What games are you playing now?

Decided to replay Dishonored 2 and its expansion Dishonored - Death of the Outsider. Never played the expansion, but I've read a lot of negative reviews.

Still plodding along in Shining Force the second, I lost my focus a bit last week but slowly getting back into the groove of things. I don't have football to distract me anymore, but pesky books can be even worse!

Couchpotato said:

Decided to replay Dishonored 2 and its expansion Dishonored - Death of the Outsider. Never played the expansion, but I've read a lot of negative reviews.

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I’ll be very interested in your comments.

Darth Tagnan said:

It seems I really hit a sweet spot with my little mod collection for Witcher 3.

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Care to post which mods you are using?

vurt said:

Care to post which mods you are using?

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Certainly, I will even explain why I'm using each one:

Better Trophies

This is pretty minor, but I found the original trophies utterly trivial and with almost zero impact in terms of gameplay. This mod makes them somewhat useful, without breaking balance. It's not for the power, but for the sake of the feature having a reason to exist.

Endure

This mod enables "durability" customization for all items. First of all, I hate durability in most games - and it's particularly poorly done in Witcher 3. Not only does low durability have a pretty neglible effect - making the concept utterly useless, but items also "break down" extremely quickly. While I can easily live with 10% reduction in performance - it's annoying and the "red marker" on the UI is a pain in the ass (I know I can disable it). So, I use this mod to make Relics and Witcher gear indestructible - to save time and frustration - again without any kind of real balance impact, because the performance impact of a nearly destroyed item is very low - and they never actually break.

EnhancementSystem

This is one of the more important mods. It makes non-Witcher items - and specifically Relics useful when compared to Witcher sets. It means there's a decent chance of finding the occasional upgrade when you loot stuff. Mostly, we're talking small upgrades - but counter to my experience with the non-modded game, Witcher gear isn't as dominant with this mod - and it makes exploration a lot more enjoyable for me. Also, even more importantly, it makes the various Relics stand out in terms of their bonuses. It means you're likely to use them for specific fights - even if your Witcher gear is "more powerful" in terms of pure DPS.

Fast Travel from Anywhere

This is pure convenience. It's minor because fast travel is already very lenient - and the primary reason I use it is that I can fast travel when I'm on a horse. Without it, I have to actually get off my horse and touch a travel post, travel, and then get on again - which is annoying and stupid.

HD Reworked Project

The defacto texture mod, I guess. I don't really think the game needs it - but it's definitely an improvement so far as I've seen. I could take it or leave it - but why not have it when it's there.

No Story Intro

Just makes the game load faster. The story intro also requires you to manually skip it - and the game doesn't really tell you when it's done loading - which is another stupid thing.

9000 weight limit mod

Gothic/Risen spoiled me, I admit it. I absolutely despise the excessive inventory management in games with hordes of loot - and, boy, does Witcher 3 ever have a TON of completely trivial loot. The default weight limit is almost sadistic, if you ask me. For SOME games, I think it makes sense to have a weight/inventory limit. Games that go for that total immersion can make it work. But in vanilla Witcher 3 - you can still carry enough weapons to make any army proud - which sort of defeats the whole "realism" angle. In that case, I always pick convenience - as there's no power advantage of any kind involved.

Set XP multiplier

I consider one of the primary design flaws of Witcher 3 to be the fact that you earn almost zero XP from the vast majority of battles you fight. Since a HUGE amount of the game is fighting - I think it's an utterly terrible idea to not reward the player, especially when the fights are tough. So, after a lot of testing - I've found a 3 x multiplier for kills is a good fit. To compensate, I've reduced quest XP to about half. Since you still gain the majority of XP from quests - it's sort of the same overall, it just feels a LOT more rewarding when you go freeform exploring or you have to kill the endless respawning enemies over and over again.

Slots, slots slots

This is another major one. In vanilla Witcher 3 - I found the available skills slots too limiting. You simply couldn't comfortably create an interesting build - and you had to use a ton of slots for relatively boring upgrades, because of the mutation system. I use the "balanced" version - which means you don't actually get more slots until you're very high level (34+ for the first one) - which means it doesn't affect your power that much, because you're already extremely powerful at that stage. But it means you can experiment a little more - and mix and match certain physical skills with the signs. The reason it's important to me, is that I hate feeling like I've "finished" my character before the game has ended. I tend to lose interest when I can no longer make meaningful progression - so I kinda need something for the higher levels, as I expect the game + DLC will take a very long time to complete.

Awesome Need to play through it again (not that i finished it last time, but i was pretty close, lol)

On my first attempt, I think I had 80-100 hours around the time I gave up. It was in Skellige, where there's this gigantic sequence of seemingly endless dialogue about some kind of Viking political power contest - which I found painfully boring.

I admit, while I can appreciate the "maturity" of having serious politics play a large part in your story, I just don't find it engaging on any level. I'm much more into the human or psychological aspect of stories - which is why I found the Bloody Baron quest to be exceptionally well done and touching. Potentially the best quest in a computer game.

But, I've always been a gameplay before story guy - even if I actually require both to be properly entertained.

This little collection of mods combined with my new approach to playing the game, means that I'm having a lot more fun. I just wish I had more time available to play it - because it's positively gigantic when you add the two meaty expansions.

The Enhancement System mod sounds pretty good for the most part, but I hate that he also added non-Witcher weapons to the game. For example, he apparently added swords from Devil May Cry and Game of Thrones. I guess that's cool to most people, but I find it incredibly silly. I know stuff like that can simply be ignored, but seeing it in the game would definitely annoy me.

I was just browsing some TW3 mods at the Nexus, and I came across one called ESGO- Enemy Scaling and Gameplay Overhaul. It seems like it lets you tweak just about everything in the game without adding any fan-made stuff. I like that it's completely modular in that you can change as much or as little as you like.

https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/1185

Darth Tagnan said:

Endure

This mod enables "durability" customization for all items. First of all, I hate durability in most games - and it's particularly poorly done in Witcher 3.

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Game critics don't share your opinion.



This is one rare occassion when I do agree it sucks, when it's excessive. In TW3, it's IMO not poor but acceptable.

JDR13 said:

The Enhancement System mod sounds pretty good for the most part, but I hate that he also added non-Witcher weapons to the game. For example, he apparently added swords from Devil May Cry and Game of Thrones. I guess that's cool to most people, but I find it incredibly silly. I know stuff like that can simply be ignored, but seeing it in the game would definitely annoy me.

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Where did you read that?

This is the one I'm using:

https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/1112?tab=files

Can't seem to find any mention of non-Witcher weapons - and I've yet to come across anything that looked like it was from another game.

I was just browsing some TW3 mods at the Nexus, and I came across one called ESGO- Enemy Scaling and Gameplay Overhaul. It seems like it lets you tweak just about everything in the game without adding any fan-made stuff. I like that it's completely modular in that you can change as much or as little as you like.

https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/1185

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Yeah, I took a look at that one, but it seemed a little overwhelming. I'd rather not have to look through 150 settings - and it doesn't seem to include weapons or more loot.

Most of the mods I'm using are ones that I've played with in some of my other attempts.

I generally prefer not to experiment too much, because I have very bad experiences with that and Skyrim

I usually end up modding more than I actually play the game - so I've sort of kept myself to the core issues I have with the game.

joxer said:

Game critics don't share your opinion.

This is one rare occassion when I do agree it sucks, when it's excessive. In TW3, it's IMO not poor but acceptable.

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Yeah, I know the vast majority of the Zelda fan base seems to have embraced the destructible weapons thing in BotW. I think it's a terrible idea, personally.

Darth Tagnan said:

Where did you read that?

This is the one I'm using:

https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/1112?tab=files

Can't seem to find any mention of non-Witcher weapons - and I've yet to come across anything that looked like it was from another game.

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I realized it when someone in the comments section complained about them. If you scroll through the screenshots on the mod page, you'll eventually come across screens showing "Son of Sparda" and "Rebellion" from DMC and "Snowclaw" from GOT. There's also some weird scythe weapon he added as well.

*Edit* "Longclaw" not "Snowclaw"

I really enjoyed Zelda, but the destructible weapons were something to be tolerated (barely). Definitely not a plus in my book, and nearly drove me away before I got into it.

JDR13 said:

I realized it when someone in the comments section complained about them. If you scroll through the screenshots on the mod page, you'll eventually come across screens showing "Son of Sparda" and "Rebellion" from DMC and "Snowclaw" from GOT. There's also some weird scythe weapon he added as well.

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It's probably because I didn't play those games I would probably just have assumed it was from Witcher and now you've ruined it

As for the Scythe - he did add a bunch of non-sword weapons, because some NPCs apparently use them so he just added those models to the pool, I guess.

I've rarely used the non-sword weapons - because I don't like how they look.

But, I didn't realise he'd named weapons after the ones in other games. It's not a dealbreaker for me or anything - but I would definitely have preferred he kept the weapons to Witcher-only stuff.

However, I do know that vanilla Witcher also have weapons like Mjolnir - which is from Norse mythology - so it's not like they took naming too seriously.

I also played with his past mod called Relics Redone for something like 50 hours. I don't remember anything out of the ordinary there, either.

Oh well, I will have to reconsider if I come across something that's taking it too far.

So far, it's been surprisingly modest in terms of balance changes - which is something many mods struggle with. People often go too far - or not far enough.

This mod and Relics Redone have seemed relatively safe in that way. I don't want something that breaks the game or that's obviously overpowered.

The name thing, I can probably live with. At least until I see Anduril or something

He didn't just use the names, he copied them when creating the models as well.

It's probably not a big deal to most people though. I'm just kind of anal when it comes to stuff like that.

JDR13 said:

He didn't just use the names, he copied them when creating the models as well.

It's probably not a big deal to most people though. I'm just kind of anal when it comes to suff like that.

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Nah, I get what you're saying. I absolutely despise "silly stuff" or something that's over-the-top in any way.

I don't particularly care about names in this case, because I find the overall relic design very superficial - and I honestly don't think CDPR spent much time creating them. For the vanilla version, it's mostly just random stats within a certain "set" - which is very Diablo-like and, in my opinion, not what it should have been.

But if there's something in there that clearly doesn't fit - I will most likely uninstall it and find another solution.

Had it been a Tolkien game or something, I would never have touched a mod like this. Tolkien had a very specific intention with every single name - and all the named weapons have a history and a purpose.

So, for me, it depends on the game.

Inherent issues such as durability can certainly affect how I play games. For example in both Witcher and Zelda, I made abundant uses of saves, and had some stationed at critical junctions. There are usually ways to deal with such problems, but they can be annoying and often time consuming.

What was the name of that rpg where the enemy would frequently disarm you and take your weapon. Hum it was some time in the past 5 years I think - you had to kill the enemy to recover the weapon and if you fled ....

I'm about to play Dying Light, that extended edition for PC. Don't know why I keep putting it off. Maybe it's that beginning with all the annoying kids flitting about. I hope I'm not going to be required to protect them too much all throughout the game. A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do -and he's gotta do it alone.

Dying Light is a good game, I liked it, did not liked the multiplayer. The expansion is interesting as well but maybe a little too much of the same.

I've started Middle-earth Shadow of War since they removed the loot boxes.
I must say it's a good killing orcs simulator, I got distracted by the random quests and spent 10 hours in the prologue )