The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

[Broker]

6 hours ago, Vorgot said:

 

You'll be grand now, there are a million quests to do on that whole map all over Velen. I've got a ton of quests open that are way higher level than me as well so I'll be back later on, as the main quest is about to take me to Skellige I think. Not put it on for a week or too but I'll be back on it soon enough.

 

Get ready for running into high level mobs/bandit camps etc and beating a hasty retreat, all part of the fun.

 

Yeah I think I got unlucky, I had a few incidents in a row where I ran into things that were just insanely strong in comparison to me. I’m just exploring now instead of doing quests, clearing out monster nets and searching for treasure. It’s fun.

[Vorgot]

47 minutes ago, Broker said:

 

Yeah I think I got unlucky, I had a few incidents in a row where I ran into things that were just insanely strong in comparison to me. I’m just exploring now instead of doing quests, clearing out monster nets and searching for treasure. It’s fun.

 

I did that for ages, the story quests I am doing now are way below my level because I had so much fun exploring and doing tons of side stuff. I love Skyrim, but Witcher does the exploration thing a lot better. The stories and monsters that you come across are far more varied and interesting, it's great. Just a world you can get lost in for a few hours

[Mr. Gerbik]

17 hours ago, Vorgot said:

 

You'll be grand now, there are a million quests to do on that whole map all over Velen. I've got a ton of quests open that are way higher level than me as well so I'll be back later on, as the main quest is about to take me to Skellige I think. Not put it on for a week or too but I'll be back on it soon enough.

 

Get ready for running into high level mobs/bandit camps etc and beating a hasty retreat, all part of the fun.

That's one of the things that drove me away from Bethesda's sandbox rpgs after Morrowind. Yes, it's very casual friendly if the entire world scales politely with you, but it takes away the fun of exploration for me. Going into the unknown as a massive risk which could potentially also be very rewarding, that adds a lot to the fun imo. Apart from that, seeing everything around me scale up alongside me also completely breaks the immersion for me.

 

So yeah, glad CD Projekt and (S)Witcher exist

 

[scottcr]

Yeah, scaling sucks. I remember completely cheesing some cave with a vampire in Morrowind which got me amazing over powered loot for my level. 

 

BOTW, when you stumble across a guardian or a silver Lynel. There absolutely should be over powered stuff out there.

[mdn2]

For those worried about the UI in the Switch version:

 

Quote

"You’ll get the full Witcher 3 and all expansions,” he said. “We’re not really cutting anything. The biggest changes that we made involve the user interface and how you interact is a bit different on the Switch compared to other versions."

 

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/witcher-3-nintendo-switchs-biggest-changes-are-interface-and-controls/

[Teeohbee]

[Broker]

People who’ve played this, is the main quest going to pick up a bit any time soon? So far my main quest is very slight and involves a lot of going to people to ask where a woman is, then being told that I need to do a quest before they tell me, then being told to go to another place where I do that again. Some of the quests are very interesting but there’s very little about Geralt, and it’s creating a kind of aimlessness where when I’m not sure what to do there’s no easy main quest to carry on with.

 

For reference, I met Yennefer but she told me to look for Ciri. I went to Velen, met the baron, did a tonne of quests for him but now my choices are “look for leads” about the wife or ride miles to where the daughter is living. I also went looking for the witches, but they took a fucking age to find and now, shockingly, they went me to go do something else before they’ll tell me where Ciri went.

[fattakin]

1 minute ago, Broker said:

People who’ve played this, is the main quest going to pick up a bit any time soon?

 

Actually that's close to where i stopped playing, just after the witches.  Cant remember my reason, I think a new game came out.  I have been toying with trying again so keen to see what people say to you. 

[Vorgot]

8 minutes ago, Broker said:

People who’ve played this, is the main quest going to pick up a bit any time soon? So far my main quest is very slight and involves a lot of going to people to ask where a woman is, then being told that I need to do a quest before they tell me, then being told to go to another place where I do that again. Some of the quests are very interesting but there’s very little about Geralt, and it’s creating a kind of aimlessness where when I’m not sure what to do there’s no easy main quest to carry on with.

 

For reference, I met Yennefer but she told me to look for Ciri. I went to Velen, met the baron, did a tonne of quests for him but now my choices are “look for leads” about the wife or ride miles to where the daughter is living. I also went looking for the witches, but they took a fucking age to find and now, shockingly, they went me to go do something else before they’ll tell me where Ciri went.

 

I'm a bit further on, but find the main quest not that engaging. I've done the witches stuff and the Keira stuff, I'm now doing the tasks in Novigrad and that part of the story isn't grabbing me too much. So much so I haven't played for a couple of weeks as other things have taken my time up. I think I prefer the exploration and the side quests than the main story, once I get to the next area I'm sure I'll be more engaged again. Good thing with the game is that you can put it down and then go back to it and be up and running quickly again.

 

Don't know about others, but I find the main story quests a bit lacking, while the side quests are way better than other games, it really feels like a world to explore.

[Broker]

The depth of the side quests and characters is really impressive, it actually feels quite jarring when directly compared to the bits I've done so far with Geralt and Yennefer, or Ciri. Those bits all feel really sterile and generic.

 

I also find the fantasy elements really weird. I like the monsters like the Griffin and stuff, and the feel of magic in the world. But the big old fire portals are shite, and really detract from the fairly grounded and interesting portrayal of magic I've seen otherwise. But for every cool idea like the Wild Hunt, there's some generic elves or dwarves that feel like they've been lifted straight out of Dragon Age or something. The enemies are also tending way to much towards the Star Trek alien model, with Fish Men, Dog Men and Ham Men all feeling less interesting to fight than the regular men.

 

I'm worried that years of hearing how wonderful this is have set my expectations unreasonably high. It's a very beautiful game, with interesting characters and quests, there's just also a fair amount of stuff that seems a bit boring. I'll stick at it, but I'm worried it's another one for the "would've been amazing if I played it before Breath of the Wild" pile.

[cohen205]

To be fair, every game feels a bit 'lacking' after BOTW

 

(ruined Horizon Zero Dawn for me)

[scottcr]

I'm on this like a tramp on chips when it comes out on Switch - but I'll agree using mountains as walls doesn't work so well after having played BOTW.

[Broker]

It’s not just the climbing. I think the real beauty of Breath of the Wild is how impressively it puts your ideas and actions front and center. It’s always about what you’re doing, and rarely about the wider context of why you’re doing it. In comparison, the Witcher is amazing at creating engaging stories, which give depth and intrigue to quests that are mechanically quite repetitive. Because it’s not about what you’re doing, it’s about why you’re doing it. I think Zelda just creates an unbelievably holistic and coherent world which I’d never really thought was possible before I played it.

[Talk Show Host]

16 hours ago, Broker said:

It’s not just the climbing. I think the real beauty of Breath of the Wild is how impressively it puts your ideas and actions front and center. It’s always about what you’re doing, and rarely about the wider context of why you’re doing it. In comparison, the Witcher is amazing at creating engaging stories, which give depth and intrigue to quests that are mechanically quite repetitive. Because it’s not about what you’re doing, it’s about why you’re doing it. I think Zelda just creates an unbelievably holistic and coherent world which I’d never really thought was possible before I played it.

 

I know what you mean, but from the opposite side. Finishing BotW was not as great of an experience as I'd hoped it would be. For all its excellent mechanics the world was empty and bland, the stories unimportant and the combat quite boring after a while. 

 

The main strengths of W3 is the writing, the complex choices, the world building, the characters and the emotional stories. If these are not grabbing you then I think it becomes more difficult to enjoy it purely for its combat system, for example. As an rpg it does very little wrong but it's not an action sandbox game like BotW. 

[Stanley]

BOTW's world is anything but empty or bland, you're never a second or two away from some distraction or other, it's exquisitely designed.

 

The ending isn't what the game is about, if it was then most players would just head straight to Ganon. They don't because the game is designed to lure you in.

[Talk Show Host]

17 minutes ago, Stanley said:

BOTW's world is anything but empty or bland, you're never a second or two away from some distraction or other, it's exquisitely designed.

 

The ending isn't what the game is about, if it was then most players would just head straight to Ganon. They don't because the game is designed to lure you in.

 

I beg to differ. A bit. All these distractions did not mean much to me. They were fun but nothing groundbreaking. My point was that you can't look for things in a game that is simply not designed to have. Despite the lack of things I enjoy in BotW, I'm not going to judge it because it didn't have a complex story. I did not enjoyed it as much as I was hyped for it but I can appreciate its amazing qualities without asking it to be more like the games I personally like playing. 

 

In the same way I can't judge W3 badly because it doesn't have the sandbox elements of BotW, I can't really go around believing BotW was bad because it's not more like W3. I don't think that's a fair comparison in general.

[cohen205]

Different games aint they... Only real comparison is that they are open world, and that you can ride horses and hold a sword.

 

Both amazing, but both offer totally different experiences. I favour BOTW over Witcher 3, purely because almost everthing you do in BOTW is 'fun', whereas i found myself a little bored with Witchers combat, and lengthy dialogue.

 

I'm just glad we live in a world where we can have both.

[jonamok]

I also binned W3 around Novigrad. Just bored to tears. My 20 hours felt like 200.

 

BOTW however sucked 160 hours out of me and it felt like 10.

[Broker]

9 hours ago, Talk Show Host said:

 

I beg to differ. A bit. All these distractions did not mean much to me. They were fun but nothing groundbreaking. My point was that you can't look for things in a game that is simply not designed to have. Despite the lack of things I enjoy in BotW, I'm not going to judge it because it didn't have a complex story. I did not enjoyed it as much as I was hyped for it but I can appreciate its amazing qualities without asking it to be more like the games I personally like playing. 

 

In the same way I can't judge W3 badly because it doesn't have the sandbox elements of BotW, I can't really go around believing BotW was bad because it's not more like W3. I don't think that's a fair comparison in general.

 

Oh no, it’s not a criticism, just a personal opinion. My favourite thing to do in open world games is explore, and before BOTW I’d play whatever felt the most explorative. I think things like Red Dead and Witcher 3 would have ticked that box for me before I played Zelda, but that game’s incredible exploring makes other open world games feel like movie sets to me.

 

I also feel that breath of the wild nails it’s core mechanics. The climbing and gliding are wonderful, and the combat is simple and easy to pick up. There’s so little time wasted trying to work things out. The stuff I spend the most time doing in Zelda is the stuff it’s best at. In comparison, I spend most of my time in the Witcher talking to people, fighting, riding about and dealing with gear and equipment. Of those systems, the dialogue and conversation ones are excellent, but the fighting feels shite, like a weightless PS2 hack and slash, which is a problem when it keeps making me fight things. The horse riding is fine, but the menus are an absolute mess, which is annoying considering how much time I’m spending in them.

[Talk Show Host]

1 hour ago, Broker said:

I also feel that breath of the wild nails it’s core mechanics. The climbing and gliding are wonderful, and the combat is simple and easy to pick up. There’s so little time wasted trying to work things out. The stuff I spend the most time doing in Zelda is the stuff it’s best at. In comparison, I spend most of my time in the Witcher talking to people, fighting, riding about and dealing with gear and equipment. Of those systems, the dialogue and conversation ones are excellent, but the fighting feels shite, like a weightless PS2 hack and slash, which is a problem when it keeps making me fight things. The horse riding is fine, but the menus are an absolute mess, which is annoying considering how much time I’m spending in them.

 

Oh, for sure. The core mechanics of BotW are simply on another level. It is an extraordinary achievement and one of the main reasons I kept playing and exploring. The responsiveness of everything with the freedom allowed is unparalleled in the industry. W3 has ok controls for an rpg but nothing more than that. It is not a game to keep on playing because of its combat system, that's for sure. Its strengths lie elsewhere.

[simms]

 

[Stevie]

Wicked, I just reinstalled the game so I'm gonna try that mod.

[Talk Show Host]

It is a great mod. I got to say though, the version of the X with HDR still looks better than the PC I think, as an overall feeling of the world.

[Thor]

That's interesting, because the HDR on the PS4 version is a horror show. 

[Talk Show Host]

12 hours ago, Thor said:

That's interesting, because the HDR on the PS4 version is a horror show. 

 

It has been a while but I remember it looking beautiful, although I didn't play that much. I had finished the game almost three times by then.

[dataDave]

I'm another that got bored around the 15 hour mark and never went back. I desperately want to give it another chance before Cyberpunk hits.

 

I think it was the inventory management that got the better of me more than anything.

 

BotW just utterly killed everything else, really.

[simms]

Likewise,  was going back and forth between this and BOTW at the time.  I just found the Witcher 3 world limited in comparison and dropped off it.  I didn’t even finish BOTW in the end though.

[Ste Pickford]

I don't think I actually finished Witcher 3.  I agree with the poster above, comparing it with BotW.  While the world and the atmosphere and the story in Witcher 3 were great, and I enjoyed being in the world, I eventually got bored of the actual mechanics of what I was doing regularly in terms of actually fighting little groups of enemies that appeared, monsters nests, etc.  The main things I had to do over and over again weren't actually fun, (which is what BotW got right), even though everything else surrounding the base mechanics was exceptional.

 

[Kevvy Metal]

Well I'd argue more that the two games - Witcher 3 and BOTW - are different, and it's not the case that one is doing something right and the other something wrong. 

BOTW felt very, very new and open and free, and that's it's particular vibe but it's really not necessarily better than something like the Witcher 3, which is more grounded in the Bioware school of RPG's with an open-world window dressing attached. 

 

I moved to Horizon : Zero Dawn too early after playing BOTW, so my head was MORE in the prior game and it's wonderful sense of freedom... so it took some distance and a complete replay with a clearer and more open mind to truly appreciate how superb H:ZD is. 

 

[mdn2]

 

The Switch version is going to be playable at Gamescom, apparently. Probably get a release date then as well.