5743

Well, I wasn’t complaining about their being so much content. I was just saying my biggest challenge is doing all of the missions before I become so much higher level than they are designed for. Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I got a sword or piece of armor that was better than what I already have (through crafting or purchase.) That part is kinda disappointing, that I can complete a quest that is, say, level 26 while I am level 23 and the sword or armor I get are -20 less powerful than what I already have.

But this game is a rarity for me, in that I undertake the quests for the sake of the quests and not expecting to get some great loot. Though I will say it was disappointing when I when through the entire quest line to help the master smith get back into business, and the special sword he makes for me as my reward was a lesser sword than what I was already wielding.

5744

This is the PERFECT mod for those of you that found it frustrating leveling to fast to do all of the quests.

http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/642/?

5745

I remember that. I also remember he could build me a sword with that exact same name, but much higher level, and THAT sword would actually have been a great improvement over the one I was using. Why couldn’t he have given me that version of the sword? Sadly, that version of the sword had a level requirement much higher than my current level. And when I finally was high enough level to use that sword, there was no sense in crafting it, because by then I had a much better sword. That was the story of the loot for me. There were plenty of cool weapons you could find or craft in the game, but you couldn’t use them until you were at a level where you could instead use a Witcher sword that was much better. And this was WITH the higher level requirements they added for Witcher gear. If they’d just lowered the level requirements for a lot of their non-Witcher sword loot, I think it would make them a lot more appealing.

5746

Thanks! I’ll definitely play around with it at some point soon.

I go back and forth regarding the XP thing. There are times when I think “Man, if you change this you have to change a gajillion other things and even then you get unintended consequences…”

Then the other part of my brain thinks “Just move a certain quest–the one where you’re told that you should save before proceeding when you get to a certain point–5 levels past where it is and adjust all the other story quests accordingly.”

5747

Yeah, the loot was probably the most disappointing thing about the game for me. It was rare that a new piece of loot actually mattered. I don’t really care too much how my loot looks. I need a practical improvement.

5748

I’m pretty sure the quest rewards are level-scaled (do a level 4 quest, get a level 30 sword as reward). It’s just that even most level-appropriate weapons are going to be uninteresting, that’s how the system ends up working.

But this game is a rarity for me, in that I undertake the quests for the sake of the quests and not expecting to get some great loot. Though I will say it was disappointing when I when through the entire quest line to help the master smith get back into business, and the special sword he makes for me as my reward was a lesser sword than what I was already wielding.

That’s IIRC something like a level 22 or 24 quest chain. I cheesed through it on level 14 with alternate Axii. And the sword “fit for killing gods” that I got as a reward was still so crappy that I sold it right back.

5749

Yeah, PS4 so no mods for me.

The loot is the one area that is surprisingly disappointing. It kind of reminds me of my last parts of Skyrim - I played as one character the entire game, never fast traveled, and so by the end of the game I’d played hundreds of hours, was leveled out the wazoo, had crafted super high end bows and arrows and armor, and I knew nothing I found would be of much use or interest. At this point I was just wandering the world for the point of enjoying this living world they had created for me, and enjoying stumbling across the occassional ruin or cave or whatever in some remote part of the map I’d not explored every inch of yet. Skyrim’s world has yet to be surpassed for the pure joy of just walking around exploring.

But it has been disappointing to be relatively low level and almost never finding/winning any weapons or armor that feel unique and higher powered than what I can simply buy or craft - they are usually only good for selling for the money to afford the crafting/buying. A VERY rare downside to this game, IMO.

5750

I can see how Skyrim couldn’t maintain its balance over hundreds of hours, but it was definitely a huge step up from Morrowind and Oblivion in that regard. In Morrowind I stopped playing after about level 23, since I could kill anything and everything and was collecting grand souls left and right, and only getting stronger. I lost the will to keep going because it all became so easy. In Oblivion, it was better, but eventually just the quest rewards got me such amazing weapons and armor that it broke the game and I became too powerful. I still kept going and finished Oblivion though. And finished the expansions too.

In Skyrim, the game defaulted to the highest difficulty level for me (which was unknown to me at the time) and I had such a tough time for my whole 130+ hours that I had a blast. I loved the exploration, but I loved that the game was constantly so hard for me. There were some great benchmarks as I found strong loot, but the enemies kept getting stronger and stronger too. I did stop playing though, never did finish the main quest, or explore even half the map. If I do go back to Skyrim, I’d love to go back to the same character. I know you said that it eventually becomes easy, but man, so far, hundred plus hours in, they really nailed that difficulty. 3rd time’s the charm I guess.

And Fallout 4 was similar at the highest difficulty. I just love that the game is so challenging that it forces you to improvise and use everything at your disposal. No saving the grenades and mines until a rainy day. Better use them now if you want to survive.

It’s kind of a shame that Witcher 3 couldn’t maintain that type of difficulty curve.

At least I tried to self-regulate myself on the Witcher contracts. The other quests I would be over-leveled for a lot of times, but the Witcher contracts, when I got within 3 levels of the recommended level, I dropped whatever else I was doing and did the Witcher contract instead. Because I wanted those fights to be challenging. And they were, thankfully.

5751

What made Skyrim perhaps my top open world RPG game of all time (I’ll have to finish Witcher 3 to see if it ends up as 1 or 2 for me) is just how open it was. It allowed me to create my character, decide his rules of morality and behavior, and then let me play as that person (in my mind.) The main quest and civil war were pretty forgettable for me. I enjoyed some of the faction quest lines (DB, the Companions, etc.) but in all of those I played and chose as my character would. It let me truly role play.

And after I’d finished everything, in terms of main quest lines, I built a huge house on a lake, spent time upgrading it, my wife retired and raised the two kids we adopted, I would go back home and bring them all gifts, sometimes she and I would head out again together just in the area around the house and explore some more and then she’d head home as I decided to go walk that remote area I never really completely finished walking, and I’d just head out into this world they gave me. This very living world. And I would invariable find yet another cave or dungeon or ruin, or see some hunters under attack by some mages and go help them out, etc. I remember the day I decided to retire, after hundreds of hours: I walked all the way back to our home on the lake, took off all my dragon armor and put it in a chest, hung all my weapons on the wall, gave each of my kids a gift, kissed my wife and went to bed. The end. I just kinda stared at the screen for a while, realizing I was actually retiring my character, and that I would saying goodbye to this huge world I’d spent months and months and months exploring. Even now, the impressions left on my brain are walking through the woods, climbing up some mountains, exploring, discovering a cool new location and going in to explore it. As cliche’ as it may be, stealing only from the rich, never stealing from a poor person’s home. Exploring a cool huge ruin, etc.

Witcher 3 is incredible, has me hooked, but even with the question marks turned off, it’s just a different experience for me. The exploring is still fun, but mainly for discovering fascinating new stories. Skyrim was all about me creating the stories and my character in my mind; W3 is all about playing my role in stories already written, playing a character already pretty strictly defined. A very different game in my mind. Loving it, but I don’t feel like I’m playing a competitor to Skyrim.

5752

First off, this game is slow as a dog on a PS4. Load times feel way too long.

Second, there appear to be a lot of undocumented control short cuts. If you stroke the touch pad, it brings up the map. Hold down on the touch pad, it brings up the inventory. Hold down on the up or down arrow, and it switches (as opposed to drinks) potions. Hold parry while hitting the right or left directionals, it changes the sign.

It would be nice if all of these were collected in one place, instead of loading screen tips and the like.

5753

Just started off this year playing what was, apparently, the best game of last year and man, it’s hard to argue the point. Witchers I and II both bounced off me by their second act, but everything about this experience after about 10 hours is just delightful. Beautiful game and a compelling counterpoint to Fallout (which I’ve given 70 hours but really am beginning to see the edges wear off on). Just wish I’d gotten into it when everyone else was excited about it.

5754

If it helps, I’m still really excited about it!

5755

I just finished Hearts of Stone yesterday, and Blood and Wine is still coming, so I remain very excited about it. :)

5756

I played it a week after launch, 20 minutes to 3 hours a day for over 6 months until I finally finished it. So yeah, I’m still kind of excited about it. The game is just so massive, that when I look back at it, I can remember the part you’re in, the first few hours, and have completely different types of memories than memories from a month or two later, and then a month after that, and then the month after that was completely different, then the month after that the game changed again quite drastically.

Looking back on this thread it seems strange that some people were done with it in June (TurinTur, robc04, Paul_cze). They played it for less than a month, while I played it as much as I could every day for 6 months, where the game was constantly on my thoughts when I wasn’t playing, and was a constant companion in any spare time I had. I guess it must have been a pretty different experience between them and me.

5757

Yet they all voted it #1 for the year, and you didn’t. ;)

5758

True. I’m a human being after all. My last month of play and the ending influenced my memory of the game to a much greater degree than my earliest memories from previous months. The worst part about that last month is that the power curve is pretty screwed up by that point. I just looked at some of my May posts about fighting that first bear, and strategies I used to finally bring it down. And I read my multiple posts at the beginning of June where I asked for help against Jenny-of-the-Woods, and how good it felt to finally bring her down after days of trying. I’d forgotten all about those early excellent gameplay experiences. In comparison, my last month of Witcher 3 gameplay was basically just breezing through one fight after another on the hardest difficulty.

I said it was different, not necessarily better. I suspect their more compacted gameplay experience of playing through the game in less than a month was probably better for looking back at the gameplay more fondly, at the very least.

5759

I play way too many hours in a day sometimes, so my guess is that Rock8man had a healthier experience with W3 than I did :-)

5760

Witcher 3 best game ever, not close, for me.

5761

I think W3 is a great game, but it is not an open world rpg like skyrim. I always felt very constrained in what I could do and as another poster said, like I played somebody else’s story. I stopped playing around level 20 something. I had done most of the first map and done the whole Triss storyline already. I ship of to Skellige and Geralt still treats the other women I can’t even remember the name of as if he was in love with her in all the dialogues. While I had decided against this already. Totally turned me off from the game as I again realized that you play Geralt, someone else’s Character, instead of your own. I would rather compare it to games like Far Cry or Assassins Creed then Skyrim. Sadly Fallout 4 moved in the same direction.

5762

I knew I wanted to play this one without interruptions, to completely immerse myself in it. Having no kids and having lots of vacation days made it easy, I took 2 weeks off and played 16 days straight 10 hours a day.

And it still wasn’t enough! :D
So I had to play two more weekends after that, and my playthrough ended after 204 hours in game.
And all I want to play is more TW3, but having finished the first expansion, I am waiting for the second one before I replay the whole thing. Second playthrough will be in your “slow, no vacation taken” style though.

Well, the first word in the official description of the game is story-driven

The Witcher: Wild Hunt is a story-driven, next-generation open world role-playing game

So yes, it is an open world storydriven RPG. Not sandbox RPG.