Yeah I agree. I’ve got about 26 hours played and just hit level 11. Initially when I first started I turned off the minimap markers for undiscovered locations. After I beat White Orchard, I turned them on and went back there and noticed I missed a whole bunch of things. But then I ended up just checking them off one by one and it sorta ruined the vibe. So I’m gonna go back and turn them off. After about level 8, it really does seem easy to overlevel kind of quickly, and I’m playing on the 2nd to hardest level, which is supposed to give you less XP. This is a game that I can see myself replaying easily, which I hardly ever do. One thing I wish they had that would make exploring a bit better with those markers off is a fog of war or something, so I can see where I have been.
The side quests are very good, the main quest is being great (blood baron quest, for example), the side activities clearing bandit hideouts or monster nests or boxing or playing Gwent are fun and a great complement to the more story-focused content, but one of the most impressive things has to be the advancement in general.
I’m 31 hours and the difficulty has been just hard enough to make the game really interesting, having to properly evade, use bombs or potions, etc, but not hard enough to be frustrating. The advancement curve is perfectly modulated, I feel the progress being very steady. Every 45 minutes or so I have a new potion, or a new bomb, or a new sword, or a new armor, or I gain a new level. Same with the money, you start super poor but as time passes you start gaining a bit more gold than you spend, allowing you to advance and do more expensive purchases. I have 2200 gold right now.
I comment this because in lots of games the difficulty or economy are unbalanced, and it has to be pretty hard to do in a game of this size where you can’t control what the player is doing exactly.
Even Gwent has the same great progression, you start with a crappy deck, you gain card by card from normal merchants until you have a shot to a better player who gives a good card like a hero when you beat them, which allows you to have a chance against the rest of good players.
One very smart thing they did has been to give most of the xp in the main quest and most of the loot (rare crafting material, recipes, equipment) in sidequests/activities. That way you need to switch between one and the other to properly advance your character. You need the good loot to have an advantage in the main quest, and you need to level up to fight the red skull enemies you see here and there in the map.
I’ve played for over 40 hours and I think I’m still relatively early in the game (still haven’t been to Skellige, have done very little of the citiies, and still need to 100% south Velen) but, even so, I think this is shaping up to be one of those magical games that captures what I felt back in the late 80s and 90s when I first started gaming.
Unless everything takes a drastic downturn this is going to be one of my all time favorite video games if not my favorite. It pushes all of my buttons and is pretty much everything I want out of a video game. The last game that I enjoyed on this level was either Darklands by Microprose (1993) or one of the Ultimas. Unfortunately, I didn’t really play the Gothic series a lot but I’m also very much reminded of those games.
And to think that I thought Triple A games could never rekindle my childhood love of these sort of games (Bioware came close with KOTOR and ME1). I only hope this challenges Bethesda and Bioware to improve their game designs and narratives. In my mind CDPR has obsoleted their level of game design (though Bethesda still has the sandbox thing going, which I also love.)
Bateau
3186
Yeah, I just shake my head in disbelief when I try to compare Witcher 3 to Dragon Age: Inquisition. Night and day difference, especially in writing.
On an unrelated note - anyone playing a magic build on consoles? If so, how many magic traps do you get with Sustained Glyphs? I’ve read some conflicting reports on various forums, some people are saying it’s bugged on pc, others that it’s working as intended and that you’re supposed to have only one magical trap.
But I’m really starting to enjoy the playstyle, even with the constant skills switching. It’s probably easier on DM than a pure melee focused build.
I take it there’s no first person view ever?
Nope, this series has never had a first person view. Strictly 3rd person.
This game is simply fantastic. A monumental achievement. Easily in my top 10 games of all time.
I can’t wait to see what they do with the cyberpunk setting.
There is a new patch out for PC! 1.04:
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Patch 1.04 changelog:
Rebinding any key is now available after switching Unlock Bindings option in Options \ Key bindings submenu.
Corrects an issue in the dialog system that might rarely cause dialog looping in scenes.
Fixes an issue with incorrect behavior of Wild Hunt warriors after they were under the influence of Axii sign.
Corrects a bug causing spontaneous combustion of gas clouds.
1280 x 720 resolution is now properly displaying as valid resolution option.
Fixes boat stuttering in cutscenes.
Texture rendering quality for high / ultra presets improved.
Further improvements in NVIDIA Hairworks performance.
A few additional Gwent cards are now available in the Prologue area.
Fixes an issue where users with usernames using non-latin characters were unable to import saves from Witcher 2.
Overall stability and performance improvements.
Fixes related to alt + tabbing and minimizing game window.
Game icon updated.
Enlarges the size of the loot pop-up window in the UI.
Fixes an issue where, in certain circumstances, the comparison window could be displayed outside of game borders in the UI.
Upgrading set items no longer destroys sockets.
Small UI tweaks for Gwent.
Corrects some missing translations in localized versions.
Nothing extraordinary but I’m happy they’re pushing these out so fast.
I am about 12 hours in and I really wish every NPC didn’t feel the need to say Ploughin about 10 times per conversation. Overall the game feels solid to me, but it doesn’t have it’s claws in my like Skyrim did. I don’t have great twitch reflexes so the combat for me is still super difficult and I die constantly despite trying to dodge and parry and use Quen.
Timex
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For me it’s the opposite, in finding this game way more compelling than Skyrim. Honestly, i didn’t really enjoy Skyrim nearly as much as oblivion for some reason. But this game beats them both. It’s one of the beat games I’ve ever played, so far.
Does that mean the Inn NPC in the starting area has returned with her cards? Or?
I need them cards! :p
I really can’t put my finger on why, although part of it is 3rd person versus 1st person, I find exploration much better in 1st person. I am sure another element is that I have never read the books and barely made it halfway through Witcher 2 before giving up on it, so I have no connection to these characters and the backstory. Another issue for me is that I feel like every 5th NPC I talk to is using the same model.
Don’t get me wrong I think it is a decent game, but it has yet to sink it’s hooks into me. Skyrim I would make time to play, this I simply play if I have time.
FYI if you changed the buttons for ignite and extinguish, you need to run the game once and then rebind them.
And I’m the opposite opposite! I liked Skyrim more than Oblivion, and I’m not sure where The Witcher 3 ranks yet. Also, I really like Doom. Who’s up next?
Someone on reddit says the merchant sells them now if you go back.
People really get wrapped around the axle with the idea that they need to read the books or play the previous games. So far I’d say less than 5% of the game has been informed by the previous works. Almost every character I’ve met is brand new, and they’re excellent all by themselves.
There are a lot of nods to the books though, mainly in comments by Geralt in dialog, but also in some parts of some quest lines. But those are pluses for those who read the books rather than obstacles for those who didn’t.
Yeah, I did a quest recently that is an event that is very close to something that happened in the books. In the books it’s something that happens to Ciri but in the game it’s Geralt. To someone who didn’t read the books it would be just a neat little quest but it’s a nice touch for those who have read the books.
I got it guys. You’re not helping kill this myth.
Put me in the fanboy wagon. This could easily end up being one of my favorite rpgs of all time.
Every time I fire it up to explore I am captivated and hours just disappear.
