Same here. DLC awaits.
But I think I’ll wait for a while. Like someone said above, I’ll read the books, if I can, then play Witcher 2, then play through all of Witcher 3, including the DLC.
It will happen one day!
Hell yeah, Witcher 2! That game is awesome. You may need to play it twice since the middle section is completely different depending on a choice you make at the end of the first chapter. But it’s a much smaller and quicker game than Witcher 3, that’s not as bad as it sounds.
Only thing that probably would get on my nerves now if I played the Witcher 2, is when you have to press (X or whatever button) to climb tiny ledges.
So I got a new video card last Saturday and spent a few days playing and drooling over new hotnesses like Metro Exodus and Battlefield V.
Last night I decided to load up The Witcher 3 to see how it would look with the graphics maxed out… turns out the answer to that question is: very, very good. The light now comes in shafts, the wheat grows thick, and the bears are quite hairy.
Then I started playing it for a bit. I’m just starting out in Hearts of Stone and I met a chap who needed me to clean out four bandit camps to retrieve some diagrams he’d lost. So I spent about 90 minutes on that quest and it was pretty much the most satisfying evening of gaming I could ask for. The combat is sensational. The whole game is basically perfect. 10 out of 10! Morty’s all-time top 10. Top 5? Why do I play anything else?
I know I drop in this thread about once every 9 months or so to reiterate that This Game is Good. I also know I’m not the only one who does so!
I’ve been playing with some various mods and thinking seriously about starting the second playthrough that I kinda wanna do.
For your second play through I highly recommend doing Hearts of Stone before you complete the main game. It makes a difference to be riding through NE Velen and Oxenfurt before the literal ending of the story. It fits nicely at the start of Act 3, right after bald mountain, when you return to Novigrad.
My second play through is nearly complete. I am in the middle of act 3 and probably 5 hours from the end. I may take a little break before jumping into B&W for the 2nd time.
Well, let me just join you then! Finally getting around to the expansion packs, and I’m marvelling again how amazing this game is. The visuals, the style, the narrative - everything is just awesome!
Finished HoS and even though the battles weren’t that challenging and I wasn’t levelling at all, I still loved my time in the game. Seriously, I’d be happy to just play the stories without any upgrade treadmill at all.
Really looking forward to B&W now. Have heard good things about it!
KILLED THE DAMN TOAD
That’s the fight that lets you know: Hearts of Stone is no Witcher main game.
Ah the memories of rage tossing my controller on that fight.
Hah! I always remembered you guys talking about him so my proverbial loins were girded for battle. I must have fought him about 40 times over the last three weeks, experimenting with various potions and oils and signs and I just couldn’t get his health bar lower than 70% or so. Ultra-discouraging.
Tonight I loaded an earlier save, changed my sword and a few pieces of armor, repaired all of it, and added runes to all open slots. After that, much to my surprise, I killed him on my first try! Just fought patiently and dodged a lot and eventually finished with two health potions to spare. It helped to have a sword that did actual damage.
I didn’t expect to wind up imprisoned in a ship’s hold afterward! Love this game.
The Toad. I actually had whatever that sign is - Yrden? - where it shoots bolts and slows down the enemy maxxed out and a lot of runes for it, so I shot those out, and everytime he stepped forward he got zapped and that created new zaps, and IIRC that made him a pretty easy kill. In fact, that sign maxxed out with the max runes for it made just about every boss battle like that pretty easy, it was really overpowered.
Either you were playing on a difficulty level too easy for your ability, or you don’t remember correctly. ;)
Probably the latter. I was looking in my text messages to my brother who was playing the same game at the time and I see a message from him asking how to kill the Toad. My reply to him at the time:
“I maxxed out Yrden with all of the runes, I’m not sure how I would have handled him otherwise. That gave me a lot of hands off distant hits to whittle down his strength while I tried to dodge and hit him and get out of range, but it still was a battle. But I don’t think I would have EVER killed him without Yrden maxxed out AND the rune that creates new “circles” every time it zaps the enemy.”
Yeah, the Toad was my signal that I hadn’t done enough to max my potions/oil recipes and needed to get busy on that. I’d basically just forced my way through fights until then.
On my next playthrough, going to play a more difficult level overall going forward, so like you I’ve got runes, oils, etc. maxxed for that fight. :)
I played Griffin class to max out my signs strength, and Yrden was my go to sign. Maxxed it out plus worked my tail off to be able to purchase the runes for it. Once I had Yrden completely maxxed out and the rune that creates secondary circles every time it zaps, I had some bosses where I sat back and set my yrdens up and just watched them unable to move because of the non stop zaps, getting weaker and weaker. I think a lot of people underestimated just how OP that sign could be.
I only played the main game, but I remember maxing out the sign tree and working on the main combat tree. I think I put not a single point in the potions tree.
So next time when I replay the game from the beginning and play the expansions, I’ll probably max out the potions tree to see what that’s like, and go with the sign tree as well, of course.
I don’t remember how I beat the Toad… I think it was spamming the fire spell with tons of dodge roll, because the fire stopped the regen. I think? It’s been a long time. But once I found the right combo it was pretty straightforward after muscle memory developed.
I stopped messing with potions VERY early in the game. I decided I’d get back to all of the collecting etc. for potions once I got to a point in the game where I needed them. And I never did.
From a pure min-maxing point of view, the Alchemy Tree is by far the strongest later in the game once you know enough recipes. Having 3 Flasks up permanently is borderline completely busted.
But you don’t need to min-max to win by any stretch.