The Witcher 3 Catch-All

Sydhart wrote:

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.

Yeah great list, thanks everyone.

Also that last one, holy dark batman why why why so dark??

So you have a reason to use the Cat potion.

I just use the torch. Annoyed I can't make or find water essence lol

Stengah wrote:

So you have a reason to use the Cat potion.

That may be but I want to keep my eye strain as low as possible and enjoy the game without worrying about getting a headache or asthenopia. I'm not a young pup anymore and am starting to feel the effects of working as an accountant staring at spreadsheets on a monitor for the last 20+ years.

Sydhart wrote:
Stengah wrote:

So you have a reason to use the Cat potion.

That may be but I want to keep my eye strain as low as possible and enjoy the game without worrying about getting a headache or asthenopia. I'm not a young pup anymore and am starting to feel the effects of working as an accountant staring at spreadsheets on a monitor for the last 20+ years.

I don't remember if I did anything with the Witcher 3 in particular, but one of the first things I tend to do in practically every game is to go into the options and turn up the gamma pretty high. This fad of everything needing to be "realistically" dark in games is all well and good "on paper" but we are humans staring at a computer monitor or TV and often have very poor eyesight on top of it all, so I have no qualms whatsoever about tossing all that "realism" where it needs to go...into the garbage.

Yeah, my monitor is right in front of a big window, so if I'm playing in the daytime, I *need* that gamma cranked.

Glad I finally got to playing this game. 60 hours in and barely halfway through what I can in Velen. I feel like I have a very long road ahead. Loving the game and excited to see more of it. Shame I waited 4 years to play it. Doesn't seem like 4 years!

Hobear wrote:

Glad I finally got to playing this game. 60 hours in and barely halfway through what I can in Velen. I feel like I have a very long road ahead. Loving the game and excited to see more of it. Shame I waited 4 years to play it. Doesn't seem like 4 years!

That's because it's 5 years!

Glad you're enjoying it, great game.

This is a game I AM VERY INTERESTED IN.... i have it on my backlog

kergguz wrote:
Hobear wrote:

Glad I finally got to playing this game. 60 hours in and barely halfway through what I can in Velen. I feel like I have a very long road ahead. Loving the game and excited to see more of it. Shame I waited 4 years to play it. Doesn't seem like 4 years!

That's because it's 5 years!

Glad you're enjoying it, great game.

but I've owned it for 4

Darkhaund wrote:

This is a game I AM VERY INTERESTED IN.... i have it on my backlog

Uh yeah. Don't wait. Start it. Best advice is do everything and loot everything in the first area. Magic trap, shield, and mind control powers help a lot to bolster your character but there are several ways to grow your Geralt. I am in magic and fast attack so far. Barely touched potions.

Enjoy. Get past the tough part in the beginning and have fun.

After applying a few mods to get rid of fiddley bit things like looting, fast travel and a few others the game was a blast. Wish I had gotten into Gwent earlier in the game. Missed a few cards along the way but cleaned up otherwise. Got to the battle at the Witcher castle with a full crew there. Everything went different than I thought it would. Clocking in at 126 hours so far. It feels like I have been playing forever and also like I have just scratched the surface. Weird.

I have a Geralt who mostly uses signs and fast attack. No monster has given me difficulty really. Never had much use for potions. Got some oils but mostly I was kicking ass and chewing fistech....and I was all out of fistech.

Can't believe I have more dlc and a few over level quests to do. Every board is cleared and I gave up trying to go to every question mark. I just looked up where all places of power were.

What a fun ride. I get why everyone raves about this game. It really does what it does well.

I imagine I'll go to 160 or 200 hours here.

Yeah, it's the 3d open world story-focused rpg equivalent of Baldur's Gate. People are gonna rave for years.

It's a shame combat is so ho hum.

garion333 wrote:

Yeah, it's the 3d open world story-focused rpg equivalent of Baldur's Gate. People are gonna rave for years.

It's a shame combat is so ho hum.

I really enjoyed the combat and found it shines on harder difficulty. All the options and preparation clicked with me.

garion333 wrote:

It's a shame combat is so ho hum.

Feeling some jank in the combat caused me to just turn the difficulty down so I could enjoy the story and the world. Best decision ever.

I originally liked the combat much more than Dark Souls' -- Geralt just felt more responsive (and yeah, I played on a higher difficulty where engaging with potions and oils was required). My opinion of Dark Souls combat has improved since I started keeping my character under the 25% encumbrance threshold, but not at the expense of The Witcher 3. I still really like how fluid it feels.

By now I know how to fight most everything with dodging attacks then fast attack, blast a sign, dodge rinse repeat. Playing on high difficulty. It's not my favorite but it's pretty good.

I can’t recall exactly but I’m pretty sure there is a “hack” you can apply to improve the combat and Geralt’s movement in general. It was something along the lines of changing a value in the config file.

I’m on PS4 so going to say that’s not an option for me.

There are "normal" and "alternative" movement options in the settings menus. Normal is the default but alternative is considered by many to be superior. Normal is supposed to be more "realistic" by taking momentum and such into account, but the alternative setting is much easier to control.

I wish things like the movement and other actually helpful load screens were available early on. I hated any jumping area as the ledge grab was not great. Turns out I wasn't holding the jump button. Maybe they hit this in the tutorial but then I had about 60 hours where I didn't really traverse much for jumping and when I needed it more high level I had forgotten.

But in the end it's like complaining that certain brush strokes of a masterpiece were too heavy or light.

Rolled credits on the main story. Got the empire ending. Debating if I go back do anything different or just watch the other endings.

I'll probably just hop into DLC. Seems like 5 hours may not be worth a quick youtube. Great game.

Hobear wrote:

Rolled credits on the main story. Got the empire ending. Debating if I go back do anything different or just watch the other endings.

I'll probably just hop into DLC. Seems like 5 hours may not be worth a quick youtube. Great game.

Nice! The 2nd DLC is sooooo good. That's another one where you can completely miss a really cool bit (the fantasy world) depending on the choices you make. On THAT I would go back and replay if you miss it. I didn't replay the main game for a different ending even though I got a "bad" ending.

Boudreaux wrote:

There are "normal" and "alternative" movement options in the settings menus. Normal is the default but alternative is considered by many to be superior. Normal is supposed to be more "realistic" by taking momentum and such into account, but the alternative setting is much easier to control.

Oh ok! I’ll try that out.

I really like the standard combat. It's very deliberate, you really need to take Geralt's movement and reaction time into consideration, especially early on. The deliberateness is highlighted when you switch to Ciri and she's so much more spry, even without her movement powers.

The second expansion is just sooo sooo good, I keep thinking about reinstalling this and just exploring the game to finish finding all the question marks etc...

I did everything there was to do. Every question mark and quest. All Witcher sets crafted. Nothing left for me in the world. I still get an itch to play again. Just to be in that world.

I'm re-reading the books and it's given me a real hankering to replay this game. It been about 4 years since I played.

The books are so good.

strangederby wrote:

The books are so good.

Yes! I thought I might lose momentum on a re-read and bail after a few short stories, but nah ... I’m in for finishing all of them again