The Witcher 3

Pickpocket

YouSavedMyLife wrote: »

Even though i skipped some on my first playthrough all notice board and side quests should be done in my opinion. They are all unique content and don't feel like filler at all. The rest should be done on a whim. Most of them give loot and weapons/armour but aren't worth it for the most part. Guarded treasure is probably worth it since you fight an epic monster, which can be fun and the loot is generally better than most.

Yes I'm doing all side-quests and Witcher Contracts. For me they feel absolutely essential to the world.

Regarding notice boards, there seems to be four types of notes (correct me if I'm wrong):

(1) Side-missions, (2) contracts, (3) details of some local event and (4) incidental background info that fleshes out the world.

Categories 1 and 2 go into your quest log while (I assume) category 3 appears as a question mark. Is that correct?

Pickpocket

I'm 52 hours in and just about ready to travel to Skellige. I've completed all main quests, secondary quests, contracts and done a little bit of scavenging (I'm not interested in Gwent). Am I about halfway through? It would seem so looking at the list of upcoming quests, although that could be deceiving as the quests can vary in length.

recyclops

Not interested in Gwent. What kind of nonsense is this. Witcher 3 is essentially

Gwent
Random contract
Gwent
Gwent
Gwent
Talk
Mission
Gwent
Contract
Gwent
Gwent

OMFG A NEW CARD.
Fix deck
More Gwent

Pickpocket

recyclops wrote: »

Not interested in Gwent. What kind of nonsense is this. Witcher 3 is essentially

Gwent
Random contract
Gwent
Gwent
Gwent
Talk
Mission
Gwent
Contract
Gwent
Gwent

OMFG A NEW CARD.
Fix deck
More Gwent

I've enjoyed the few games that I've played but I'm simply too engrossed in everything else.

Al_Coholic

recyclops wrote:

Gwent Random contract Gwent Gwent Gwent Talk Mission Gwent Contract Gwent Gwent

I've went on Gwent binges for 3 or 4 hours

recyclops

Gwent became a mild obsession loved scouring the maps for cards to win

Are the contracts any good? I never really bothered with them that much. I tried a few at the start, they seem like fetch quests.

Sephiroth_dude

Never got into gwent either, never got the hang of it.

Robert ninja

Deleted User wrote: »

Are the contracts any good? I never really bothered with them that much. I tried a few at the start, they seem like fetch quests.

A couple of them have a bit of back and forth for sure but I think they're worth doing if you like preparing for monster battles with potions and oils. Most of them have a lot of lead up where you can guess the monster or be told outright what it's going to be.

Again, these kinds of missions I found a lot better when I made minimal use of the map and with mini-map turned off.

humanji

Deleted User wrote: »

Are the contracts any good? I never really bothered with them that much. I tried a few at the start, they seem like fetch quests.

Some of them can branch out into fairly large quests.

Pickpocket

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Are the contracts any good? I never really bothered with them that much. I tried a few at the start, they seem like fetch quests.

You occasionally have to retrieve an item but they're not fetch quests. They're more like mini-boss battles. They're not as fleshed out as the secondary quests but they're still well written. They're definitely not busy-work for the sake of it.

I quite enjoy the process of investigating the beast, preparing for the fight with potions and oils and then killing it. They're also some of the best combat sequences in the game (so far). There's a certain degree of depth to the mechanics when you start to develop your character in that direction and the Contracts often show the combat at its best.

Glebee

For some reason im just not getting into Blood and Wine. Its been a while since I finished up the last DLC and I lost my save file in the mean time.
Think Ill leave it for a bit and maybe playthrough from the start at some stage.

Billy86

Just got to Skellige recently enough (actually I got there small bit back but seemed to have done so outside of the quest order when doing the side quest with Lambert, so quickly jumped back out as soon as I had that bit done). My god! The music and artwork there are just amazing, going to the castle on the top of the mountain for

the king's funeral

and the views around, I must have stopped just to gape at the view a half dozen times.

The alternate Yrden sign is a lifesaver, was losing my reason at getting butchered by wraiths. Randomly even though they are only level 4 I think Foglets are probably the most difficult enemies in the entire game, though the monster one in a cave was easy enough to deal with my keeping clear and bombing/yrdening the feck out of him.

The rock troll dialogues are also genuinely hilarious - "boatsies guard boatsies" - solid f***ing logic!

Still looking to nitpick any problems in the game. Picking up items can be a little finnicky. I take back what I said about getting on the horse, didn't notice it needed a double click. Erm... ??? I guess I'm not a fan of the Cleaver or Lambert characters - while the likes of Reuven have a brilliant 'love to hate' quality and the witch hunters are excellently made pr*cks, but those two are just pretty cringey (and I really don't like Cleaver being a Bob Hoskins impersonator while all the other dwarves sound Scottish, not sure why it just irks me). One hidden treasure marker on the map underwater was not there. The 'fists of fury' side quests are a bit too easy - dodging, parrying, then getting 3-4 hits in before making some distance and repeating have me beating fighters 10+ levels above me without much of any effort. Erm... ??????

Those things you wouldn't forgive in other games because you wouldn't even notice them for all the other little flaws. I might be jumping the gun a bit but seriously, this has to be right up there with Mario 64 for the best game ever made. The sheer scale of everything as well as the depth, quantity and quality, are almost comically incredible. I can not stop playing this game in a way that I haven't had since GTA San Andreas when I was a teenager, just completed the mission getting to Skellige like I said and I've been doing a tonne of contract/side quests/undiscovered locations, and still think (hope!) there is so much more to come. It's a weird situation where I want to almost avoid the main storyline because there's almost a sense of sadness in getting closer to the end, but once you decide to just to the start of a quest you're guaranteed to get sucked in for hours of it on end because the story is so captivating; really hope the two expansions it came with have a lot to add too, in that sense.

I'd never give any game/movie/album/etc a 100% rating, but giving this 95% would be a pretty big injustice.

Robert ninja

Billy86 wrote: »

The alternate Yrden sign is a lifesaver, was losing my reason at getting butchered by wraiths. Randomly even though they are only level 4 I think Foglets are probably the most difficult enemies in the entire game, though the monster one in a cave was easy enough to deal with my keeping clear and bombing/yrdening the feck out of him.

Level your alchemy. Necrophage oil and max level Black Blood destroys them. Necrophages bleed when near you and since foglet projections die in one hit they die upon spawn. You can also just win out by letting them slowly bleed to death even if you only get a few hits in with poisoned blades and high quality oil.

Vanilla oil (unmodded) is OP. You can just keep applying it mid-combat and it never runs out! You essentially have an never ending damage boost and if you skill into it you get damage reduction vs the enemy type the oil targets, even humans with Hanged Man's venom. After that everything is a battle of attrition with time on your side.

Billy86

Robert ninja wrote: »

Level your alchemy. Necrophage oil and max level Black Blood destroys them. Necrophages bleed when near you and since foglet projections die in one hit they die upon spawn. You can also just win out by letting them slowly bleed to death even if you only get a few hits in with poisoned blades and high quality oil.

Vanilla oil (unmodded) is OP. You can just keep applying it mid-combat and it never runs out! You essentially have an never ending damage boost and if you skill into it you get damage reduction vs the enemy type the oil targets, even humans with Hanged Man's venom. After that everything is a battle of attrition with time on your side.

Yeah just got the superior necrophage potion done last night, pretty handy stuff alright especially as I had the necrophage/water hag monster contract in Skellige right after upgrading it - got stuck in the tiny corner so that would have been a massacre otherwise. Instead, I wound up knee deep in the dead . Cheers for the heads up, will keep in mind.

The superior version or whatever the anti-poison potion is, is also pretty handy. Throw in a fire bomb or two, follow up with a whole bunch of poison bombs, run in and MURDER THE F*** OUT OF EV-ER-Y-THING!!

White Gull is a right b*stard to make by the way and needed so often, but on the plus side I'd been hoarding all the weapons I picked up (not recommended, slows down the inventory in your stash something fierce) along with having 100 dwarven spirit, drowner brains, a bunch of no longer relevatn special swords, etc so went on a big spree - now I'm on about 12,000 crowns even after having bought loads of expensive stuff for alchemy. Happy days! Just going to wait it out until level 24 (just got to 20 last night before switching it off, if I recall) and go for a massive upgrade in armour/weaponry - a lot seems to open up at that level for whatever reason.

Pickpocket

I moved the difficulty up to 'Blood & Broken Bones' and I'm enjoying it a lot more. I was feeling OP and paying very little attention to potions or food, except when heading into a Contract. Now, for the first time in over 50 hours, I'm comparing food stuffs and thinking about what I'll need to simply make it from A to B.

Also, I'm having a much better time now that I've switched off all the question marks on the map. I realise I'm going to be missing out on a certain amount of content, but I'm not going to get to see everything either way. At least this way I have a more streamlined experience and there's a genuine sense of discovery when I do actually come across something.

Kal El

Glebee wrote: »

For some reason im just not getting into Blood and Wine. Its been a while since I finished up the last DLC and I lost my save file in the mean time.
Think Ill leave it for a bit and maybe playthrough from the start at some stage.

Havent even started the DLC, loved the game but Im awful when it comes to DLC's

bigphil2

i deleted all of my saves (up to half way through B&W) when i was downloading my games to my new PS4 Pro..

Starting from really Scratch..

It could be a grave error but It doesn't feel like it,we'll see when i start it again during my xmas week off..

Billy86

Pickpocket wrote: »

I moved the difficulty up to 'Blood & Broken Bones' and I'm enjoying it a lot more. I was feeling OP and paying very little attention to potions or food, except when heading into a Contract. Now, for the first time in over 50 hours, I'm comparing food stuffs and thinking about what I'll need to simply make it from A to B.

Also, I'm having a much better time now that I've switched off all the question marks on the map. I realise I'm going to be missing out on a certain amount of content, but I'm not going to get to see everything either way. At least this way I have a more streamlined experience and there's a genuine sense of discovery when I do actually come across something.

Go the whole way to Deathmarch, very tricky at first but becomes a lot more manageable (esp with the 'Sun and Stars' ability enabled when you need it). It also forces you to have to use certain approaches to certain enemies, and to be patient since 1-2 hits can kill you instantly with some of the bigger enemies. Can be quite frustrating until you get your levels into the teens, but well worth it before then and beyond.

In the earlier stages it can also make it a serious judgement call whether or not to get off your horse to kill wolves/dogs/bandits/drowners or just keep f***ing running, too!

Pickpocket

Billy86 wrote: »

Go the whole way to Deathmarch, very tricky at first but becomes a lot more manageable (esp with the 'Sun and Stars' ability enabled when you need it). It also forces you to have to use certain approaches to certain enemies, and to be patient since 1-2 hits can kill you instantly with some of the bigger enemies. Can be quite frustrating until you get your levels into the teens, but well worth it before then and beyond.

In the earlier stages it can also make it a serious judgement call whether or not to get off your horse to kill wolves/dogs/bandits/drowners or just keep f***ing running, too!

Perhaps I'll move onto it eventually but not just yet. My big gripe is with the slow loading times on PS4. I'm dying more having went up in difficulty and the wait each time is like having teeth pulled. I'll have to acclimatise to that before I move onto Deathmarch.

Thargor

I dont think I bothered preparing for a battle with oils and potions once and I did pretty much everything, its my favourite game of all time but I never understood why people go on about that aspect, then again I never understood why something as flawed and tedious as Gwent was a thing either...

Robert ninja

^ It's important for the first game so it's for people who want to play it like that. You're right you don't need it unless you want to fight things beyond your level. I used mods to balance everything so that using oils and potions was more important.

In fact what you said Thargor is why I'm worried about CDPR's next game. I think it may be too casualised, with mechanics that seem like they're intricate but in reality you can just brute force through anything. People can just kind of dream through the game without understanding any of the real effects of skill paths. There's no 'build' really. You either go OP vanilla alchemy at mid-game or fast attack until the end. Pretty weak. Hence why I have reservations about people saying it's 100% and of whatever CDRP come up with next.

Thargor

TBH I dont remember doing it much in the first 2 either.

Billy86

Pickpocket wrote: »

Perhaps I'll move onto it eventually but not just yet. My big gripe is with the slow loading times on PS4. I'm dying more having went up in difficulty and the wait each time is like having teeth pulled. I'll have to acclimatise to that before I move onto Deathmarch.

PC & SSD for the win!

I'd seriously recommend looking into it when you're going for your next console if like me you hate loading screens. The game loads up from hitting 'start game' in less than 15 seconds, from entering the main screen into an actual game in maybe 10 or so, and from dying in what feels like closer to 5 seconds. If I load an old save while in the game, it's usually finished loading before the narrator can finish his sentence or two.

Sorry, had to brag.

Taylor365

bigphil2 wrote: »

i deleted all of my saves (up to half way through B&W) when i was downloading my games to my new PS4 Pro..

Starting from really Scratch..

It could be a grave error but It doesn't feel like it,we'll see when i start it again during my xmas week off..

I started a new game to really appreciate the dlcs.

That was back in august and I'm still not finished the main game! :pac:

I like to play on hardest difficulty and keep myself near broke all the time so if i get a contract, I'm praising the gods and haggling as much as possible.

bigphil2

Taylor365 wrote: »

I started a new game to really appreciate the dlcs.

That was back in august and I'm still not finished the main game! :pac:

I like to play on hardest difficulty and keep myself near broke all the time so if i get a contract, I'm praising the gods and haggling as much as possible.

I had to delete the saves so i wouldnt be tempted to go back a rely on them when things get tough..

Pickpocket

Billy86 wrote: »

PC & SSD for the win!

I'd seriously recommend looking into it when you're going for your next console if like me you hate loading screens. The game loads up from hitting 'start game' in less than 15 seconds, from entering the main screen into an actual game in maybe 10 or so, and from dying in what feels like closer to 5 seconds. If I load an old save while in the game, it's usually finished loading before the narrator can finish his sentence or two.

Sorry, had to brag.

I'm getting my first PC after Xmas so hopefully it will be all a distance memory this time next year.

I just timed PS4 loading at 75 seconds which is shocking. I'm not blaming the Devs or having a go at the technology. It is what it is.

Pickpocket

Billy86 wrote: »

Go the whole way to Deathmarch, very tricky at first but becomes a lot more manageable (esp with the 'Sun and Stars' ability enabled when you need it). It also forces you to have to use certain approaches to certain enemies, and to be patient since 1-2 hits can kill you instantly with some of the bigger enemies. Can be quite frustrating until you get your levels into the teens, but well worth it before then and beyond.

In the earlier stages it can also make it a serious judgement call whether or not to get off your horse to kill wolves/dogs/bandits/drowners or just keep f***ing running, too!

I took your advice and knocked it up to Death March. It's exactly what I'm looking for. I'm kinda gutted I didn't attempt it from the start. On the other hand I've got about 40% of the main game left, along with all of the DLC.

This is quickly becoming my favourite game ever.

Billy86

Pickpocket wrote: »

I'm getting my first PC after Xmas so hopefully it will be all a distance memory this time next year.

I just timed PS4 loading at 75 seconds which is shocking. I'm not blaming the Devs or having a go at the technology. It is what it is.

Quick heads up to definitely make the thread on the 'PC building' thread on boards, ridiculously helpful bunch in there.

Pickpocket

Billy86 wrote: »

Quick heads up to definitely make the thread on the 'PC building' thread on boards, ridiculously helpful bunch in there.

I will do. In fact I've already received good advice from them. I'm just not sure of my exact budget (it's liable to go up or down over the next 3 months) so there's not an awful lot I can do at the moment.