The Witcher 3 Catch-All

Blood & Wine's plot didn't grip me all that much, but I loved exploring the region and building up my estate. The main city was just as much fun to explore as Novigrad, and the tweaks to leveling and abilities were appreciated. In contrast, Heart of Stone didn't do anything new with the setting, but it had the twisted, dark fairy tale stuff that I love about this series. And as a bonus, Shani from The Witcher 1 returned!

It wasn't just the accents in Blood and Wine that bugged me (they're apparently Belgian?), it was that everyone was an outrageous French stereotype like they stumbled into the game from an English sketch comedy show.

That said, the region in the DLC is beautiful and colorful. It's a welcome break from the brown castle/grey castle/other brown castle environments that Western RPGs love so much.

I loved Blood & Wine. Toussaint was very corny and did feel like a vacation. Reminded me of when I went to Switzerland as a young teenager. The accents were ridiculous and meant to evoke so they worked great for me. The main highlights were anything involving Regis and the very final moment. Totally get why other's didn't but for me it came out just as I had time off work with my first child being born. In between caring for my wife and newborn, I was playing Blood & Wine.

I've replayed W3 as a result of the series but never had the DLC before. I played through the main game and cleared most of the quests then went into Hearts of Stone.
It was OK, "more of the same" I guess but it did go on a bit. Not that I was unhappy with the time taken more that it became quests within quests and it was not easy to see how the end was going to play out.

Then went into Blood and Wine and I think it is great. There is a decent amount of new land, grandmaster armour (I'm not really a completionist but really wanted the best gear even so close to the end) and an actual estate for Geralt which is great. The quests are also pretty good based more around knights and maidens (ish) so I'm back taking my time and enjoying the game, despite having over 140 hours on this playthorugh currently.

So if you only fancy one of them go for Blood and Wine, but you can normally find them both for £8 somewhere.

I loved both Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine.

About Heart of Stone... Yeah, sure Shiani was back, but my Geralt was in a committed relationship with Yen, and yet the game NEVER gave me the option to turn down Shiani... They ended up making out, and that was just... bleh.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

It wasn't just the accents in Blood and Wine that bugged me (they're apparently Belgian?), it was that everyone was an outrageous French stereotype like they stumbled into the game from an English sketch comedy show.

Yeah, no, they sure weren't Blegian either.

Archangel wrote:
Eleima wrote:

I strongly disliked Blood and Wine

What? No, it's The Witcher! It's awesome by definition!

Eleima wrote:

the strong faux French French accents were extremely offputting

Well, I could maybe understa--

ELEIMA

Yeah, okay, you definitely outrank me on that one.

Stop, I'm blushing!

I always looked at it as evocative of vaguely French/Swiss accents. Like Toussaint is the perfect country-side resort. There’s a fairy-tale level! Kind of like the whole area is a silly parody of what the real words thinks of Western Europe.

Oh, it's a parody, alright...

I need to get back to Witcher 3 and it's proclaimed (of which I have no doubt) quality add-on content. That said, hearing about the Shani thing has me irritated over the lack of player agency.

5 year anniversary today. This ended up being my game of the decade, and I still think about it often. Despite me not being a fan of the Cyberpunk genre, I'm interested in 2077 on the strength of Witcher 3.

It's been 5 years since I first played my favourite game of all time? Really? Wow.

I've played the first two and never got to this one... after I build a new PC maybe.

Wow Kyrieee, what i wouldn't give to be in your place! but also you must be the only person in the world who has played 1 and 2 and hasn't touched 3.

Brownypoints wrote:

Wow Kyrieee, what i wouldn't give to be in your place! but also you must be the only person in the world who has played 1 and 2 and hasn't touched 3.

That was me until fairly recently. Didn't have a pc that could handle it on high settings and didn't want to try to play it on low ones.

Stengah wrote:
Brownypoints wrote:

Wow Kyrieee, what i wouldn't give to be in your place! but also you must be the only person in the world who has played 1 and 2 and hasn't touched 3.

That was me until fairly recently. Didn't have a pc that could handle it on high settings and didn't want to try to play it on low ones.

I played most of the Witcher on my laptop with the resolution turned down at medium settings and it was still amazing

Yoreel wrote:
Stengah wrote:
Brownypoints wrote:

Wow Kyrieee, what i wouldn't give to be in your place! but also you must be the only person in the world who has played 1 and 2 and hasn't touched 3.

That was me until fairly recently. Didn't have a pc that could handle it on high settings and didn't want to try to play it on low ones.

I played most of the Witcher on my laptop with the resolution turned down at medium settings and it was still amazing

Ditto. The high settings are just for extras. The game looked and played gorgeous on medium.

I played it on a 2013 iMac and was consistently surprised by how great it looked and ran.

That may be, but I got to play it on ultra by waiting. Dont regret it at all.

I just started playing Witcher 3! I played the first game many years ago and loved it despite it being super buggy. I'm having to turn the settings down a bit as my computer is 2013-ish, but it's going pretty well so far.

My computer was very 2012 when I first played it, and it ran nicely on medium settings (despite my card not meeting the minimum requirements). Things did slow up once I got to Novigrad though, so be aware of that.

40 hours and just in Velen so far having a blast. 2015 midgrade build so my system sounds like a jet engine but it looks pretty good.

Question on any advice for mods. I was debating adding in a few comfort mods. Unlimited carry weight, looting the area, and a few other creature comforts. Would this ruin the experience or various things for Steam playthrough?

Hobear wrote:

Question on any advice for mods. I was debating adding in a few comfort mods. Unlimited carry weight, looting the area, and a few other creature comforts. Would this ruin the experience or various things for Steam playthrough?

Not at all. The original inventory system was so cumbersome that it got patched multiple times. You don't really need unlimited carry weight once you have your storage chest but it is handy early on and for longer excursions.

Vector wrote:
Hobear wrote:

Question on any advice for mods. I was debating adding in a few comfort mods. Unlimited carry weight, looting the area, and a few other creature comforts. Would this ruin the experience or various things for Steam playthrough?

Not at all. The original inventory system was so cumbersome that it got patched multiple times. You don't really need unlimited carry weight once you have your storage chest but it is handy early on and for longer excursions.

Or go for unlimited carry weight, and ignore the storage chest. That was my approach, and I heartily recommend it. Loot everything!

I think these were the only 3 mods I used:

The Witcher 3 HD Reworked Project
All Quest Objectives On Map
Over 9000 - Weight limit mod

And near the end of my time with the game (after like 120 hours, well into Blood & Wine), I enabled console cheats and gave myself basically infinite money. No mod needed for that, just an .ini change.

I need my actual inventory pristine and organized!

I had unlimited money just by playing the game :P.

I found money so easy to come by in the game and you hardly need to spend any. I ended up rolling in cash by the end.

From what I remember, the biggest issue with money early on is that village vendors can't usually afford to pay you for all the loot you're bringing. Once you get to Oxenfurt and Novigrad, and the richer shops that come with them, money stops being much of a problem.

Yeah now that I am selling everything it have a good amount of gold but a few of the map and weighload mods sound nice. Auto looting and ingredient gathering sound handy but unnecessary.

I initially played the game and found a lot of things tedious so didn't bother with them such as gathering ingredients, looting and selling stuff, and oils and stuff. The 2nd time around I used some recommended mods and found the game much more enjoyable as I was able to just focus on the story which is the true strength of the Witcher games.

Here's a list of the mods I have installed:
Fast Travel from Anywhere - Installed this after I started because I was getting tired of spending half my short play time traveling back from quests
Disable Storybook Videos - Yeah, those videos were fine the 1st few times but holy crap they get old
Jump in Shallow Water - It's stupid that the game doesn't originally have this, especially with all the rolling and dodging you have to do in areas with water).
Auto Apply Oils - I wouldn't ever play the game again without this)
AutoLoot - Huge timesaver
Over 9000 Weight - This one was is nice but very unrealistic but since I had AutoLoot it became necessary
TradesMan - Just makes it easier to sell stuff in one place
HD Reworked - Just installed this and love it. Many parts of the game are VERY dark and even with Gamma up I didn't like it. Just makes the game look so much more vivid and real.