The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

[Starbreaker]

Wahoo! One of the best gaming choices you'll make. 

 

Note: the first time I played it, I gave up after about 4 hours. It can be pretty intimidating/confusing until you get used to it - if you need any tips or info then ask, goes without saying that it's worth sticking with. 

 

Just to get you going:

 

1) Use Quen. Like, a lot. Even if you use no other signs in the entire game, use Quen every time you start/think you're about to start a fight. Use Quen. Use it. 

 

2) Take literally everything that's not nailed down from the poor, downtrodden villagers. Money is very sparse, especially early on. If you use your witcher senses (hold left bumper), you can see which containers have loot. Nick it all. Unless there are guards watching, in which case you'll get a little warning. They'll hand you your arse so be warned. Inside buildings you're normally safe so klepto away. 

 

3) Expect to die a bit, even on the easier difficulties. Save fairly often. 50% of your deaths will be from a hidden dip in the ground that you didn't notice until you plunge ol' Gerry off the edge of it. 

 

4) No, it's not just you - despite being a balletic whirlwind of death in combat, once the sword is away Geraldt handles like an oil tanker with an ear infection. You will get extremely good at accidentally lighting and extinguishing candles. 

 

5) Use Quen. 

[scottcr]

Just finished the whole Bloody Baron stuff

 

when I played on PS4, I chose to kill the spirit under the tree and ended up fighting the Crones... this time round, I chose to free the orphans with the spirit. 

holy fuck did that take a turn...!

[fattakin]

Finished Metro this week so thought i might try and pick this up again.  I had played 27 hours before and quite enjoyed.  I was surprisingly able to get back into it and finished off Kiera Metz subplot in the swamps.  I think id like to start playing on again but find the weapons / inventory / powers / oils and potions overwhelming.  Can i more or less ignore it? 

[Starbreaker]

No. 

[Charliemouse]

You can more or less ignore it if you play it on easy.

[Starbreaker]

Yeah, sorry for the facetious reply - doesn't come out as tongue in cheek written down. 

 

You can ignore it, but imo the complexity gives the combat it's richness. It's a right bastard to start off with, but somewhere along the way you learn to like the inventory trawling - the game tries to make you FEEL like a Witcher: You're poor, you're knackered, every enemy can shred you if you don't prep. There's something immensely satisfying about getting ready for a fight for me. It's not the same as Soulsborne - thank christ, because I'm mediocre to poor at videogames - and the actual combat in terms of invincibility frames and enemy moves etc is generally pretty straightforward, but the D+D levels of complexity make it the equivalent of meal preparation for me; you can double the amount of work you do for a 5% increase in quality, but oh man, that 5% is the sweetest you'll ever taste. 

 

If not, then you're merely in for the finest voice acting and story in any game I've played. Scrub.

[deerokus]

The combat is fine but is the weakest aspect of the game. Dying a lot will just frustrate you, doing all the preparations can be annoying at times. I would definitely knock it down. 

[Magoo]

On 27/11/2019 at 11:57, fattakin said:

Finished Metro this week so thought i might try and pick this up again.  I had played 27 hours before and quite enjoyed.  I was surprisingly able to get back into it and finished off Kiera Metz subplot in the swamps.  I think id like to start playing on again but find the weapons / inventory / powers / oils and potions overwhelming.  Can i more or less ignore it? 

 

I'm terrible at Souls/combat games and didn't do much inventory management after about 1/3 of the way in, playing at one below hardest difficulty and allowing me to cheese my way through almost any encounter. I'd put this down to:

 

Hammering the side quests and map markers early on in White Orchard/Velen, keeping on top of side quests can easily put you 1-4 levels ahead of the main quests, helps you find recipes for some important potions and gave me enough alcohol to last pretty much the entire duration of the game.

Concentrating on passive abilities and potions with broad buffs to vitatlity/damage.

Upgrading Quen and Aard.

 

Not the most varied playstyle but that micromanagement can kill the joy of the game for me.

[fattakin]

21 hours ago, Starbreaker said:

Yeah, sorry for the facetious reply - doesn't come out as tongue in cheek written down. 

 

how can you possibly feel that 5% difference? Im really enjoying the story, hence being brought back in.  It feels epic. 

 

53 minutes ago, Magoo said:

Hammering the side quests and map markers early on in White Orchard/Velen, keeping on top of side quests can easily put you 1-4 levels ahead of the main quests, helps you find recipes for some important potions and gave me enough alcohol to last pretty much the entire duration of the game.

Concentrating on passive abilities and potions with broad buffs to vitatlity/damage.

Upgrading Quen and Aard.

 

Not the most varied playstyle but that micromanagement can kill the joy of the game for me.

 

I cant actually remember what difficulty im playing it at, its normal or easy. i did indeed rinse White orchid at the start.  I'm level 10 now and i think the Kiera Metz ones were level 8.  I'm ok in confident until i hit a monsters nest then im in trouble!  will have an inventory play before i start my next session. 

[kempstar]

I never got round to playing this back in the day. Im about 6 or 7 hours in (just got to Velen) and finding it fairly dull.

 

There are so many side quests, that I just dont seem to care about. “Go here and find an item”. There has been the odd one, which has been great, for example there was one where someone had set fire to a dwarfs workshop, and you had to track him down using your witcher senses The outcome was not what I was expecting and made me feel pretty terrible. 
 

I wonder if open world games have been ruined forever by the brilliance of Breath of the Wild? I am hoping that it picks up soon. Really disappointed as I had heard such great things.

[Broker]

2 hours ago, kempstar said:

I never got round to playing this back in the day. Im about 6 or 7 hours in (just got to Velen) and finding it fairly dull.

 

There are so many side quests, that I just dont seem to care about. “Go here and find an item”. There has been the odd one, which has been great, for example there was one where someone had set fire to a dwarfs workshop, and you had to track him down using your witcher senses The outcome was not what I was expecting and made me feel pretty terrible. 
 

I wonder if open world games have been ruined forever by the brilliance of Breath of the Wild? I am hoping that it picks up soon. Really disappointed as I had heard such great things.

 

I played it a few months ago on Xbox and felt the same, probably the most disappointing experience I've had for ages. After all the praise the story gets, I was surprised by how generic, boring and slow it was. The whole thing just feels like fantasy GTA to me, complete with a giant world with nothing interesting to do in it, terrible combat, quests that constantly contrive ways to force you into combat, an unpleasantly sexist attitude and of course endless, poorly written cutscenes that feel like a sixth form media studies project. I'm baffled by how popular it is.

[friedgold]

Just finished this (main game anyway) for the first time after 200 hours on switch.

 

I’m...bereft; Even knowing that I’ve got 2 apparently brilliant expansions to enjoy this thing is a stone cold fucking masterpiece that I’m actually going to miss. Everything about it. I was welling up ffs.

[papalazarou]

3 hours ago, friedgold said:

Just finished this (main game anyway) for the first time after 200 hours on switch.

 

I’m...bereft; Even knowing that I’ve got 2 apparently brilliant expansions to enjoy this thing is a stone cold fucking masterpiece that I’m actually going to miss. Everything about it. I was welling up ffs.

Wait to you get to end of the last expansion of if you think your welling  up now in terms of the game story coming to an end - a true masterpeice and prob my game of this generation 

[deerokus]

Yes, the second expansion is so good and expensive it would have been acceptable to sell as a full (if shorter) sequel. When that's over, yeah, emotional. 

[Chadruharazzeb]

I'm fighting my way through new game + and I'm mildly depressed at the amount of time I spent on the grandmaster-crafted feline armour. I completed the set near the end of Blood and Wine so didn't get a great deal of use from it, now on NG+ it's woefully inadequate, especially seeing as you can't upgrade anything beyond grandmaster. 

 

Guess Geralt is back to wearing random shit looted from dead bastards. 

[Thor]

I do believe there are NG+ versions of all armours. 

[Chadruharazzeb]

There probably are but it takes ages to get the plans for them and even longer to get the woman who can make mastercrafted armour.

[Thwomp]

I'm going to give this another go now that I've finished with Far Cry. I got quite far last time, but I found the game very difficult because I've got the reflexes of a turnip. I've got an Xbone X now though, so I'm looking forward to seeing it in 4K.

[Luseth]

Im playing through currently just pursuing some treasure hunts. Its taking me an age with a little un. I miss the days where i could get lost in this and similar games :(

[Orococco]

Can anyone confirm whether or not Polish language audio is available for the Switch version? Google search isn't giving me a definitive answer. 

[Marvin Morris]

After my Zelda or Witcher thread I got the latter for Christmas. Only an hour in so far and I have a feeling this is going to be special. I didn’t even realise that the Switch version includes both expansion packs too - bonus!

[Curtis]

11 hours ago, Orococco said:

Can anyone confirm whether or not Polish language audio is available for the Switch version? Google search isn't giving me a definitive answer. 

I just checked: the Main Menu offers English, French and German options only.

[Thor]

4 hours ago, Marvin Morris said:

After my Zelda or Witcher thread I got the latter for Christmas. Only an hour in so far and I have a feeling this is going to be special. I didn’t even realise that the Switch version includes both expansion packs too - bonus!

YYYEEESSSSS! A wise choice, you have made. As good as Zelda is, Witcher 3 is better ... in my own personal opinion, of course. 

 

Spoiler

You should still have bought skyrim.

 

[makkuwata]

I’m about 10 hours in after downloading the Switch version earlier in the week. It‘s tapped into a long dormant part of my brain that wants to do nothing other than race around Elywnn chasing question marks.

 

Though it’s going to take a while longer to accept the limitations of jumping/climbing after having lived and breathed so much Skyrim/Zelda/WoW.

 

So far getting to the bandit camp on the knoll in the east of white harbour has been more challenging than any combat.

[Orococco]

4 hours ago, Curtis said:

I just checked: the Main Menu offers English, French and German options only.

 

Thanks for checking, appreciate it. Grumpy Polish Geralt is my favourite, don't know if I can go back to English. 

[deerokus]

4 hours ago, makkuwata said:

I’m about 10 hours in after downloading the Switch version earlier in the week. It‘s tapped into a long dormant part of my brain that wants to do nothing other than race around Elywnn chasing question marks.

 

Though it’s going to take a while longer to accept the limitations of jumping/climbing after having lived and breathed so much Skyrim/Zelda/WoW.

 

So far getting to the bandit camp on the knoll in the east of white harbour has been more challenging than any combat.

I recommend turning off the question marks. Just explore naturally. 

[Paul3704]

I've tried this twice the last couple of years, but only managed an hour or so each time.

 

After watching the Netflix show, in considering playing again. Any pointers on what I should be looking for / doing so I might enjoy it and get into it?

[Thor]

See the post above.

[Thwomp]

I read so many comments saying stay away from performance mode on xbone X, that 4K was the way to go. Well it's definitely not, the responsiveness of performance mode makes the game so much better.

[friedgold]

6 hours ago, Paul3704 said:

I've tried this twice the last couple of years, but only managed an hour or so each time.

 

After watching the Netflix show, in considering playing again. Any pointers on what I should be looking for / doing so I might enjoy it and get into it?

I'll absolutely neck-deep in the game at the moment and have enjoyed the show. My other half does not, however, enjoy me yelling 'AARD! USE AARD!' etc. during the fight scenes.