Witcher 3 My only Witcher 3 gripe

First off let me say I love this game. Love it, love it, love it. Recommend to anyone, anytime, etc. But I do have one gripe - just one.

My gripe is difficulty. I had no problems in Velen, but my issues started once I went to Novingrad. I am still having almost no trouble in fights playing on hardest mode. And I've purposely handicapped my Geralt by not using all my skill points and using an old sword from earlier in the game with no runes. I get killed every once and a while, but all I would have to do is equip the current level sword and then no problem.

I like to do all quests and side quests, so feel like leveling has been a problem (feeling overpowered most of the game once I left Velen). Get to a new area and the main quest lines are rated as several levels lower than me. Again having lots of fun, but feel like I'm not using quite a bit of the content (crafting, runes, special alchemy strategy for monsters, etc.). I just swing my sword, dodge, kill stuff and use the potions that regenerate health and sign fuel.

Wondering if anyone else had this issue. One idea would have been to stick to the story quests on first play through, and then replay just doing the witcher contract quests. Just a wandering witcher looking for work. Would be fun way to get 2 turns thru the game.

Clear the first area completely, then move on.

Once you are on your way it gets harder and don't say in one area that long go off and adventure. If you are truly this good take on a level 20 at level 7 and get back to us.

Also remember if you are looking for a combat only game there are lots. This game has a ton of combat but has always been about the choices you make since the first one.

You have this option with 1.21 patch.

http://i.imgur.com/KCDuK7I.jpg

Still, if you're on pc, I'd rather recommend mods.

Thx. I'm on PC and comfortable with Mods. Which would you recommend?

BoboTheMighty said:

You have this option with 1.21 patch.

http://i.imgur.com/KCDuK7I.jpg

Still, if you're on pc, I'd rather recommend mods.

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Yes I've tried some high level fights and you are right it is almost certain death. Those have been fun diversions. My issue is more with the main story line. It seems to me given the way exp / leveling works it is really hard to keep your PC at the right level for the main quest line if you do much of the side content. From a design standpoint my feedback to the devs would be to have each major fight in the main quest line be a sizeable uptick in difficultly. So basically to get to the next step of the story you would need to do some side quests, gather money, and trick out your gear to advance. They seem to have designed it so that you can tackle the main quest line without doing any side content, which seems counterproductive given they spent so much time and money building out incredibly rich side content. I don't like games where you have to grind to level and advance, but leveling in this game is a joy because the side quests are so well done.

CelticFrost said:

Clear the first area completely, then move on.

Once you are on your way it gets harder and don't say in one area that long go off and adventure. If you are truly this good take on a level 20 at level 7 and get back to us.

Also remember if you are looking for a combat only game there are lots. This game has a ton of combat but has always been about the choices you make since the first one.

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bizorker said:

Thx. I'm on PC and comfortable with Mods. Which would you recommend?

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Well, my personal favorite is Better Combat Evolved...short story: it slows combat, but it's deadlier and makes it more "Souls" like strategic with everything costing more stamina and rebalancing a lot of hings. Really forces you to use everything at your disposal and pay attention to every swing.
But it needs to be updated ( as well as others), so you'll need to wait a bit.

bizorker said:

From a design standpoint my feedback to the devs would be to have each major fight in the main quest line be a sizeable uptick in difficultly. So basically to get to the next step of the story you would need to do some side quests, gather money, and trick out your gear to advance.

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Thing is, they can't please everyone. A lot of people don't want or don't have the time to complete a lot of sidequests in a game as large as TW3. It's better that they did it the way they did rather than force everyone to have to complete a minimum number of optional quests.

All the Witcher games had easy combat. I don't think anyone plays those games for the combat anyhow. Probably they made it easy so people can enjoy the story, without worrying too much about such a things like combat. A little bit a pity, it is the weakness of all the Witcher games. But story and graphics really makes up for it!

It's hardly a "weakness"...easily the best combat in western action rpgs. Difficulty is closer to Gothic(s) ( NotR excluded), bit easier especially in second half, but loads of fun.
Plus some of the boss fights in B&W are among the best I've played in action games.

The DLCs are supposedly considerably harder than the vanilla game. Might be worth giving a shot as soon as you're at the right level.

Combat in The Witcher 3 is not what the game stands for.
It's obvious from the start that combat will remain the game's least important "feature".

It's like judging if Mona Lisa is a masterpiece or not. Some say it's painting too small and as such cannot be a masterpiece. Some. I'm not among those.

The Witcher 3 is a masterpiece. If one is searching for just one thing in a game, then should concentrate on such genre entries, not on masterpieces. In the case of combat that'd be Destiny, Titanfall and Star Wars Battlefront - games that bring only combat, nothing else aside it.
A horrors fan will watch any horror trash but won't expect horror elements in tragicomedies.

Side note: I'm talking about the released game. Not about mods or DLC.

I'm currently on my first play through of W3. It's a great game but like the OP, I don't struggle much with enemies even on the hardest difficulty. While fighting may not be the focus of the game (rather the story is), the 'easiness' of the game makes loot rather boring and I love the thrill of loot somehow noticeably improving my character. Games like G1/G2 and Might & Magic got this really right. Still, overall, W3 is a fantastic game.

TheMadGamer said:

I'm currently on my first play through of W3. It's a great game but like the OP, I don't struggle much with enemies even on the hardest difficulty. While fighting may not be the focus of the game (rather the story is), the 'easiness' of the game makes loot rather boring and I love the thrill of loot somehow noticeably improving my character. Games like G1/G2 and Might & Magic got this really right. Still, overall, W3 is a fantastic game.

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For me, the problem wasn't that combat was too easy, it's that TW3 has too much damn loot! It seemed like I was finding a new sword or piece of armor every 15 minutes, so I was rarely excited about anything. I'm with you on the G1/G2 style of upgrading.

I'm running into the levelling issue, too. I've already done a couple of quests that gave me just 2xp because they had 'gone grey.'

The two earlier games didn't have difficult combat BUT the difficulty would spike hard every now and again.

I've got another minor gripe with the game: there's really not enough music. What's there is great but it could use a lot more.

Zloth said:

I'm running into the levelling issue, too. I've already done a couple of quests that gave me just 2xp because they had 'gone grey.'

The two earlier games didn't have difficult combat BUT the difficulty would spike hard every now and again.

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Have you tried the option that scales enemy levels? I haven't tried it myself so I'm not sure how well it works. That wasn't patched in until after I had already finished playing.

Zloth said:

I've got another minor gripe with the game: there's really not enough music. What's there is great but it could use a lot more.

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Yeah, the soundtrack is awesome, but I agree it's not used enough during the actual game.

JDR13 said:

Have you tried the option that scales enemy levels? I haven't tried it myself so I'm not sure how well it works. That wasn't patched in until after I had already finished playing.




Yeah, the soundtrack is awesome, but I agree it's not used enough during the actual game.

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How does the upscaling work? It is it Betheshda style, rats become deadly monsters for a mega warrior? or have they thought about something better ?

I've just hit level twenty, maybe about thirty hours in, still having a great time. I just finished escorting Triss and a bunch of mages to a ship to escape Novigrad, and I guess I'll see what happens next. Just hoping I'm not too underpowered for the next parts!

I'm about 45hrs in and only level 14 or so!

I'm also starting to gripe about the sunrises/sunsets. They are INCREDIBLE! Then the next day they are INCREDIBLE, and then INCREDIBLE, and then INCREDIBLE, and... yawn. Sunrise and sunset together seem to take up about half of the day. They cease to be special when they are so incredibly common!

Zloth said:

I'm about 45hrs in and only level 14 or so!

I'm also starting to gripe about the sunrises/sunsets. They are INCREDIBLE! Then the next day they are INCREDIBLE, and then INCREDIBLE, and then INCREDIBLE, and… yawn. Sunrise and sunset together seem to take up about half of the day. They cease to be special when they are so incredibly common!

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Your funny.

sunrises? sunsets? who cares.
Ignore silly time changing mechanics, D:OS proved it's not necessary to have cycles in a good game. Instead walk among sunflowers.