Witcher 3 Novigrad...

The Witcher 3
Skellige is pretty good. Definitely enjoying the side quests and setting. The .6 and .3 XP mod is really doing a nice job containing the leveling and I can take side content at will. I see no reason to be dishing out so much XP out of the box. In my opinion the game is broken without the mod.
 
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Whatever.

If you can't get lost in a city, then it ain't a city at all.
Means, TW3 is the only game that does the city right!

You hate it? Go play some "collection of villages", a settlement type Susan Boyle described when explaining where she lives.

If you get lost in TW3 you have to be pretty stupid or colour-blind, because every quest is about following round dots on the map, or holding the right mouse button and look for big red marks.
 
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Skellige is pretty good. Definitely enjoying the side quests and setting. The .6 and .3 XP mod is really doing a nice job containing the leveling and I can take side content at will. I see no reason to be dishing out so much XP out of the box. In my opinion the game is broken without the mod.

I wouldn't call it broken, but I agree it can be an issue. Unfortunately, a lot of open-world RPGs are like that when it comes to leveling. Bethesda's games are even worse when it comes to fast XP gain.

If you get lost in TW3 you have to be pretty stupid or colour-blind, because every quest is about following round dots on the map, or holding the right mouse button and look for big red marks.

Sure, if you choose to play that way. Or you can just turn off the onscreen markers and mini-map.
 
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If you get lost in TW3 you have to be pretty stupid or colour-blind, because every quest is about following round dots on the map, or holding the right mouse button and look for big red marks.
Eh?
Um, if TW3 is anything it is not so called "fantastic gameplay" consoley crap where you'd hold something so action sequences resolve automatically themselves.
Nor is stupid consoley tunnel crawler to follow one path - anyone can roam freely in TW3, only if they can forget console designs (and phones too).

Sure, if you choose to play that way. Or you can just turn off the onscreen markers and mini-map.
This.

TW3 does respawn trashmobs, but those are not levelscaled rubbish and can't annoy you like in, well, Skyrim.
Means exploration won't be a grind-em-up chore, additionally means one should turn off handholding mechanics as there is no point in following questions/exclamation marks just to avoid onehit=dead trashmobs - unlike other "brilliant" games where trashmobs grind lasts for months and feels like a second job.

Unlike trashmob respawners falsely advertised as games, hopefully you all noticed I never asked about possible no_respawn mod for TW3. Why? Because it's not needed in that game.

Would write more, but sorry. I'm off to play some pay2win MMO garbage. With grinding, gameplay, linearity, impossible to get rid of garbage on UI and DarkSoulslike horrible hair graphics.
A man sometimes needs to play something stupid to appreciate masterpieces more.
 
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I wouldn't call it broken, but I agree it can be an issue. Unfortunately, a lot of open-world RPGs are like that when it comes to leveling. Bethesda's games are even worse when it comes to fast XP gain.



Sure, if you choose to play that way. Or you can just turn off the onscreen markers and mini-map.

You can't, because a lot of quests contains no clue what-so-ever at what to do, so the only way to solve them is to follow the dots. Also there is no way to find stuff without holding the right mouse-button as it is not clickable otherwise.
 
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If you read my comment I was referring to backtracking in Novigrad. You no longer have a guide. If you could tag the map it wouldn’t be an issue. Since ͏y͏o͏u can’t it’s an issue.
 
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I do believe it’s broken. In Novigrad around level 11 you outlevel the main quest sticking solely to the main quest. That should not happen obviously. And what is the point of having so much rich content you can’t touch would hopelessly outleveling the main quest? Even open world they can easily tweak the XP allotment. The game is still hub and spoke with clear region progression. Even without backtracking regions there is at least 2x the appropriate XP in each area. What on earth is the rationale for that?
 
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You can't, because a lot of quests contains no clue what-so-ever at what to do, so the only way to solve them is to follow the dots. Also there is no way to find stuff without holding the right mouse-button as it is not clickable otherwise.

No, that's not true at all. I played the entire game with no onscreen markers and no mini-map.

When I needed to see where to go, I pulled up the main map and looked at the markers there. It does require a little searching once you reach the general vicinity of the quest/person, but I found that a lot more immersive than following a bunch of dots.

There were only a few occasions where I had to relent and briefly turn the compass on.
 
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I do believe it’s broken. In Novigrad around level 11 you outlevel the main quest sticking solely to the main quest. That should not happen obviously. And what is the point of having so much rich content you can’t touch would hopelessly outleveling the main quest? Even open world they can easily tweak the XP allotment. The game is still hub and spoke with clear region progression. Even without backtracking regions there is at least 2x the appropriate XP in each area. What on earth is the rationale for that?

Not everyone plays a completionist style. TW3 has a ton of content, and I doubt the average person tries to do all the sidequests in one playthrough. The most likely answer is that CDP wanted to make sure everyone could play through the game without having to worry about being strong enough to finish the main quest. At the same time, they also wanted the player to have a large variety of sidequest to choose from.
 
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Making the main quest so accessible that you can play the game 100% linearly is a bad design decision. It’s also what is leading to the #1 critique of the game - that it’s too easy. At any rate I’m having fun not being over leveled. Even died a few times last night.
 
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Maybe from our standpoint, but I think a large part of the mainstream would disagree.

That mod sounds pretty good though, and I think I'll try it the next time I play.
 
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No, that's not true at all. I played the entire game with no onscreen markers and no mini-map.

When I needed to see where to go, I pulled up the main map and looked at the markers there. It does require a little searching once you reach the general vicinity of the quest/person, but I found that a lot more immersive than following a bunch of dots.

There were only a few occasions where I had to relent and briefly turn the compass on.

I am impressed I tried doing that, but it was near impossible for a lot of quests, especially the side quests. did you do a lot of those? In theory I guess, you could keep pressing the world map button to find the marker there instead. But how is that really a difference compared to following dots? Except more time consuming to pull it up all the time.

I think a quest in a RPG should contain enough information to solve it without just looking at markers on a map. But then again TW3 doesn't care about gameplay. It is all about story and immersion and graphics.
 
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I am impressed I tried doing that, but it was near impossible for a lot of quests, especially the side quests. did you do a lot of those? In theory I guess, you could keep pressing the world map button to find the marker there instead. But how is that really a difference compared to following dots? Except more time consuming to pull it up all the time.

I think a quest in a RPG should contain enough information to solve it without just looking at markers on a map. But then again TW3 doesn't care about gameplay. It is all about story and immersion and graphics.

Yeah, I tried playing without the mini-map too, and I found myself looking at the map constantly instead. I guess I don't really mind the convenience of not having to waste time on something that takes no effort beyond pointless expenditure of time.

The game was clearly designed around using the HUD for most quests - regardless of the optional nature of certain elements. At least, that's what it felt like to me.

I guess you could argue that it's not immersive to have a mini-map in the first place - but for a game to really work without it - the quests themselves have to describe locations and the path towards finding them. For THAT to work, the rewards should feel much more tangible and not just another step on an endless road.

That requires a LOT of thought and effort - and most developers don't bother.

I find I prefer the compromise of Skyrim's compass - which you can mod to be a toggle or change the size of it.

That way, it doesn't have to get in the way of the world view.
 
I am impressed I tried doing that, but it was near impossible for a lot of quests, especially the side quests. did you do a lot of those? In theory I guess, you could keep pressing the world map button to find the marker there instead. But how is that really a difference compared to following dots? Except more time consuming to pull it up all the time.

I think a quest in a RPG should contain enough information to solve it without just looking at markers on a map. But then again TW3 doesn't care about gameplay. It is all about story and immersion and graphics.

Yes, I did a lot of sidequests, and no, it wasn't near impossible to do them without the mini-map. I question how hard you actually tried. ;)

As far as how it's different from following the dots, I'm surprised you would need to ask. It's like following a map in the real world as opposed to having a magic trail of breadcrumbs in front of you the entire time.

I agree quests should contain enough information to find things on your own, but unfortunately that's becoming a rarity nowadays. Like NewDArt said, most developers don't bother with the effort.
 
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