well ahead on this but do death March! Esp when done in white orchard, might be best to start on medium until you've got the mechanics down.

Assuming that you're still in white orchard, then mate... You're not even at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to visuals (although the battle cut scene when yen puts the bird through the guys skull was class... An for people like me who had never even heard of the witcher stuff, completely unexpected and bad ass). Even the velen swamps look gorgeous in a certain light, and when you get to Skellow much later on... Well. Well, just... well well well!

Also the music throughout, get ready for deafness because while the sound isn't too high the music will make your ears just melt off in delight.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CiSeoX_4nzU - the best fighting song in any game ever made, hands down. As well as Dooms music captured a rampage through space and hell obliterating demons with superguns and grenades perfectly, this does the same here for running into a pile of bandits or whatnot... Tension building first as you're getting your bits together for the fight and right on cue, in you go to hack, slash, weave, dodge, burn, magic ****ing zap, hypnotise and butcher every single one of them!

Tw things - a little later in the game you can buy a "option of clearance" to reset/redistribute all your ability points, so don't worry if you've something useless like arrow dodge. You can buy a few times too. Finally, don't bee line the main missions, the contracts and side ones are out of this world but also impact the main story lines and give you unexpected drastic options.

I was adamant that Mario 64 was the best game of all time from the moment I got it for Christmas in 1997 I think it WAS, right up until I finished this. That's how good a ride you're in for... And be sure to say hi to the barron for me!

jones · 04-01-2018 2:47pm

ShadowHearth wrote: »

I was a massive witcher series fan. Played witcher 1 and 2 before it was "cool". For some reason always wanted to play third one, but never got around it.
So I got myself xbox one x yesterday and first game I bought was witcher 3 goty.
Only started out and my god how beautiful they made it. Played other games on pc, but this time playing it on tv with 60fps is fantastic. The detail in world is jaw droping. And its already almost 3 year old game! Cd project red is still my favourite dev!

I was seriously tempted to get the one X - have a pro at the moment and love it but i like new shiny powerful things. If i do get it at some point or a gaming pc i think i would rebuy the witcher 3. It's THAT good

kg703 · 05-01-2018 11:11am

I'm only playing through this now for the first time. Opened up Novigrad and Skellig (Irish reference?) but have so many question marks littered around my screen that the OCD inside me will not move on until I've gotten through a good chunk of them. This is my first Witcher game but have played plenty of RPGs similar.

Really enjoying it, the crafting system could be a bit more fun and a few little moans about equipping, maps etc. but so far a really enjoyable game. So many time we have laughed out loud (playing with husband) and literally recoiled in disgusted (The botchling - bleugh) and even though I'm still in Velen we have seen some consequences of our actions

Damn Barron hung himself,
really thought we were being helpful and trying to save Anna whoops

So now we are just dedicating hours to wandering around exploring, doing contracts and ticking off some of those question marks. Bit worried about over-leveling but the combat seems to be fun and challenging anyway

Notorious · 05-01-2018 11:38am

Billy86 wrote: »

Finally, don't bee line the main missions, the contracts and side ones are out of this world but also impact the main story lines and give you unexpected drastic options.

Any of ye read Blood, Sweat, and Pixels? Great book about how games are developed; what it took to keep the projects alive, why certain decisions were made, and what killed off some projects. Each chapter is about a particular game, and one of the best is the chapter on Witcher 3 (it starts with some history on CD Projekt Red which was very interesting). Anyway, the book is well worth a read.

On Billy86’s point above, they made the Witcher 3 with a team responsible for side quests. Their aim was to make side quests interesting; the devs wanted no fetch quests. Every quest had to tell a story.

Internet Friend · 05-01-2018 12:36pm

kg703 wrote: »

Skellig (Irish reference?)

Yep, seemingly the terrain for Skellige Isle was inspired by the real Skellig Isles. The culture of the isle is also very Gaelic and the accents of the NPCs are kind of a Irish / Scottish hybrid.

Billy86 · 05-01-2018 12:44pm

Internet Friend wrote: »

Yep, seemingly the terrain for Skellige Isle was inspired by the real Skellig Isles. The culture of the isle is also very Gaelic and the accents of the NPCs are kind of a Irish / Scottish hybrid.

I could well be wrong but reckon it's more of a Nordic/Celtic mix, mainly due to there being a good few Scandinavian sounding names like Olaf, Svanrige, Hjalmar, Harald, Guthlag, etc.

Internet Friend · 05-01-2018 12:55pm

Billy86 wrote: »

I could well be wrong but reckon it's more of a Nordic/Celtic mix, mainly due to there being a good few Scandinavian sounding names like Olaf, Svanrige, Hjalmar, Harald, Guthlag, etc.

Yeah, cause of the historic influence. Historically the early Irish & Scots have close ancestry with the Norse and are referred to as Norse-Gaels so that goes a long way to explain the Scandinavian sounding names in Skellig.

Potential-Monke · 05-01-2018 1:48pm

Ugh, I remembered what was the smudge on an otherwise outstanding game... Just back to the Dandelion questline...

I remember playing it the first time round with a fresh face, and getting quite sick of it half way through the questline (I don't want to be in a fecking play!!). I haven't even met the littler fecker yet, still checking his ex's, but the want to continue has died and I'm dreading doing the rest of it!

. Can't wait to finish it so I can get back to the goodness!

05-01-2018 2:17pm

kg703 wrote: »

I'm only playing through this now for the first time. Opened up Novigrad and Skellig (Irish reference?) but have so many question marks littered around my screen that the OCD inside me will not move on until I've gotten through a good chunk of them. This is my first Witcher game but have played plenty of RPGs similar.

Really enjoying it, the crafting system could be a bit more fun and a few little moans about equipping, maps etc. but so far a really enjoyable game. So many time we have laughed out loud (playing with husband) and literally recoiled in disgusted (The botchling - bleugh) and even though I'm still in Velen we have seen some consequences of our actions
Damn Barron hung himself,
really thought we were being helpful and trying to save Anna whoops

So now we are just dedicating hours to wandering around exploring, doing contracts and ticking off some of those question marks. Bit worried about over-leveling but the combat seems to be fun and challenging anyway

The game won't throw XP at you from the combat at that stage of the game even later it's not massive. Most XP comes from quests but I think it gets reduced if you go too far over the level recommended for the quest. I think it's about 5 levels (someone will confirm that for me) so it's best to do stuff as it comes up or before you go too far over the recommended level.

Kiith · 05-01-2018 4:04pm

I've added the mod that gives you XP even after you out level a quest. Plus the 9000 bag weight mod. I definitely woudn't recommend them on the first playthrough, but it's great for the 2nd.

Billy86 · 05-01-2018 4:04pm

Might look at the XP one if you can add one mid-game, but I strayed from the weight one on purpose. Can fully see why people would use it, but it's a restriction I actually prefer.

dr.kenneth noisewater · 05-01-2018 4:11pm

Notorious wrote: »

Billy86 wrote: »

Finally, don't bee line the main missions, the contracts and side ones are out of this world but also impact the main story lines and give you unexpected drastic options.

Any of ye read Blood, Sweat, and Pixels? Great book about how games are developed; what it took to keep the projects alive, why certain decisions were made, and what killed off some projects. Each chapter is about a particular game, and one of the best is the chapter on Witcher 3 (it starts with some history on CD Projekt Red which was very interesting). Anyway, the book is well worth a read.

On Billy86’s point above, they made the Witcher 3 with a team responsible for side quests. Their aim was to make side quests interesting; the devs wanted no fetch quests. Every quest had to tell a story.

Never heard of the book but might order it on Amazon, looks good!

kg703 · 05-01-2018 4:28pm

Deleted User wrote: »

The game won't throw XP at you from the combat at that stage of the game even later it's not massive. Most XP comes from quests but I think it gets reduced if you go too far over the level recommended for the quest. I think it's about 5 levels (someone will confirm that for me) so it's best to do stuff as it comes up or before you go too far over the recommended level.

Thanks, I think I recall Diablo 3 doing something similar in the coop game, if I leveled up first, my XP would be worth nada until himself did. They recommend level 10 to go up to Novigrad and we are at 12 (nearing 13) with loads still to do in Velen. There has been some games that having done all the side quests, was completely overlevelled and destroyed the main boss. Heartbreaking.

ShadowHearth · 06-01-2018 1:01am

jones wrote: »

I was seriously tempted to get the one X - have a pro at the moment and love it but i like new shiny powerful things. If i do get it at some point or a gaming pc i think i would rebuy the witcher 3. It's THAT good

I have gaming pc, ps4 and had phat xbox one, which I traded in to get xbox one s for my ratty. So its was between ps4 pro and xbox one x. I will get both eventually, but first I went for xbox one x, because it is just plainly more powerful, my ratty has an xbox now, ea acess and game pass. I do prefer ps4 exclusives though. Right now playing on xbox one, I dont feel like playing inferior version of games to pc, like it was with previous and early current console generations. Xbox one x is damm amazing powerful machine for the money and its coming from pc gamer, who play mainly pc for at least 20++ years.
Witcher so far is great, its a shame I dont have much spare time, because for us chefs the torture holiday season is not over yet. I try to squize in some gaming time after work, and right now I am going to play some witcher as misses a sleep already.

Thargor · 06-01-2018 1:17am

Billy86 wrote: »

You're well ahead on this but do death March! Esp when done in white orchard, might be best to start on medium until you've got the mechanics down.

Assuming that you're still in white orchard, then mate... You're not even at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to visuals (although the battle cut scene when yen puts the bird through the guys skull was class... An for people like me who had never even heard of the witcher stuff, completely unexpected and bad ass). Even the velen swamps look gorgeous in a certain light, and when you get to Skellow much later on... Well. Well, just... well well well!

Also the music throughout, get ready for deafness because while the sound isn't too high the music will make your ears just melt off in delight.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CiSeoX_4nzU - the best fighting song in any game ever made, hands down. As well as Dooms music captured a rampage through space and hell obliterating demons with superguns and grenades perfectly, this does the same here for running into a pile of bandits or whatnot... Tension building first as you're getting your bits together for the fight and right on cue, in you go to hack, slash, weave, dodge, burn, magic ****ing zap, hypnotise and butcher every single one of them!

Tw things - a little later in the game you can buy a "option of clearance" to reset/redistribute all your ability points, so don't worry if you've something useless like arrow dodge. You can buy a few times too. Finally, don't bee line the main missions, the contracts and side ones are out of this world but also impact the main story lines and give you unexpected drastic options.

I was adamant that Mario 64 was the best game of all time from the moment I got it for Christmas in 1997 I think it WAS, right up until I finished this. That's how good a ride you're in for... And be sure to say hi to the barron for me!

Only after clicking that link do I realise its different fight music for humans and monsters.

Kiith · 06-01-2018 12:25pm

I love the music when you win a fight. A real sense of "**** ya!" every time :P

The Witcher 3

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