6183

I would think the gamepad would be the way to go on any platform, but PC only people tend to not want to give into the gamepad love so I expect dissenting opinions. :) I played Skyrim with a gamepad on the PC. It was awesome…

6184

Skyrim I’d never do, because I play that from the first-person perspective. No way. 3rd person games, though, are almost always best with a gamepad.

6185

You’re doing it right, controller and all!

Yeah, Death March is probably out of my league, but with Blood and Broken Bones difficulty, the need to keep eating or potioning to restore health instead of meditating is the way to go. Also at that level you get no XP for killing monsters/creatures.

And nice catch on the noonwraith!

6186

I played originally at Blood & Broken Bones and have thought about a 2nd play through at Death March. Worse comes to worse I can always set the difficulty down. I agree that the game clicks better when you don’t just need to roll and swing. Quen is super powerful to me too.

Ditto: I’d use the controller.

6187

I’m having a mini-crisis trying to decide whether to start NG+, or dive right in to the 2 expansions.

6188

Wow, the music is too good! Listen to this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPz6-uvsee4

6189

Dive right in, start NG+ when you’re done with both expansions so you can play everything all over again. That’s my plan. ;)

6190

I just realized that I haven’t downloaded either expansion. My god PS4 download speeds suck. If I were rich I’d be buying the PC version asap.

6191

Only 90 minutes into B&W, but some non-spoiler cool stuffs so far…

Obviously much has been made of things like entirely new assets, color palette, etc for Toussaint. When you experience it in game, it’s no small thing. It really is gorgeous.

The first 90 minutes when you arrive has a lot of scripted quests and story chained events. Just roll with it. It’ll all open up soon enough. Plus, the story and event stuff (basically directed quests you’ve gotta do) are fun and interesting and establish mood nicely.

Sunsets in Toussaint are no joke.

The nighttime sky color palette is AMAZING. Different color darker skies, many stars. Much prettier than Velen.

Something else I thought was cool. Toussaint is in the south. Velen, Novigrad, and Skellige are in the north. In the Wild Hunt areas, it gets light about 3:30 in the morning, doesn’t get really nighttime until after 9:00 or so. Or at least, you can still see the sun’s rays then. In Toussaint, it gets dark by about 8:00-8:30, and not light until 4:00 am or so.

The city is beautiful at night.

The new music I didn’t notice until I went around exploring the city around 11pm at night. And then it kicked in. I’m pretty skeptical of game music. Music and games are two things I’m passionately interested, but I’m really agnostic about game soundtracks. This one, however, is pretty damned great. Noticeably so.

And so now the game has finally opened up completely for me, and I want to run everywhere and explore stuff…but I gotta go do some work first. Dammit!

6192

Bumped it up to the second from hardest difficulty. Not crazy hard, but the monsters to take more care. I like it as I was just cruising though the game. Having a blast even though I’m only plowing through the stuff I already did. Been reading The Monstrumologist the last week or two which is a great companion to this. Need to start reading the Witcher books too after I’m done with that one.

6193

I spent way too much time witchering last summer, so I uninstalled to avoid burnout and decided to wait for the expansions to be done to go back.

And wow… I’d almost forgotten just what an amazing thing this game really is. I am quite caught in its iron grip again.

6194

Sounds nice, trig. I just found a book about Toussaint… something about how the weather is always beautiful and the wine flows like rivers… to which I say, shut up, miscellaneous book I found! I won’t be seeing that expansion for a loooong time.

I switched to the Alternative movement scheme and I think I like it better. Geralt seems more nimble, less tank-like.

6195

Oh, god yes on the alternate movement scheme.

6196

Having barely made it past the first real area in Witcher 3 then putting it aside to wait for this, I can’t wait to delve into it now…hopefully won’t take too long to download or my adventure won’t start until late tomorrow night!

6197

Hey rowe33, I know this isnt’ really the place for this but it’s been bugging me for some time. Your avatar is very disturbing, what’s all that about?

6198

I’ve always assumed that was a new-dad photo rowe posted of himself only to have some wise-acre Qt3er make with the horrifying photoshoppage.

Oh, how I love the option to adjust autosave intervals! I set it for 3 minutes and never have to think about saves. NICE. That along with snappy save/load times means this game is vastly more inviting to me now than it was on PS4 where every death meant a long load. Turns out the game is a lot more enjoyable when I’m playing it rather than waiting for it. Whoduhthunkit?

Thanks for the tip, Rock8! I sought out all 20 Undiscovered locations around White Orchard and picked up a bunch of Ability Points. Now can someone explain to me how to turn off the question mark icons on the mini-map?

I just got to level 4 and left White Orchard but not before making a great discovery. I’d been spending my Ability Points but forgetting that they need to be equipped. I picked a variety of skills from the General tab including Gourmet (food heals vitality for 20 mins) Sun & Stars (regenerate Vitality during the day) and Strong Back (increase inventory by 60). But I never equipped them in my two skill slots.

On the PS4, I just put all my points into light and heavy attack and never thought about it… but while playing tonight I found myself burdened and low on health when I remembered I had to assign my abilities. So I equipped Gourmet and ate a chicken sandwich to get back to full health, then I equipped Strong Back and got back to filling my bag with loot. Score! Now after I sell everything and ease my burden, I can just swap out Strong Back for a combat skill. Seems there’s a lot more fun to be had in the skill menu than I realized.

6199

You could be assuming wrong :P.
One key point you have to know is that you decide whom you are attacking by a kind of soft-lock to target you are looking at with the camera. With the ability of the mouse of turning fast and snapping back in a precise manner, it plays pretty well with mouse/kb. Apart of having cursor for menus/maps/etc. Though the distribution of light attack/heavy attack/parry/evade buttons could be better in pads.

I totally owned the (first?) Bruxa with black blood, dust moon, and the superior vampire oil. Eff yeah.

6200

You’re right, those are all valid reasons! Target lock management is kind of a pain.

6201

I think for the main map, the option is under POI somewhere, and the minimap icons are probably under HUD options somewhere. You just have to dig around the menus.

6202

I will definitely turn off the question marks soon; I have noticed that I scan the map for areas to head to, then beeline for the marks. So I could definitely see how it could make the game experience really linear.

As for difficulty levels, I think I suck at these kinds of games. Or maybe I need some tips on how to git gud. I’m playing on normal because the story and questing appeals more to me than combat does. And I find the combat challenging enough on normal (I typically don’t die unless I try to fight 3 or more mobs at once). I am not sure I’d enjoy it if the combat was cranked up more.