Witcher 3 Share your first impressions

[Fluffyhotep]

I did run the game for about 1.5 hours yesterday.

Hardware was an i5-4690K @3500 Mhz (no overclocking) and a GTX970, game installed on SSD. Settings 1440p, vsync enabled, most stuff on ultra, a few things (shadows etc.) on high.
No hairworks enabled.
Game ran fairly fluidly, though I doubt it was 60fps. I’ll probably tweak the game’s settings once I start a serious playthrough or run into serious framedrops.

The visual impression is overwhelming, far more so than in the case of DA:I, which is graphically no slouch. Design probably helps; the tutorial area looks and feels like the late medieval / early modern Northern European Plain, but with ghouls and oodles and oodles of atmosphere. The price paid for the ‘natural’ looking landscape is that there are no handy ‘believably impassable’ geographical boundaries for the zone (unscalable mountains etc.) , as somebody mentioned earlier. The land just ends, you get a warning and that’s it.

Great stuff so far; I trust most annoyances will be patched out or are things I will get used to.
Yes, this is probably a ‘social life killer worthy of Mordor’…

 

[azarhal]

For example, I can swap Dodge with Jump, but I can't assign it to any key that the game doesn't already use. Seriously?

I had no issue remapping the dodge button to one of my unused mouse button (aka Mouse 4).

 

[Ron Obvious]

Overjoyed by the fact that my crappy PC (athlon X4 860k gtx 750 Ti) can run the game on 1080p 30 fps+ I spent at least an hour just gathering herbs and chasing dears and rabbits. After barely surviving the fight with a couple of drowners (playing on Blood and Broken Bones) I went for some loot across the creek only to get stung to death by some angry bees. Love the story and atmosphere, love the graphics (looks good even on medium-low) and I even think that the combat is better and certainly more fluid than in TW2. My schedule for the next two weeks is set.

 

[JDR13]

I had no issue remapping the dodge button to one of my unused mouse button (aka Mouse 4).

Try mapping it to any keyboard key that the game doesn't already use. You'll see that most of them can't be mapped.

 

[Thaurin]

Try mapping it to any keyboard key that the game doesn't already use. You'll see that most of them can't be mapped.

Does this link help?

 

[JDR13]

Does this link help?

I might try that. Thanks!

 

[henriquejr]

Is this game playable at less than 30 fps ? I know, for experience, that Skyrim is playable at 20-25 fps, I just wanna know if TW3 can be playabale at this rate.

Thanks!

 

[azarhal]

I was wondering why Ciri sounded familiar. I know why now and I can't believe I didn't realize it all by myself. Must be the "fake kid voice" and the lack of sarcastic comments in that tutorial. She is voiced by Jo Wyatt.

Now I can think of my F!Hawke and Cipher Nine* as the same exact person: Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon.

*Imperial Agent in SWTOR

 

[Thiraury]

Thanks for the early impressions!

Are we restricted to using swords as in witcher 1 and 2 or can we use other melee weapontypes like axes or maces? If yes, are they viable?

 

[azarhal]

Are we restricted to using swords as in witcher 1 and 2 or can we use other melee weapontypes like axes or maces? If yes, are they viable?

You were not limited to swords in the previous games, but swords are the superior weapons of the Witchers.

As for TW3, I found an axe, but I sold it, it required level 5 and I was just level 2.

 

[Thiraury]

Alright, I don't recall that but if they weren't viable there weren't any real reason to use them.

Did the stats on the axe seem viable?

 

[azarhal]

Did the stats on the axe seem viable?

Sorry, I didn't really look at them.

 

[Roq]

I haven't even started yet, and I already have a gripe.

Apparently not all the keys are rebindable? I'm able to change which keys perform actions, but only to keys that are already used by the game.

For example, I can swap Dodge with Jump, but I can't assign it to any key that the game doesn't already use. Seriously?

Yeah this is real pain. And they've assigned the hard coded keys at a low level so that I can't get autohotkey mapping to work. Almost unplayable with my left handed setup, so I switched to a controller - and one good thing about that, unlike DA:I, is that you can still use keyboard shortcuts to quickly switch signs, access the map, inventory etc.

 

[xSamhainx]

Yep yep. Are you?

Nope, I'm a PS4 Commie

I picked the thing up earlier this year for Mordor, i figured I'd throw Witcher at it and see what happens. It was updating when I left home this morning, I'll have a status report soon.

Seems like I'll be the only one playing it on PS4

edit: however i did score a key chain and nice Witcher dice bag (actually i turned on the charm and scored a couple of them)

 

[crpgnut]

I know everyone likes to imagine they only play on the hardest levels. Is anyone playing on easy? Is combat fairly simple in that mode? I don't mind hitting things once and they fall down dead. I don't play rpgs for combat difficulty. I prefer exploration, loot acquistion, and questing

 

[booboo]

Only just started - about to head to first town. Playing on 1920x1080, ultra and everything maxed. Framerate seems great, Looks good, but not "awesome". In part that's due to the bad lighting on plants - they look like cardboard cut-outs which are uniformly lit. I really hope they fix the lighting. There' also a lot of stuff on the HUD, which is a distraction. I'll see what I can turn off. Haven't started any quests yet, but I'm sure those will be fun.

 

[ChienAboyeur]

I know everyone likes to imagine they only play on the hardest levels. Is anyone playing on easy? Is combat fairly simple in that mode? I don't mind hitting things once and they fall down dead. I don't play rpgs for combat difficulty. I prefer exploration, loot acquistion, and questing

Combat is easy on hard mode.

 

[crpgnut]

Combat is easy on hard mode.

Good, then it will be laughable on easy

 

[Luckra]

The combat seems more or less a copy of The Witcher 2. I'm playing on Normal and at level 1 I have little difficulties against group of level 4 wolves or a big level 6 bear just rolling around.
I'm disappointed with the graphics (Witcher 2 had better environments imo, I guess that's the price to pay for open world maps) but the writing and atmosphere so far are excellent.
Also they improved the menu ergonomy compared to Witcher 2, it's finally pleasant to browse tour inventory.

 

[xSamhainx]

oh my god.... this game is sucking me in hard already.

THIS is what I wanted Witcher II to be - and more
Port report: Roughly 2.5 hrs on the PS4, and it's smooth and beautiful as Yennefer's pixels

No problems here thankfully

back to itt!!!