The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

uncle_rufus · 15 Jul 2019 at 15:35

Poneros said:
The world-building & atmosphere of the game and its world is without a doubt unrivalled, but if they focused more on polishing the experience instead of sheer quantity of content it would have easily been a perfect game. Alas, maybe next time. Though I'd wager we won't see any Witcher-related RPGs for the next 5 years at least.

Haven't you seen the balance patch? One of the developers put up a patch as a mod that changes a lot of stuff - supposedly back to how it was earlier in development, and before focus testing brought in simplifications and changes to make the game accessible...

Amongst the things changed Quen is apparently significantly nerfed, enemies are a lot more dangerous, it's actually necessary to make use of the game's tactics and systems (like blade oils and potions which I basically didn't use the whole game even on Death March)...

It sounds pretty good (will be giving it a go myself if I ever decide to do another playthrough)

Poneros · 15 Jul 2019 at 15:39

uncle_rufus said:
Haven't you seen the balance patch? One of the developers put up a patch as a mod that changes a lot of stuff - supposedly back to how it was earlier in development, and before focus testing brought in simplifications and changes to make the game accessible...

Amongst the things changed Quen is apparently significantly nerfed, enemies are a lot more dangerous, it's actually necessary to make use of the game's tactics and systems (like blade oils and potions which I basically didn't use the whole game even on Death March)...

It sounds pretty good (will be giving it a go myself if I ever decide to do another playthrough)

Got a link? The oil system was inane, and a complete waste of time. I understand they had to do it for lore reasons but - what a waste! I just use auto-apply oils mod to bypass the tedium.

I've seen a mod that tries to do some balance changes in the spirit of what I said above but for the most part the tuning is just off, and doesn't help with the biggest problem - pathfinding.

uncle_rufus · 15 Jul 2019 at 15:47

Poneros said:
Got a link? The oil system was inane, and a complete waste of time. I understand they had to do it for lore reasons but - what a waste! I just use auto-apply oils mod to bypass the tedium.

I've seen a mod that tries to do some balance changes in the spirit of what I said above but for the most part the tuning is just off, and doesn't help with the biggest problem - pathfinding.

Not got the link to hand (am at work) but Google about for "Witcher dev balance patch" or something, I remember hearing about it from a gaming news website article

Edit:
Andrzej Kwiatkowski is the guy's name - I Googled it myself and found it easily enough but I can't visit the links to find the right one from here

Poneros · 15 Jul 2019 at 18:10

uncle_rufus said:
Not got the link to hand (am at work) but Google about for "Witcher dev balance patch" or something, I remember hearing about it from a gaming news website article

Edit:
Andrzej Kwiatkowski is the guy's name - I Googled it myself and found it easily enough but I can't visit the links to find the right one from here

Cheers, will have a look!

Pighardia · 15 Jul 2019 at 22:54

I've just finished the main quest, probably the third time for me, and it had been by far my most enjoyable playthrough. I do think the game has pretty big pacing issues and knowing the game allows you to plan for that so I was able to put things off and do them when I wanted(though that messed up the levelling most of the time!).

I'm currently deciding whether to do HOS or B&W next. I've played them before and did HOS first(well I didnt have much choice as it was at release) and I think that is probably the best way to go, but I'm tempted to start HOS, do some of it and then go to Toussant. But then it seems a bit weird to ignore the HOS story to go off and do something else.

Thekwango · 18 Jul 2019 at 22:44

anyone care to help me out - I've installed some mods via Witcher 3 mod manager (see pic below) but seeing no difference in the game visuals with them on or off. in the game settings I've found a new option - #preset_value_HalkUltraHD but again on or off makes no difference visually. most likely missed something obvious so hoping some of you clever chaps came point me in the right direction

(p.s. i've disabled the increased draw distance one as it brings an error up when I try and load the game but the others appear to be installed fine)

StrongSad · 21 Jul 2019 at 11:41

I have to say it does look pretty good....

aoaaron · 21 Jul 2019 at 11:46

Poneros said:
Got a link? The oil system was inane, and a complete waste of time. I understand they had to do it for lore reasons but - what a waste! I just use auto-apply oils mod to bypass the tedium.

I've seen a mod that tries to do some balance changes in the spirit of what I said above but for the most part the tuning is just off, and doesn't help with the biggest problem - pathfinding.

I agree. The issue isn't the oil system, its how they're applied.
Auto apply oils would have been much more intuitive. What they should have done is had items not auto-replenishible by alcohol. then the whole witcher game would be COMPLETLEY harder and oils/items would have been a lot more valuable in my mind.

aoaaron · 21 Jul 2019 at 11:46

Strudders said:
I have to say it does look pretty good....

Its hard to mess it up but you never know.

Poneros · 21 Jul 2019 at 11:54

Thekwango said:
anyone care to help me out - I've installed some mods via Witcher 3 mod manager (see pic below) but seeing no difference in the game visuals with them on or off. in the game settings I've found a new option - #preset_value_HalkUltraHD but again on or off makes no difference visually. most likely missed something obvious so hoping some of you clever chaps came point me in the right direction (p.s. i've disabled the increased draw distance one as it brings an error up when I try and load the game but the others appear to be installed fine)

I never used Mod Manager so I don't know, but I'd say start over. Uninstall all the mods, heck I'd reinstall the game. Manually install them. Then start off with Tweaks & HD Reworked (but not the latest version, as it's unstable). Max out your texture budget option (it will appear once you install Tweaks). You should 100% be able to tell the difference with reworked textures vs not. In fact, before installing the mod, take a screenshot with vanilla settings and then with the mod.

Strudders said:
I have to say it does look pretty good....

Very underwhelming & generic imo. Looks like any bargain bin fantasy series. We'll see if they manage to spruce it up but I have no hope.

Paul_cz · 21 Jul 2019 at 15:22

Strudders said:
I have to say it does look pretty good....

The trailer completely lacks that slavic distinct atmosphere and looks kinda cheap, but I will not judge the series based on it.

Kelt · 21 Jul 2019 at 15:29

Paul_cz said:
The trailer completely lacks that slavic distinct atmosphere and looks kinda cheap, but I will not judge the series based on it.

Just looked like a rip off of GOT to me.

Which apart from season 8 is not necessarily a bad thing, in some respects.

I get what you mean about it being non-slavic though. It's the world we live in today.

mark43 · 21 Jul 2019 at 23:11

I thought the trailer was okay, but not sure why it's getting such a positive reaction. I'm still hoping it will be good, but the trailer hasn't fully convinced me yet

Also I wish people would stop with the GoT comparisons already, it's a pretty high benchmark for anything to hit and people are going to be disappointed.

uncle_rufus · 22 Jul 2019 at 07:51

aoaaron said:
I agree. The issue isn't the oil system, its how they're applied.
Auto apply oils would have been much more intuitive. What they should have done is had items not auto-replenishible by alcohol. then the whole witcher game would be COMPLETLEY harder and oils/items would have been a lot more valuable in my mind.

Hmm I'm not sure about auto applying, but perhaps just have it so that instead of "bonus damage" or whatever against certain enemy types it was more like without the oil you'd barely scratch that enemy type... For me it was like "why do I care about bonus damage? I can just Quen-spam and smack them to bits either way"

brightside229 · 22 Jul 2019 at 10:53

So decided to load up a pc game to test out my 3800x. Havent played a single pc game in a loong time and currently running my trusty 7970 from 2013. Only game i have (never played it) is witcher 3. at 1080p with everything on ultra apart from shadows and hair my CPU is at around 8% usage where as GPU is 99% and getting between 38-45fps looks like im just a little GPU bottle necked!

So. If i was wanting to get around 100fps with shadows on ultra too, what graphics card would i be looking at? would a AMD 5700xt do 100+ fps?

i have got to say that at 40fps the game is extremely playable. And when i enabled fps count i was extremely surprised as i thought it was running at 60+

Nerusy · 22 Jul 2019 at 11:51

brightside229 said:
So decided to load up a pc game to test out my 3800x. Havent played a single pc game in a loong time and currently running my trusty 7970 from 2013. Only game i have (never played it) is witcher 3. at 1080p with everything on ultra apart from shadows and hair my CPU is at around 8% usage where as GPU is 99% and getting between 38-45fps looks like im just a little GPU bottle necked!

So. If i was wanting to get around 100fps with shadows on ultra too, what graphics card would i be looking at? would a AMD 5700xt do 100+ fps?

i have got to say that at 40fps the game is extremely playable. And when i enabled fps count i was extremely surprised as i thought it was running at 60+

As per guru3d review, 5700xt gets average 127fps at 1080p but that is with 9900k, which is a bit faster for gaming but I reckon 3800x will only trail coupe of frames behind. The drawback of 5700xt is of course blower style card. I do hate my vega 56 as it is audible in my p600s supposedly sound insulated case at fan higher than 40%. Could wait for AIB 5700xt.

brightside229 · 22 Jul 2019 at 12:26

Nerusy said:
As per guru3d review, 5700xt gets average 127fps at 1080p but that is with 9900k, which is a bit faster for gaming but I reckon 3800x will only trail coupe of frames behind. The drawback of 5700xt is of course blower style card. I do hate my vega 56 as it is audible in my p600s supposedly sound insulated case at fan higher than 40%. Could wait for AIB 5700xt.

I will be adding it to my water cooling loop so wont make much difference what cooler is on it. only thing i am unsure about is if the AIB cards will have better components

aoaaron · 22 Jul 2019 at 12:51

uncle_rufus said:
Hmm I'm not sure about auto applying, but perhaps just have it so that instead of "bonus damage" or whatever against certain enemy types it was more like without the oil you'd barely scratch that enemy type... For me it was like "why do I care about bonus damage? I can just Quen-spam and smack them to bits either way"

yeah true. tbh i find it hard to think of a way to make it apply seeminglessly. there were definitley FAR too many oils. maybe getting an oil should have been more of a quest, so its more rewarding and then geralt is imbued with it. idk.. but the current system didn't work. tbh all of the items should hav ebeen a list rather than icons. i get icons look nice but man it was a pain to scroll through and apply.

uncle_rufus · 22 Jul 2019 at 13:54

aoaaron said:
yeah true. tbh i find it hard to think of a way to make it apply seeminglessly. there were definitley FAR too many oils. maybe getting an oil should have been more of a quest, so its more rewarding and then geralt is imbued with it. idk.. but the current system didn't work. tbh all of the items should hav ebeen a list rather than icons. i get icons look nice but man it was a pain to scroll through and apply.

Definitely... I just didn't make use of hardly anything - oils? not needed as mentioned above... potions? why do I need those when I can Quen-spam back to full health every few seconds (if I even get hit at all)... runes other than Quen? mostly not needed except a few niche situations... bombs and crossbow? lol no.... I enjoyed the game in-spite of this but I'd have loved it to be better balanced...

Like imagine getting into a fight against a werewolf and a wraith at the same time... as in my other post you need the oils to stand a chance of doing any damage, but you can't apply more than one oil to a single sword so you'd have to imbue two different swords with the relevant oils and start the battle out trying to focus on the one enemy that you're sword is good against, then midway through you'd have to switch to the other swords... Or something like that... Maybe some potions give you good defense against one enemy type, but accidentally frenzy another, etc. etc. decisions that you have to make going into battle

aoaaron · 22 Jul 2019 at 20:30

uncle_rufus said:
Definitely... I just didn't make use of hardly anything - oils? not needed as mentioned above... potions? why do I need those when I can Quen-spam back to full health every few seconds (if I even get hit at all)... runes other than Quen? mostly not needed except a few niche situations... bombs and crossbow? lol no.... I enjoyed the game in-spite of this but I'd have loved it to be better balanced...

Like imagine getting into a fight against a werewolf and a wraith at the same time... as in my other post you need the oils to stand a chance of doing any damage, but you can't apply more than one oil to a single sword so you'd have to imbue two different swords with the relevant oils and start the battle out trying to focus on the one enemy that you're sword is good against, then midway through you'd have to switch to the other swords... Or something like that... Maybe some potions give you good defense against one enemy type, but accidentally frenzy another, etc. etc. decisions that you have to make going into battle

Yup, they won't do it but they could have done with actually taking away a few mechanics and making them more intuitive and complex.

So much of Witcher 3 is redundant in regards to gameplay and its ashame.

In their next Witcher game, they really need to prioritise organic exploration. As enjoyable as it was, I went from map marker to map marker, having cut scene after cut scene. BOTW has set the bar for whats possible without cut scenes and I honestly feel like cut scene heavy games outside of games where every NPC is interactable, is a bit boring and bland.