The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

[Face2Face]

I've been playing the game for 7 hrs and I still haven't advanced through the Lilac and Gooseberries quest. There are a couple more ? marks I have to visit in White Orchard as well. I just got done with the precious cargo quest and then went to graveyard and slapped that Wraith around and got the rest of the viper schools stuff. This game is going to take me forever... and I'm okay with that.

 

[smackababy]

I don't see how you could beat the main story that fast unless you are playing on like story only mode.

Side quest are required in order to get enough XP to level up. Total content length exceeds 100 hours.

You easily outlevel the quests if you do everything. I could see you speeding through everything if you did mostly only the story. Skellig recommends 16 to start. That ain't that much.

 

[Stuka87]

I dunno just basing it off what one of the websites said. I don't seem to get much xp from sidequests..I get more from story quests.

Completion of the side quests themselves is not much, but fighting the monsters included in that quests give quite a bit.

 

[futurefields]

Can I play Witcher 2 AFTER this game? How weird would it be?

 

[smackababy]

Can I play Witcher 2 AFTER this game? How weird would it be?

It would be like playing Witcher 1 after Witcher 2. The system is different and combat is more clunky, but it would still be a good game (IMO).

 

[tidy]

.

 

[GoodRevrnd]

I've been playing on Deathmarch since the beginning and it's kind of a bitch. It's obvious that once I hit 10 or so I'll have just enough skills the game will be doable yet very challenging. Right now it's kind of a frustrating crapshoot of being forced through the main story to actually level high enough to do most of the the side quests. I'm 5 or 6 now and have met the Baron and am progressing through the "witch cave." Jenny O the Woods was a no go lol. At best I could whack her down to half. I think I'll need to unlock an alternate sign to get that one done. It's also annoying unlocking all this craftable gear that's above my level.

I think what I dislike most, which often annoys me on hard settings, is that I die in 3 hits and enemies die in 30. I find especially versus humans it's far too effective to cheese the fight and just run throuh on the horse over and over. "Normal" monsters are a mixed bag. Generally doable if there's 5 or fewer, otherwise it kind of depends on type, level, situation.

 

[Gryz]

I've played half of The Witcher 1 when it was released in October 2007. I stopped for some reason. I played The Witcher 2 in 2012, two years after its release. I have always wanted to finish The Witcher 1. Never had time, there were always other games.

I finally finished The Witcher 1 this spring. A few months ago. I installed a high-res texture pack, and a pack with new models. I enabled 4xSGSSAA and SSAO via the nvidia control panel. And the game looked gorgeous. And still ran at 60fps. The Witcher 2 taught me the importance of potions. I continued TW1 at the beginning for act III (that's halfway the game). Awesome game ! When I finished, I replayed the first half again. Because it was 7 years since I played that. It was still fun.

So yes, I think you can play TW1, TW2 and TW3 in any order you like.

 

[Gryz]

I think what I dislike most, which often annoys me on hard settings, is that I die in 3 hits and enemies die in 30.

I'm not playing at the hardest difficulty (DM!). Only one below (BaBB!). I did play TW1 on the hardest difficulty. (The boss at the end of Act I is really tough. I had to edit my savefile to make a change to my talent-spec. And then I could finally do it).

I think when you play at the highest level, you need to make use of all the tools there are. That means:

1) Get an entry in the Bestiary. I think they are not just tips for the player. But they could actually enhance the rpg-stats of Geralt as well. (how hard you hit, how hard you get hit). Not 100% sure. But that's how it works in TW1 for sure. In TW1 I would actually spend all my money on buying the books that have the right entries. (I did use the wiki to find out which book I needed for an upcoming fight).

2) Use the correct oil. Only 10% or 20% or so increased damage. But that's a pretty big buff, imho.

3) Use aggressive signs. Don't use Quen. Just try to make sure you don't get hit. And use Igni or Aard. Aard was very good in TW1 and TW2. Knock-downs meant certain death for the opponents. I haven't seen Aard be very good yet in TW3. However, Igni is awesome against anything that has a fur. They just burn. Igni is also good against any water-related enemies (drowners, water hag, etc). Make sure you make the best use of your signs. For Igni and Aard, try to use them at a time where you can hit more than 1 opponent (they are frontal cone attacks, so a big potential max total damage if you fight multiple enemies).

4) It seems that when enemies roam in packs, you can often pull a single one with your crossbow. Shoot one, watch it come to you. Back off a little, so you will be out of range of the attention of the rest of the pack. Fight the single enemy alone. Make sure you don't keep jumping forward towards the pack (Geralt likes to do that). Kill one. Repeat.

5) Use your potions. Health regen. But also the attackpower ones. In TW1 and TW2 potions were very powerful. In the books, Geralt takes potions before every fight. So even if you want to role-play, taking a lot of potions is fine.

6) It seems you can eat and regen health while in combat. (Lots of games don't allow that). I always have a large stack of meat on me. And keep eating while fighting. If my health drops really low, I take a Swallow. So far that's been enough to kill boss-fights.

7) And obviously, keep your gear up to date. Like in any game. When I saw the recipes for the Viper swords, I made sure I made them (both) before I fought the griffin. I just got a hint for more gear, but the quests are lvl17 and lvl24. I play to try the lvl17 one asap when I hit lvl12.

I don't care much for real challenging fighting in games. But I don't want it to be a complete walkover too. I enjoy the fact that I can beat monsters because my Geralt is very good (rpg stat-wise). Not the fact that I am very good. So I play on Blood and Broken Bones right now. I'm slow. And just level 7 or so. But already many fights are pretty easy. Maybe I should restart and play Death March.
Hope this helps.

 

[zinfamous]

All credibility lost.

Please tell me you aren't being serious.

So, I'm like, how could I be that wrong, to engender such anger, as I distinctly recall these details from a digital imaging course back ~2001 (you know, the glory days of 6MP just then emerging; mini DV was soooo hot).

So I looked it up...it seems I was only off by a factor of 10...so what...just one decimal! :sneaky:

seems expected theoretical limit for humans is ~300"fps," fighter pilots are believed to push around 225fps, and typical peons are just shy of 200fps or so.

Then, I see that the minimum frames required for humans to perceive fluid motion is 18fps, and I believe this is what I have in my mind. The discussion at the time, was then the current standard of mini-DV, which I recall being at 35 or 40fps, and our doing various calculations and thought projects to determine does it really matter what the actual details are, vs what you can actually perceive?

I think film was eventually standardized at 24fps because it was better than what was needed, and that has proven to be true for as long as there has been film. Early 16mm film was shot at around 16fps, I believe, and so for a lot of these films everyone seems to be running all the time.

Live action images, though, are quite different from animated images. I seem to recall something about graphic fidelity generally needs many more frames because the image is completely rendered, so you aren't just presenting live, natural images, but emulating every movement within the frame, not just the simple act of walking, for example.

 

[zinfamous]

He's also missed the irony of claiming to dislike HFR cinema and then following it with that pearl of wisdom. If the human eye "maxed out" at 27fps, then how would he even be able to see this profound difference between the 24fps and HFR hobbit that he describes?

It makes sense after I went back to confirm my confusion. We are conditioned to 24fps in nearly all of our live action content. We know what that looks like, and we default to that perception of what an image should look like.

It is, indeed, why 40fps or whatever looks so strange. Yes, it wouldn't make sense that it would produce a visual difference if our perceptible threshold was already below that limit.

 

[zinfamous]

No, your eyes don't see at an FPS rate at all (they may have an overall sample rate, but that's still be apples and oranges, if so, and I'm not sure if it's ever been confirmed). You need highly accurate motion blur for such low FPS to max out your eyes (brain).

Right, it's an interpolated measurement to try and quantify something that doesn't exactly lend itself to quantification. It's not completely accurate, but it's used for comparison, nonetheless.

Film doesn't have a resolution, either; it doesn't have pixels, but typical 35mm was once "set" at a 6MP standard as a target for digital technology. The gold standard, at one time, was that 6MP DSLR. Mostly still a good thing, but not the whole picture (the majority of those, and still the majority of DSLRs today, have CMOS that are physically smaller than they should be, to make a fair comparison to film...but you all know that). Now 8.3 seems a better approximation for higher quality 35mm film stock (but then you get into color accuracy, which well...mindfuck)

...anyway, that's all something else. Point being that people talk about these functions and interpolate them through not-quite arbitrary numbers as best they can as a platform for discussing fidelity.

It's not meant to be exact.

 

[Merad]

I think what I dislike most, which often annoys me on hard settings, is that I die in 3 hits and enemies die in 30. I find especially versus humans it's far too effective to cheese the fight and just run throuh on the horse over and over. "Normal" monsters are a mixed bag. Generally doable if there's 5 or fewer, otherwise it kind of depends on type, level, situation.

Deathmarch must really up enemy resistances. The only ones I've encountered on Blood & Broken bones that take anything close to that many hits to kill are guys like 10 levels above me.

 

[smackababy]

I'm not playing at the hardest difficulty (DM!). Only one below (BaBB!). I did play TW1 on the hardest difficulty. (The boss at the end of Act I is really tough. I had to edit my savefile to make a change to my talent-spec. And then I could finally do it).

I think when you play at the highest level, you need to make use of all the tools there are. That means:

1) Get an entry in the Bestiary. I think they are not just tips for the player. But they could actually enhance the rpg-stats of Geralt as well. (how hard you hit, how hard you get hit). Not 100% sure. But that's how it works in TW1 for sure. In TW1 I would actually spend all my money on buying the books that have the right entries. (I did use the wiki to find out which book I needed for an upcoming fight).

2) Use the correct oil. Only 10% or 20% or so increased damage. But that's a pretty big buff, imho.

3) Use aggressive signs. Don't use Quen. Just try to make sure you don't get hit. And use Igni or Aard. Aard was very good in TW1 and TW2. Knock-downs meant certain death for the opponents. I haven't seen Aard be very good yet in TW3. However, Igni is awesome against anything that has a fur. They just burn. Igni is also good against any water-related enemies (drowners, water hag, etc). Make sure you make the best use of your signs. For Igni and Aard, try to use them at a time where you can hit more than 1 opponent (they are frontal cone attacks, so a big potential max total damage if you fight multiple enemies).

4) It seems that when enemies roam in packs, you can often pull a single one with your crossbow. Shoot one, watch it come to you. Back off a little, so you will be out of range of the attention of the rest of the pack. Fight the single enemy alone. Make sure you don't keep jumping forward towards the pack (Geralt likes to do that). Kill one. Repeat.

5) Use your potions. Health regen. But also the attackpower ones. In TW1 and TW2 potions were very powerful. In the books, Geralt takes potions before every fight. So even if you want to role-play, taking a lot of potions is fine.

6) It seems you can eat and regen health while in combat. (Lots of games don't allow that). I always have a large stack of meat on me. And keep eating while fighting. If my health drops really low, I take a Swallow. So far that's been enough to kill boss-fights.

7) And obviously, keep your gear up to date. Like in any game. When I saw the recipes for the Viper swords, I made sure I made them (both) before I fought the griffin. I just got a hint for more gear, but the quests are lvl17 and lvl24. I play to try the lvl17 one asap when I hit lvl12.

I don't care much for real challenging fighting in games. But I don't want it to be a complete walkover too. I enjoy the fact that I can beat monsters because my Geralt is very good (rpg stat-wise). Not the fact that I am very good. So I play on Blood and Broken Bones right now. I'm slow. And just level 7 or so. But already many fights are pretty easy. Maybe I should restart and play Death March.
Hope this helps.

1.) I don't think that is the case, but having an updating Beastiary really helps determine the best course of action for new monsters you encounter.

2.) This is a big tip! Oils really help. Make them as soon as possible and use them!

3.) You can knock things down the AARD, and that enables you to do a one shot killing blow. Easy kill. Igni is great for boss fights. Almost every boss will be stunned if you score a crit with it (ignite damage AND a stun, btw).

5.) Potions are also a huge help, if you know the right one to use.

 

[motsm]

So, I'm like, how could I be that wrong, to engender such anger, as I distinctly recall these details from a digital imaging course back ~2001 (you know, the glory days of 6MP just then emerging; mini DV was soooo hot).

So I looked it up...it seems I was only off by a factor of 10...so what...just one decimal! :sneaky:

So just a simple mistake then, fair enough good sir.

 

[GoodRevrnd]

I'm not playing at the hardest difficulty (DM!). Only one below (BaBB!). I did play TW1 on the hardest difficulty. (The boss at the end of Act I is really tough. I had to edit my savefile to make a change to my talent-spec. And then I could finally do it).

I think when you play at the highest level, you need to make use of all the tools there are. That means:

1) Get an entry in the Bestiary. I think they are not just tips for the player. But they could actually enhance the rpg-stats of Geralt as well. (how hard you hit, how hard you get hit). Not 100% sure. But that's how it works in TW1 for sure. In TW1 I would actually spend all my money on buying the books that have the right entries. (I did use the wiki to find out which book I needed for an upcoming fight).

2) Use the correct oil. Only 10% or 20% or so increased damage. But that's a pretty big buff, imho.

3) Use aggressive signs. Don't use Quen. Just try to make sure you don't get hit. And use Igni or Aard. Aard was very good in TW1 and TW2. Knock-downs meant certain death for the opponents. I haven't seen Aard be very good yet in TW3. However, Igni is awesome against anything that has a fur. They just burn. Igni is also good against any water-related enemies (drowners, water hag, etc). Make sure you make the best use of your signs. For Igni and Aard, try to use them at a time where you can hit more than 1 opponent (they are frontal cone attacks, so a big potential max total damage if you fight multiple enemies).

4) It seems that when enemies roam in packs, you can often pull a single one with your crossbow. Shoot one, watch it come to you. Back off a little, so you will be out of range of the attention of the rest of the pack. Fight the single enemy alone. Make sure you don't keep jumping forward towards the pack (Geralt likes to do that). Kill one. Repeat.

5) Use your potions. Health regen. But also the attackpower ones. In TW1 and TW2 potions were very powerful. In the books, Geralt takes potions before every fight. So even if you want to role-play, taking a lot of potions is fine.

6) It seems you can eat and regen health while in combat. (Lots of games don't allow that). I always have a large stack of meat on me. And keep eating while fighting. If my health drops really low, I take a Swallow. So far that's been enough to kill boss-fights.

7) And obviously, keep your gear up to date. Like in any game. When I saw the recipes for the Viper swords, I made sure I made them (both) before I fought the griffin. I just got a hint for more gear, but the quests are lvl17 and lvl24. I play to try the lvl17 one asap when I hit lvl12.

I don't care much for real challenging fighting in games. But I don't want it to be a complete walkover too. I enjoy the fact that I can beat monsters because my Geralt is very good (rpg stat-wise). Not the fact that I am very good. So I play on Blood and Broken Bones right now. I'm slow. And just level 7 or so. But already many fights are pretty easy. Maybe I should restart and play Death March.
Hope this helps.

I realize most of this. It mostly comes down to being inadequately equipped at low levels (moreso skills than gear). Although I only found one emerald dust so I didn't get the steel viper sword since I'm too cheap to buy it. I just wish you leveled to viability faster and then it slowed down somewhat.

Deathmarch must really up enemy resistances. The only ones I've encountered on Blood & Broken bones that take anything close to that many hits to kill are guys like 10 levels above me.

To be fair this has been more of an issue with humans than monsters, who are a lot easier to dodge.

 

[tidy]

.

 

[zinfamous]

There are plenty of people, me included, that have never been fans of 24fps' inherent judder, and have been eagerly awaiting a superior new standard for years.

that probably holds true if all you watch is cartoons. Typical live images don't really need anything beyond 24fps. It never has.

40fps+ makes some sense for Peter Jackson, because when it comes down to it, he really only makes cartoons anyway.

Hmmm, it's still fishy as all hell. It's not as if it was a typo. I feel like the eyesight comment still stands. Otherwise this isn't something you should need to go and 'look up', especially if you've spent a lot of time with technology and video games. It would be like me claiming that the earth's gravity pulls objects towards the sky, and then "whoops, just went and looked it up, and actually I was wrong". The mind boggles...

believe what you want, but it was simply a mistake on my end. When I go back and think about things I said, they don't make much sense when you add them together. I was confusing the measured 18fps minimum (of course, that's a point that was set to include most people. Data is always a series of numbers, so it doesn't hold true for everyone) for fluid motion, and why the argument was aimed at 30fps being the maximum necessary threshold for moving images.

That being said, Our films are far more action-heavy and complex than they were in the 30s, with very different types of demands. But to be honest, the blur an confusion we often see from fast-moving action has a lot to do with, well, shitty cinematography. Michael Bay craps through shitty confusing action scenes because he uses obscure angles and tight shots, super short cuts, and too much meaningless "Spinning of everything." It's not like you would ever get to see what is going on anyway with 120fps in his films. plus...those are also also cartoons


Now look at the best action movie of the last several decades, possibly ever: Mad Max Fury Road. I don't think you'll convince anyone that more than 24fps improves that movie, or that 24fps causes jutter, motion blur, or harms the image in any way.

anyway, this is way off topic. This game is awesome and I enjoy it the more and more I play it...even if I seem to level at a glacial pace compared to the rest of you.

 

[motsm]

Hmmm, it's still fishy as all hell. It's not as if it was a typo. I feel like the eyesight comment still stands. Otherwise this isn't something you should need to go and 'look up', especially if you've spent a lot of time with technology and video games. It would be like me claiming that the earth's gravity pulls objects towards the sky, and then "whoops, just went and looked it up, and actually I was wrong". The mind boggles...

I was just skimming the thread, and the frame rate remark stuck out. So I wasn't commenting on the larger discussion you guys are having.

 

[sze5003]

What kind of frames you getting? I did the samething, and it's dropped me noticeably in the past 2 patches. I guess the visuals were mildly improved enough to hurt my performance.

Also beat that quest last night, thought it was pretty fun!

Really need to find someone to craft me a sword though.

Just checked the frames on my current settings described earlier. I'm getting anywhere from 40-45fps with the lowest being 35-38 in some areas. Feels like it plays fine for me.

 

[futurefields]

starting a speed run of Witcher 2

 

[cmdrdredd]

that probably holds true if all you watch is cartoons. Typical live images don't really need anything beyond 24fps. It never has.

40fps+ makes some sense for Peter Jackson, because when it comes down to it, he really only makes cartoons anyway.

No, just no. Again real life motion is not measured in FPS but to get true to life motion on screen you need way more than 24fps to do it. Movies only get away with it because of the blur and other things that come with it like judder from panning etc.

I've watched all the Hobbit movies in 48fps and the motion was much more realistic than watching them again at 24p at home. The difference is staggering. At first it appeared jarring but then it actually looked more natural when I looked at real life and compared it to what I had seen on screen.

 

[futurefields]

24fps just has that analog feel that most love

it's like pure digital audio vs an analog tube stage that adds some pleasant distortion

technically the sound is lower quality but it sounds better after running through the tube

 

[Attic]

I thought this was spot on. Well articulated and the author talks about combat systems beyond TW3.


The Case for Playing The Witcher 3 on Easy Difficulty

Even if you think that is sacrilegious, the author still makes great points about combat systems we love in other popular games (Dark Souls and Batman) and draws good comparisons to TW3.

I'm a bit frustrated with Combat in TW3, so i'll be going at on easy to sink into the Story with hopefully what will be less immersion breaking frustrations. I'm also not much into the alchemy or crafting systems, or the leveling system and skill tree in TW3 for that matter. I'd much prefer a simpler and more straightforward approach to all 3, easy mode will let me get the monkey of those systems off my back.

I'm feeling like the game is an 85/100 (story and art direction are outstanding and gameplay is not up to snuff IMO), if combat and leveling systems were more suited to my liking i'd be at 95 area.. ultimately having those systems be something I ignore will be a drawback vs an implementation i'd prefer vs what's in the current game.

 

[futurefields]

I don't think that's a good idea. You should play TW2 before 3 so that you have the background on all the return characters. TW2 would be a great game if you were lucky enough not to have the stutter that ruined it for me.

What part starts stuttering for you? Am in the tutorial right now and it is butter smooth. Haven't even touched Nvidia control panel.