The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

[JoeK]

The only real time I had major difficulty with the game (outside of huge level disparity) was my first run through of Heart of Stone. It caused me to completely change up the way I fought in combat, and actually was really quite useful! Those buggers who...

Spoiler

attempt to kidnap you

 

were a right bugger at first!

[Chadruharazzeb]

Something weird is going on in Gwent now. At one point it looked like there were new card designs for certain characters but they seem to have reverted back to normal now. Also it seems to cheat now and then by letting the CPU player have two of the same hero cards in one deck, and sometimes it skips my turn and goes straight back the the opponent. Weird indeed.

[Naysonymous]

Up until 2am. That means I’m in deep, right?  Enjoying the Baron’s passable Brummie accent too. I could see him doing Snobs & Mr Egg back in the 1290s.  
 

 

 

Photo mode is fun too.  I need come up with something creative but for now some decapitation japes.  

[df0]

Getting close to the end for the third time (I think. Am looking for the Sunstone now) and probably the first time I made deliberate choices. Big spoilers ahead:

 

Spoiler

Disclaimer: I've never played any of the previous Witcher games.

 

In previous runs I always kept Ciri close to me; in other words as far as possible from Emhyr. This time I very much lean towards Ciri taking over the role of Emhyr and aim for peace. Seems I am on the same page as Dijkstra. Roche is too patriotic for his own good, Temeria can be free at the same time as the other regions. Which is exactly why I sided with Dijkstra.

 

Phil is such a good character, perfect match of writing with voice acting.

[df0]

And finished. Definitely shows its age, still an incredible experience. Some top tier writing and voice acting for most of the cast. Not sure if I'll bother with the DLC now, I need some time away from Velen/Toussaint.

[Mr Majestyk]

I'm liking the new fast casting control. It makes the combat much more engaging. It's still buggy and plays like an older game but I may well see it through to completion.

[Naysonymous]

And up until 4am. On New Year’s Eve. It’s clicked with me and I’m a little bit annoyed I didn’t play this when it first came out.  However I’m having a blast now, I’m feeling a bit overpowered against certain enemies, especially in one on one encounters.  It might be the gear they gave out with the complete edition allowing you to power through the early game or something but at level 10 I can charge at enemies 15+ levels above me with confidence. I took out a Royal Griffin which gave me a trophy and an achievement even though I just kinda blindly wandered into its area.  The sword it dropped was shit compared to the one in the treasure chest at the start of the game.  
 

 

However, the story is sublime.  I’m loving the main quest stuff and the Brummie Baron is total joy.  

[Vulgar Monkey]

Curious, 1 is getting a remake, how does 2 hold up? 

[danbot]

2 is in pretty decent shape, at least compared to 1.

[Naysonymous]

Genuinely laughed out loud at a low level side quest: 

 

Spoiler

The Allgod. 
 

 

Had to let him carry on fleecing the village just because he was funny  

 

[Jamin]

Ha, I just did that mission. I remember last playthrough I ended up deciding to put him down and he was a lot tougher than I was expecting.

[Naysonymous]

First bum quest of my play through so far.  It’s the new one they put in for the update and seems to involve running around in a pitch black environment with a ton of dead ends before getting your arse handed to you by a boss who hits really hard in an arena where the camera struggles to cope. I’m guessing they didn’t use the A Team for this one. 

[df0]

Cat Potion saves the day in darkness.

[Naysonymous]

Aye, but it was just a poorly designed dungeon.  Still having a ton of fun with the games.  Become a city boy of late, it’s a really nice change of pace isn’t it? 
 

 

[Naysonymous]

Update.  Now level 20 and sitting at about 50 hours. I feel firmly like I’m in mid game and might head off to a new zone at some point soon (but there’s still so much to do in Velen & Novigrad!) and it feels like  I’m gonna have to brush up on some lore at some point because the game is now bringing in lots of characters and factions that presumably featured heavily in the first two games.  The world is fantastic though, it really does feel alive and crucially it doesn’t feel like something that rotates around Geralt.  I really like it.  

 

edit:
 

Spoiler

Unrelated to this play through I’ve been listening to a series of lectures about the history of modern Ukraine. It’s common knowledge but Ukraine had got a thousand years of shared history with Poland so the countries have a lot in common culturally.  It’s been interesting to match a lot of the stuff up in the history of that landmass and those peoples with the vibes/politics served up in the video game.  
 

A fun fact I didn’t know was the two sword thing being deeply entrenched in Polish culture, to the point where there’s this big fuckoff statue in Central Park in New York City: 

 

 

 

King Jagiello, who was on the throne when the Poles chinned the German crusaders. 

 

Edited January 15 by Naysonymous
Nerdy stuff

[Naysonymous]

Not really sure why I’ve bumped the thread other than to check in.  Finally headed over to Skellige and I’m getting mad World of Warcraft vibes.  It just reminds me of Howling Fjord, though I guess rather than being ‘Little Norway’ it’s a representation of a large part of the Viking world, from Scandinavia through to the Scottish Highlands and the Norn Iron accents just hammer it home.
 

 

However I’ve respecced. I found I was enjoying the signs more than anything so Garalt is now setting fire to people, knocking them over with Aard and then stabbing them in the chest while they are trying to get back up.  It’s great for fighting crowds but it is less involved than the sword build I’d gone for before.  

[Naysonymous]

This is a 200 hour game isn’t it? I’m 60 hours in and I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface. The writing is top notch, it’s definitely the strongest part of the game and it’s up there with anything I’ve played before.  Not really explored too much of the crafting side of things, it’s never really been appealing but even just dipping a toe into the potions shows how robust the system is.  I’ve turned on enemy scaling for a while just so I’m not getting 4XP for side quests I’ve levelled past but it was the last thing I did before logging off so haven’t witnessed the difference it makes yet. 
 

 

Spoiler

 

 Another moment that made me laugh. Poor sod only came into town to buy some horse shoes.  

 

 

 

There are loads of times when the game looks 8 years old, even with the update, but sometimes it’s just gorgeous.  

[Naysonymous]

 

I’m definitely missing a ton of stuff by not having played previous games, there seem to be a ton of appearances from old characters be they part of the main cast again or just in cameos.  This guy was a total delight, I love the trolls in this game and having them basically kidnap someone and force him to make shoes (and teach them to swear) was hilarious.  
 

The love triangle stuff was great too.  There was a moment that was just so poignant that The Smiths could have wrote a song about it.   I’m not sure what to do next, at the moment my Geralt is an unstoppable killing machine.  I think a lot of it is gear based as I got a ton of good stuff at the lowest level I could have got it (26) and the game hasn’t caught up yet.  I’m sure it will at some point but for now I’m mopping up side quests in Skellige and doing the Witcher Contracts.  At some point it’s time to hit the end of the main quest line, which I appear to be at the beginning of the end of and then it’s into the DLC.  It’s gonna take another month isn’t it? 

[JoeK]

More than just a month.

 

Heart of Stone is a delightful little story, but Blood and Wine is hours of extra content and all in a lovely new area. Bloody brilliant!

[Vulgar Monkey]

Anyone notice any performance issues recently?

 

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/the-witcher-3-wild-hunts-401-patch-improves-ray-tracing-but-tanks-non-rt-performance

[Naysonymous]

I got in after a late shift last night and was gonna have an hour before going to sleep and was greeted with a 20GB patch so started the download and called it a night.   I can't see any kind of patch improving ray tracing performance on Series X, but I did see the Xbox patch was nearly ten times the size of the PS5 patch.  Weird.  

 

 

 

“ice to see you!”

 

 

As for progress, I'm 100 hours in now.  I thought I'd finished the main quest, but it appears to be doing the thing that a lot of games do where it ends about five times.  I don't care too much as I'm still thoroughly enjoying it but I'll be off to the DLC next.  I've dipped in and out of wikis here and there, not too much because there's a huge amount of joy in just discovering random things in the world but enough to make me want to do the opening quest in Blood and Wine first just to unlock the mutations.   The level requirements seem much of a muchness (I'm currently 35-36 or something, still have enemy upscaling on) but I'm guessing the smart thing to do is just to play them in the order they were released? Hearts of Stone first, then Blood and Wine? 

[BabelRich]

Yes, BaW is basically an end to the whole saga. 

[Naysonymous]

Finished the main quest. Took about six weeks, a hundred hours and I reached level 39.  
 

Spoiler

Thought the final couple of battles were easy.  Maybe they were supposed to be and it was all about the spectacle as they looked amazing.  Just sat through the epilogue where Ciri left to become queen.  I’m glad the black ones won the war because fuck the book burning witch hunters in the north.  Off to do the DLC now.  

 

[JoeK]

Christ - what have they done to the PC version? It's so stuttery, and the pop-in is atrocious. 

I think I would have preferred them to have left everything alone  . 

[Rorschach]

I think I have it running acceptably. Did have to step the resolution down to 1440p. DLSS quality at 1440p runs much better (around 50% faster) than DLSS performance at 4K, which is a bit wierd, the internal resolution should be pretty similar right? I'm thinking maybe the number of rays cast is tied to the output resolution, or something silly like that. Have noticed the occaisional stutter, but I think in this kind of game it's something I can live with. I've yet to get into the cities though... so maybe my mileage will vary there.

 

The new RT-based global illumination and ambient occlusion options do seem to make interiors look a lot nicer, as well as having a slight effect on outdoor scenes not in direct sunlight. It definitely shouldn't tank the performance to the degree it does... I held off on playing it when they announced the next-gen upgrade, as I wanted to play the "best" version of the game and thought I had hardware which would easily handle it. But yes, I am kind of slightly wishing I lived in an alternate universe where they never bothered and I just played through it years ago. Although I admire CD Projekt's intentions, giving it a new lick of paint and doing so for free... and the old build is still available for anyone who wants to go back to that.

 

Sorry for the PC settings chat, I'll be sure to actually play the game at some point! Just got some others in the backlog to get through first.

[Alex W.]

The next-gen patch was cobbled together from mods. “What could go wrong?” you may wonder.

 

https://www.eurogamer.net/cd-projekt-red-confirms-its-working-to-address-inclusion-of-realistic-vaginas-in-the-witcher-3

[JoeK]

I’m kind of wanting to just roll it back the versions to before this all happened, although I suspect that will be more of a ball ache that it should be.

[Naysonymous]

Finished Hearts of Stone which I thought was absolutely wonderful.  Really enjoyed the characters, but I did spend most of my time waiting for von Everec to throw Tim’s shoes over the pub roof after the office quiz night or something.  
 

 

Spoiler

Didn’t help Von Everec at the end.  He’s great fun, super charismatic but he did spend the entire expansion trying to get me killed.
 

Plus that dog had told me not to fuck with O’Dimm.

 

[Naysonymous]

I think I'm done.   Blood and Wine was great fun too, some of the side quests weren't up to the standard of the main game but the main questline was great.  Really enjoyed the characters, loved how weird it got and now I've seen credits and Geralt has a fancy house and a live in girlfriend. 

 

Spoiler

Seems I got the "happy" ending where the Queen and her sister made friends.   Looking at how this came about after makes it seem like it's really easy to miss, I had no idea that one of the critical factors was a throwaway dialogue option with a character you might not even meet (the little match girl who is now a drug dealer).  

 

150 hours so far.  I've still only got about half the achievements (something like 1100/2000) so I might mop a few up but I'm not interested in Gwent so I'll not be doing those and going for a higher difficulty second playthrough is something that can wait five years I guess, though by the time I'd reached Skellige Geralt was an unstoppable killing machine who could fight half a dozen opponents at once and win without taking a scratch so I can see why people do crank up the difficulty levels. 

 

(Yenn doesn't need to know about this, right?) 

[JoeK]

@Naysonymous

 

If you ever do a second run-through, I do urge you to try and get into Gwent - there's a pretty great mission where having at least a fair hand will reap some pretty good rewards (and it's a fun mission too - as far as I recall anyway!)