4803

I thought it was a bit light on the side quests too, most of the stuff seemed to be connected to the main quest. But it might just be excellent pacing, Novigrad definitely didn’t feel like an average rpg town where your quest log suddenly baloons to 10x its previous size and analysis paralysis takes hold.

4804

I found a barber! And more importantly, I found my first blacksmith outside of White Orchard’s Niflguardian camp. The Blacksmith in Velen refused to talk to me. The Blacksmith in Novagrad wants me to finish a level 24 quest before he’ll work for me (ouch), and the Blacksmith in White Orchard is too low level to make even the basic Griffin Swords or any of the Cat School gear I spent hours and hours looking for.

But I finally found a blacksmith who will do the work for me. Now I just have to be very careful not to extinguish any torches in front of him, lest he be scared off like the blacksmith in Velen, and never talk to me again.

Relevant to the discussion above: When I came back from weeklong quest to find Cat Gear and find a blacksmith, Novagrad had populated its notice boards, and now I have a whole journal full of way too many quests.

Novigrad definitely didn’t feel like an average rpg town where your quest log suddenly baloons to 10x its previous size and analysis paralysis takes hold.

But I feel like this is precisely what just happened! Maybe I shouldn’t have left the city to go on my Cat Gear and Blacksmith hunt.

4805

Well, I quess I just haven’t been there long enough yet then, because apart from the main quest, I didn’t find many side quests. Good to know they are there, Im sure I’ll run in to them.

Had a bug today where inserting a 5% stun stone in my sword ended up stunning every single opponent after 1 blow, 2 at most. 5% turned out to be 50% somehow? I removed it, because every fight was a walkover this way…

4806

Finished up the Novigrad main quests.

"

Geralt in a play was awesomely unexpected and hilarious.

A couple of side quests are still left and some contracts are now my level (just hit 20). I’ll probably wrap those up and then start in skellige in earnest. Though my cat set of gear is getting a bit long in the tooth. It might be time to hunt down the first set of upgrades.

4807

I did the level 24 quest blacksmith on level 13 I think. It was pretty hard at one point, but doable. And I never had to worry about blacksmith again :)
Armorer is another story though, had to go to Skellige for that one.

4808

I did the level 24 quest blacksmith on level 13 I think. It was pretty hard at one point, but doable. And I never had to worry about blacksmith again :)

Yeah, I did it well under level as well. The ostensibly hardest part can be fairly easily dealt with by running away.

4809

If you put points in a skill, like one of the sign skills, and you do not have it slotted, does it give you any benefit at all?

4810

Not that I know of.

4811

Patch 1.0.7 coming this week. Lots of nice changes in this one.

* A new, alternative (optional) movement response mode for Geralt.
* A player stash for storing items, available in various locations throughout the game. Stash locations are marked on the player's map.
* Crafting and alchemy components no longer add to the overall inventory weight.
* Books are now placed in a dedicated tab in the Inventory and books that have already been read are properly grayed out.
* Multiple sorting options are now available in the Inventory.
* Alchemy formulas and crafting diagrams can be "pinned", meaning all components and ingredients required to make them will be conveniently marked in the Shop panel.
* Dozens of fixes for quest related issues, both major and minor.
* A few performance enhancements, including the optimization of FX, scenes and general gameplay.
* Various improvements to horse behavior.
4812

OMG. The crafting/inventory changes are totally going to rock.

4813

I agree that those changes look great and the movement change looks interesting, but a stash? Game changer for me.

4814

Sounds great. Non-blind Roach in particular :)

4815

Lots of quality of life upgrades. Can’t wait!

4816

I wish they’d add an option to read a book/note as soon as you pick it up. Why must I wade through my inventory (which is sluggish on the PS4) to read something I just picked up?

4817

One step at a time Bleu. At least you’ll be able to find it now.

4818

Finally a stash! I made the mistake of leaving my cat school crossbow that I crafted (wasn’t high enough level to use it yet) in a random house and now it’s gone :-(. But the loot bag with my starter witcher swords was still there. It seemed rather random.

4819

ohhh! It’s full of stars!

Great patch.

4820

Any ideas on what the “alternative (optional) movement response mode” might mean?

Hopefully, it’s something so Geralt walking isn’t like driving a tank in GTAIV.

4821

Finished act 2 over the weekend and I think I’m coming up on the home stretch so I’m running around now doing all of the contracts and mini games I still have in the log.

This game. It is the best game.

Sorry to nitpick here but Gwent is not a deck building game. In a deck building game the objective of the gameplay is to build your deck; in Gwent you build the deck ahead of time and the game is more about hand management and the strategy of when to play your cards.

I know I’m a nerd for even bringing it up but I’ve seen this misnomer applied so many times (usually right before “It’s basically Hearthstone”) that it kinda drives me crazy. You may as well say that StarCraft 2 and Halo are the same game because there are army guys fighting space bugs.

4822

That does have a lot of nice quality of life improvements. I don’t have plans for an immediate replay but I sure will welcome these changes when I do.