Topic: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt thread

@Ralizah You’ve made it about as far as I did in the game before I got side-tracked. Not that I wasn’t enjoying the game, but it didn’t gel with me as strongly as I thought it would and other games called to me more. Keep the thoughts coming and maybe it will motivate me to pick it up again.

@Th3solution I think it might become funner as the player levels up more, has access to a wider variety of loot/equipment/quests/etc. Right now, I have no money, everything is higher leveled than me, and everything I collect seems to be useless for the things I actually want to craft.

One QoL thing that really bugs me is the inability to obtain environmental collectibles while sitting on Roach (what a gross name for a horse). I pass by so much stuff when I'm riding him. I feel like I should just be running everywhere so that I can stuff my pockets with as much flowers and weeds as possible for alchemic purposes (assuming I ever get anything I can actually use).

I'm going to focus on the stories for now, though.

@Ralizah i have a feeling, if you’re not already blown away by it, nothing is likely to change and in fact it’ll just get more and more tiresome.

The Bloody Baron was probably the high point for me, and I didn’t think that was as good as a lot of other people thought it was.

(Although I hope you end up loving it. I wish I did!)

@kyleforrester87 If nothing else, I'm not disliking my time with it. It's very pretty. Good music. I like some of the dark fantasy elements (even if the overly grim and gritty treatment of the subject matter and Geralt arguably being a male power fantasy who growl-talks like Batman from The Dark Knight comes off as a tad bit adolescent to me). The sidequests are nothing remarkable so far, but they have the same sort of addictive quality to them that the side-quests in Bethesda games often do (but without the janky character animations).

Did you finish the game, btw?

@Ralizah I got pretty far - twice! I made it to Skellige each time, also having spent a fair amount of time in Novigrad before hand so a fairly significant time commitment. I still do wish I’d pushed through to the end - the final expansion looks pretty good.

I’d absolutely try playing it on Death March if I was to have another go - maybe alchemy would be worth bothering with then, at least.

That made me laugh 😂

And yeah it's very nonsensical all these peasants have a collectable card game but I just rolled with it...

I think the gold situation gets much better as you go on @Ralizah. I remember being broke as hell a lot in the beginning too and I'm sure by the end I was just hoarding the stuff.

I probably should've actually used it for stuff mind but whatever.

Nice to hear you're enjoying it still. I think the Baron bit was where the game got more interesting for me. I don't think it's the end all RPG like most but it's pretty solid too

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy yes the gold thing is weird, you don’t get much for tasks (which I believe was them trying to be true to the books) and it feels like you never have any money. Then gold just suddenly becomes this pointless thing that you have too much of.

@Ralizah I do think for me the game fell victim to its own success. First of all the expectations are through the roof with so many “best game ever” rankings, and secondly I’ve played games since then that have copied Witcher 3’s core ideas and so the game doesn’t feel as unique and groundbreaking as it probably did in 2015. My playing it right after Red Dead 2 didn’t do it any favors either — Roach handles like an extension of the player rather than like a real horse does in RDR2 (or in Shadow of the Colossus for that matter). It’s fine, it’s just less immersive and the detail of the world isn’t on par with RDR2 and maybe that took some of the shine off for me. I hate comparing the two games since thematically and mechanically they are not in the same realm, but I can’t help it since I played them back-to-back.
And I think Geralt is someone that takes a little warming up to. I didn’t find him immediately likable. Again, nothing horrible, just not on par with the most endearing heros I’ve played as (Nathan Drake, Joel, Aloy, Lara Croft, Arthur Morgan, John Marston, 2B, etc, etc). I realize that only 6-7 hours with him isn’t enough to give him a fair shake and I’m sure you grow attached over time.

@Ralizah The Bloody Baron extended collection of quests is seen as some of the most interesting in the game so I hope this is what clinches it for you! And I felt the same about Gwent until later in the game, by which point I'd missed some unique cards..

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy @kyleforrester87 It's good to hear the gold situation improves. Hopefully the same happens with alchemy ingredients so I can actually make some darn oils and potions!

I think "pretty solid RPG" is probably where I'm going to land with this, unless my engagement with it drastically improves over time. I won't deny that I'm eager to get off work and get back to my computer, though. If that's not the sign of a good game, I don't know what is.

Nice to see you back @kyleforrester87

I think I got so much gold from all the various weapons and armour being spat at me and I was being a bit stubborn keeping one of the lower leveled Witcher sets on instead of upgrading.

But with a high levelled Quen, stuffing Geralt's moody face with all the meat and on normal difficulty or whatever I was good to go

I think half the game I'd stuck with the default (or close enough to starting) steel sword 😅

Despite trying to be as helpful as possible, I'm not very good at making the best choices. Too often something goes really wrong as a result of my actions. I love this aspect of the game though, choices can have consequences and the right option isn't always as straightforward as it seems.

Just finished a rather interesting side quest involving a serial killer in Novigrad. It seemed very straightforward who it was, but reading the quest description after completing it made it clear that I made a huge mistake.

And unrelated note, but I have a habit of accidentally shooting everything with my crossbow whenever I want to run. That's due to playing lots of Monster Hunter World, which has R1 as the run button.

It seems like the quests can splinter as they go on, becoming more complex as a result. I spent 2.5 hours or so in a dingy cave while doing that Witch quest. It was pretty full of content: numerous items and pieces of equipment to find; lots of story content; several set-pieces; and a boss encounter.

@crimsontadpoles If you haven’t figured it out, you can use the crossbow underwater which one shots any enemies you come across.

Life was much easier in those underwater section once I figured this out..

@Ralizah Yeah, they do, at times it can feel like there are three main quests active at the same time.

@Octane @Ralizah The intricate and large side quests may have been part of what was off putting for me. Not that their design isn’t impressive and well done, it’s just I inherently think of a side quest as something to start and complete real quick — like maybe knock a couple of them out in one play session and then do a story mission too — but when 3 hours goes by whilst you chasing just one side activity and it’s still unresolved when you stop for the day, well it makes you think twice about how much time you’re going to need for each play session. I think I wasn’t mentally prepared for that.

@Octane Only three? Look at how many I have active right now (granted, one of these is more of a 'broad goal' than anything)

And countless contracts/side quests/etc.

There's certainly not a lack of content in this game.

@Th3solution Not sure about PS4, but you can save anywhere in the PC version, so I don't mind at all. I can just pick back up if my play session needs to be cut short.

@Ralizah Yeah, it seems a lot. But three of them are actually more like broad goals; the first two and the last one. The second one in blue is the starting quest for the Hearts of Stone DLC by the way. And realistically, you won't do the Pyres of Novigrad until you're level 10. I always dealt with the low level quests first.

There's definitely a problem of over-leveling if you do every quest, and as a result, you get little exp; but there are just so many quests that it wouldn't be possible otherwise I think.

@Octane Well, those broad goals are likely to splinter into multiple other main quests, right? So, in reality, it's actually a lot more than six main quests available to me atm.

I think the game over-rewards the player for completing main quests and under-rewards them for completing side content (20xp... yippee...), personally. I've basically stopped doing side content at the moment because there's very little incentive to do so.

I hear contracts reward the player well, but most of those are well above my current level. I'm going to try out one that's a few levels above me later and see if it gives me any problems.

@Ralizah I never did the side quests for their xp, but quite a lot have interesting stories/characters, or a new piece of lore. That was the reward for me I think. And of course, you never know what side quest will have a beneficial affect later on in the game.