Chronicling my way through F***HUEG... I mean, Witcher 3

[bartholen_v1legacy]

Well, since all my spare time for what seems like until the next ice age will be taken up by this game, I might as well complete the trilogy.

So, Witcher 3. I'm 9 hours in, having completed the story mission where you meet Keira and wander through the caves. Prominent impressions so far are:

- This game is absolutely FUCKHUEG, as you might deduce from the title. Makes Skyrim look like a kiddie pool in comparison.
- The writing is absolutely stellar, and puts nearly every other RPG I've ever played to shame
- The graphics were honestly a bit of a letdown. While the facial animation is unlike anything I've ever seen, the overall look of the game looks a bit rougher than its predecessor, or at least not as improved as I'd expected it to be. Granted, I was able to turn the settings in 2 to Ultra, and the game clearly exchanged draw distance for graphical fidelity, but after being blown away by the visuals of a game from 2011, a 2015 game (with high settings and hairworks, mind you) still has yet to deliver the same "wow" factor
- The combat so far actually feels a bit clunkier than in 2. I don't like how Geralt suddenly slows to a careful pace when close enough to enemies. The targeting of enemies without the lock-on feature feels erratic, and it's hard to focus my attention on one enemy. Now there's 2 types of dodge maneuvers, and during the one which I got used to in Witcher 2 vigor doesn't regenerate, so right now I'm handicapping myself a bit. I don't get how ripostes are supposed to be executed, since there's no longer a clear indicator when to initiate one. Now that (currently anyway) I can only use one sign at a time and then have to wait for the bar to recharge, combat feels more melee heavy.

More specific thoughts:

- The amount of tutorialization is ludicrous. What makes it worse is that so many of the gameplay mechanics are changed just enough that the same basic idea remains the same, but are just dissimilar enough to need a tutorial. For example, only in my last 30 minutes of gameplay did I realize that potions are replenished via meditation. And this was through a google search! My guess is that I skimmed over it during the tutorial. After all, after 2 games I know how this system works, right?
- Is there some way to turn quest tracking off entirely? It's hard to try to get lost in the exploration when there's a constant trail on the minimap, bugging you about your next quest
- The game feels weirdly stingy on some bits of information. For example, I got the quest where you're supposed to look for the one guy's brother in the mines. I went there, met a couple of low level endregas, destroyed some eggs, nothing out of the ordinary. Then the big bug showed up. "A boss without healing items? Pfft, I already did that before with the Wild Hunt guy". Then I started to wonder why the boss killed me in one hit, even through my Quen shield, and my attacks did literally no damage whatsoever. One look at a couple of menus revealed that a) the quest's recommended level was 33, something which you'd only find out by looking at the menu, and b) that my silver sword was broken. The latter one was on me, since I'd turned the indicator for equipment breakage off to reduce the amount of UI clutter, but the fact that there's no other indicator whatsoever still feels a tad unfair. You could at least provide a simple "weapon degraded" text for a couple of seconds like in Dark Souls.
- Speaking of Dark Souls, being a veteran of that series certainly helps here. Otherwise the timing, precision and spacing requirements for successful combat might feel off-puttingly stringent. It's a lot like playing a two handed dodge build.
- Goddamn, shame on me for that Keira's sidequest. I already made this same mistake in Witcher 2, shoulda known better. From now on my policy towards any kind of sympathetic ghost, especially those with seemingly tragic backstories, is "kill la kill killapalooza, welcome to the Hotel KILLfornia!"
- 9 hours in and still no hanky panky or S tier waifu cheesecake (some teasers from Yen aside)? What is this, the national puritanical prudes convention? I'm going back to Witcher 2 to do this [https://youtu.be/-7NitmzzZX8?t=7s].
- Charles Dance as Emhyr var Emreis got me squeeing like a little girl at her first Justin Bieber concert. He could be reading aloud the most idiotic youtube comments, and I'd still sit there enchanted.

Well, there's initial thoughts. Reporting again when I see fit.

 

[DoPo]

For example, only in my last 30 minutes of gameplay did I realize that potions are replenished via meditation. And this was through a google search! My guess is that I skimmed over it during the tutorial.

Oh, yeah - I remember that, as well. I did find out earlier but I was still as confused as you. I thought "damn, making potions seems to use a lot of resources now. Well, at least you get several doses of it. Wait, why can't I make more potions?" and at some point I meditated and got a message saying they've been replenished. Then I realised.

As a side note - same applies to bombs. I remember clearing out a nest of some nekkers or something but I didn't have a bomb to destroy it - that was still when I didn't know why I couldn't make more.

If you want some thoughts on which skills to go for, I went blue/green myself. The combat abilities didn't really seem good enough to put points into.

Good alchemy abilities:

- Poisoned Blades - it's amazing, the poison can really deal nasty damage to some enemies. For example, giants seem to take a lot of poison damage, so you can easily attack them just enough to apply the DOT and then dance around until they die. You might need two applications of the poison but it's way easier than just wailing on them.
- Heightened Tolerance - it's OK. Not a game breaker but it serves its purpose.
- Refreshment - it's really quite good. As you progress through the game, you get a lot of potions and meditating to recover Swallow or just munching on food is easily avoided if you just consume the ones you don't need to heal. It also helps that it's instant heal, so it can save you in a tight situation.
- Acquired Tolerance - it could be worth picking it later on in the game, since it scales based on recipes known. It's not a big deal, though, you can also omit it.

Good magic abilities:
- Delusion - it's great, since it gives you more dialogue options and it's an easy solution to some situations.
- every other first tier ability - depending on which sign you feel like using, all the enhancements are great.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

If you want some thoughts on which skills to go for, I went blue/green myself. The combat abilities didn't really seem good enough to put points into.

depends entirely on how you do it, there was some guide I followed:

pretty much nothing in magic, a bunch in poison/potions and you followed the light sword hit build, and by the end (also I upgraded my swords radius to be bigger via hearts of stone upgrades) when you are doing the fancy tornado walking attack, literally nothing could touch me/dodge me since I had a 9' radius of walking death, this damage increase compounded so hard with that blood upgrade you can get as well, mobs turned geralt into super saiyan 3

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Consider installing some mods to enhance your experience. They're hosted on The Witcher 3 Nexus. Some of my favorite mods are these:

Wiedzmin Lighting mod - makes the game prettier
Nitpicker's Patch - addresses some of the visual bugs that exist in the game
Instant Sign Casting - lets you cast a sign immediately when you press the corresponding button on the keyboard instead of having to select it first
FriendlyHUD - lets you customize the HUD to your liking
ImmersiveCam - lets you play around with camera and FOV
Over 9000 - increases your weight capacity. It's kind of a cheat mod so you might not want to use it on your first playthrough. Just be aware that it exists.
Jump in shallow water - self explanatory
Realistic Timeflow - self explanatory
Sprinting tweaks - among other things lets you sprint indoors, during witcher senses and you can sprint outside of combat indefinitely
Reflexes - makes Geralt's attacks and doges faster which some argue is more lore friendly but it could also count as a cheat
E3 dodge - changes rolling into a dodge animation that existed in the preview build shown at E3 2014
No dirty lens effect - self explanatory
The Witcher 2 gear - changes ugly default armor sets to The Witcher 2 armors

Keep in mind that some of these mods are script based and therefore they can conflict with other mods. That's why you need to read up on how to use the Script Merger in order to avoid script conflicts. Otherwise your game will fail to launch. It's not difficult but it might be a bit convoluted and frustrating for first timers. And not all mods are created for the same version of the game. So first thing you'll have to do is install the Script Merger and your first "mod" should be the Unification patch for 1.31 and 1.31GOTY game versions.

There is also a mod limit. If you install too many mods your game can also fail to launch. If that happens you'll need to use the Mod Merger. But only merge those mods that don't use scripts. I suggest that you avoid installing too many mods, and especially any texture mods like the popular HD Reworked project or Realistic Contrast textures. They might look appealing, but they cause more issues than they're worth.

 

[Trunkage]

As resident Witcher 3 complainer (I still love the game but am willing to point out its problems.) There is literally no point to using any magic other than Quen. Match that with Dancing Star which locks down most enemies and you can easily beat creatures 10 levels above you even on tougher difficulties. I got really bored of the combat as there was no challenge and a mistake was usually one hit kills. Its no where near good enough to compete with Dark Souls combat.

There is not much to explore in Witcher 3. The Witcher doesn't have the ruin per kilometre ratio that Skyrim does (although many in Skyrim are bland). And usually special looking site are part of a quest, so you have wait until you find the quest first. It doesn't have the feature of picking up items for future quests you haven't achieved.

Take the tower in Kiera's quest for example. It pretty much the first place I went to when I left the tutorial area because it looked interesting. I got right to the top of the tower and I couldn't do anything. I eventually found the quest a long time later. And I was frustrated with the fact that you couldn't just accidentally pass quests like Skyrim does.

Once again, I say I like the game. Its just has problems

 

[CritialGaming]

What difficulty are you playing on? Just out of curiosity.

Your complaints are fair. Though I would disagree that Witcher 2 looked better. I think The Witcher 3 is one of the best looking games I have ever played. But maybe I don't play that many graphical orgasms.

I don't know why you felt the minimap or the weapon durability icons are clutter, especially since the latter only appears when you have broken shit so it is kind of important and easy to remove anyway. I'm a OCD gamer though, and I needed to mini map to travel from ? to ? in a sensible fashion. After all the game is long enough and huge enough without wasted time wandering aimlessly around. Pet of the reason I hated Breath of the Wild. I like direction in games. I don't want to find my own fun, I paid developers to make fun for me.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Reflexes - makes Geralt's attacks and doges faster which some argue is more lore friendly but it could also count as a cheat

Kinda, but his knee is permanently fucked, so it makes sense his dodging would be a bit slower.

I meant lore friendly as in witchers are faster than humans. The Witcher games are essentially fan fiction so his fast reflexes should be a part of the game regardless of his condition in the books. But if you care so much, you could say that his knee was somehow healed along with his pitchfork injury. It is a fantasy setting after all. Magic. Magic everywhere.

 

[Dalisclock]

Reflexes - makes Geralt's attacks and doges faster which some argue is more lore friendly but it could also count as a cheat

Kinda, but his knee is permanently fucked, so it makes sense his dodging would be a bit slower.

Didn't he also DIE from a pickfork through the chest before the first game? If we can accept he's back from the dead, a healed knee isn't hard to accept.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

Well, couple hours more, and I continue to be bowled over by this game. And not for the reasons usually associated with videogames. Usually in video games I'm impressed by things like graphics, setpieces, particularly striking vistas, impressive designs and so on. In this game it's completely different things: the way all the terrain feels completely natural, like it was 3D scanned straight from real places, and doesn't feel one bit artificial. How the writing in even the smallest sidequests puts most games to shame. How the smallest encounter, like the one where you follow a widdle doggo back to an abandoned village, build the atmosphere. How the transitioning between areas and modes of transport are completely seamless, and the controls work perfectly. How when your boat takes damage, you can actually see the woodwork chip off. It creates a sort of immersion paradox: I'm so immersed in the game and everything feels so real, that I'm actually taken out of the experience due to how I impressed I constantly am. Like every 10 minutes I go "wow, this is really impressive" in my head. Forget Bethesda games, this is actually the first time I've genuinely felt like I'm playing an alternate life.

The hairworks physics, while very impressive, get a bit silly at times. Especially with Keira's sidequests, since her and Geralt's hair kept wafting in the breeze despite both of them being firmly indoors. And Keira's hairstyle is probably sustained with superglue, seeing how firmly it retains its shape despite her living in the middle of the wilderness and even complaining about bedbugs. Speaking of the breeze, does it ever not wind in Velen? Also, the lighting feels a bit off in this game. It can be the middle of the night, and the clouds will be as bright white as during midday. it can be pouring rain, yet the evening sun still lights the wilderness. I'm thinking of installing that lighting mod.

Oh, and having to hold down shift to have your horse sprint on roads is annoying, and literally painful seeing how much horseback riding on roads there is in this game. Having to hold down a button to move at a speed that should be the default was bad design in Arkham Asylum, it continued to be bad in Red Dead Redemption, and it's still bad design in Witcher 3.

And to suck the writing's dick some more, this game convinced me that video games are actually the ideal adaptation format for epic high fantasy sagas. In films you can get the spectacle, but not the scope due to the runtime limit (unless you're Peter Jackson), and in TV shows like Game of Thrones you get the scope, but not necessarily the spectacle due to the budget limit. Video games have neither of those constraints. No extra strain on the budget to produce costumes, special effects, battles containing tons of extras or to hire tons of actors. If Witcher 3's level of writing was the industry standard, I'm sure we'd see video game adaptations of fantasy series in no time.

Lotsa mods yo

That... honestly seems like a lot of effort for what I see as minor tweaks to a game that was essentially declared perfect on release. I'm going to install the lighting mod at some point for reasons mentioned earlier, but I don't know about the rest.

What difficulty are you playing on? Just out of curiosity.

Your complaints are fair. Though I would disagree that Witcher 2 looked better. I think The Witcher 3 is one of the best looking games I have ever played. But maybe I don't play that many graphical orgasms.

I'm playing on normal. Seeing as how Witcher 2 promptly kicked my ass dozens of times on the same difficulty, I didn't see a need for extra challenge.

It's a bit hard to pinpoint what about Witcher 2 seems more graphically impressive. It's perhaps the lighting: in Witcher 2 there seemed to be a lot more glimmer and reflection effects to every surface and light source, whereas in this they seem a bit flat in comparison. Or maybe I just haven't reached the part of the game yet where those become more prominent (not that many shining armors to be found in the middle of Buttfuck-on-nowhere).

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

That... honestly seems like a lot of effort for what I see as minor tweaks to a game that was essentially declared perfect on release. I'm going to install the lighting mod at some point for reasons mentioned earlier, but I don't know about the rest.

Yeah, it sounds a bit overwhelming. Lighting mod doesn't contain any scripts though so you can install that in seconds. Just create a mods folder where your game is installed and drop the mod there. You might also have to create a mods.settings file in your documents/The Witcher 3 folder and simply add these lines in it to make sure the game will load the mod:

[modname]
Enabled=1
Priority=1

And you're done.

I'm playing on normal. Seeing as how Witcher 2 promptly kicked my ass dozens of times on the same difficulty, I didn't see a need for extra challenge.

I used to play on normal first time around as well and the game would regularly kick my ass. I couldn't defend myself properly from four drowners. And I wasn't aware of how OP the alchemy skill tree was so I barely invested in it. On my other playthroughs I invested a lot into alchemy and I was basically a god. Now I play on Death March + mod that makes gameplay even more difficult by changing some of the mechanics and making the game more immersive in the process. And I don't use a lot of alchemy skills on purpose now because it's just so OP.

It's a bit hard to pinpoint what about Witcher 2 seems more graphically impressive. It's perhaps the lighting

It's not that The Witcher 2 has better lighting or better graphics in general, but there are a few effects that hide some of the ugly aspects of the game, like bloom which is kind of outrageous in The Witcher 2 and some people like that. But there's also foliage translucency. It could afford it being such a small game. The Witcher 3 definitely looks better though. It uses PBR, which makes the materials look a lot more natural than anything that you've seen in The Witcher 2 for instance. But you're right. Lighting can seem flat sometimes, but only when you're outdoors and mostly during the day. You'll see how spectacular the lighting is when you get to some of the missions that take place almost entirely in the interiors. For example one of the missions in Hearts of Stone expansion. I'd provide you with screenshots so you can see for yourself, but it's spoilerific. The "flat lighting" when you're outdoors is because of the foliage translucency that I mentioned. It's gone in The Witcher 3. It would have tanked the performance on consoles otherwise, and they wanted the game to look mostly similar on all of the systems. If you ask me they should have left translucency as a toggle option on the PC.

The lighting mod that I mentioned can't fix the nonexistence of a graphical effect, but it does hide a lot of the shortcomings by fixing some and tweaking other settings to make the foliage blend in better. It also makes the water look more natural so that it blends with the rest of the environment a lot better which adds a lot to the atmosphere. You no longer have that unnaturally blue water throughout the entire world. And weather effects are insanely better. Better sky, better clouds, better rain, better draw distance and no wind during clear weather. And one of the future updates for that mod (soon) is supposed to further fix tree brightness.

If you want some of The Witcher 2 shine back you can also install one of many Reshade presets for The Witcher 3. If you're going to use the lighting mod that I highly recommend and a Reshade preset, make sure that the Reshade preset is optimized for the lighting mod. I use this one: http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/2370/?
But I also disabled some of its effects that mostly do nothing other than eat performance. So look into that as well.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

Well, after a bit of a dry spell while attending a convention and all I've gotten back to it. This game is so good it's almost taxing. Simple sidequests like the Witcher contracts that would be mere XP hunts in any other game all have some interesting narrative element, whether a dead lover or a struggling farmer. The more complex sidequests, like the one with the Bloody Baron, feel as complete as entire stories in other games. This game is so massive yet so densely packed it feels like trying to marathon all of Game of Thrones twice over. Or alternatively, it feels like trying to eat a pizza the size of a football field, but it's the best pizza you've ever had in your life. Forget about this game swallowing months of your life, it feels like it is going to take my entire life. And I haven't even touched Gwent.

The fashion aspect in this game is an entire element I was not expecting. I've already come across multiple sets of armor that would be better than what I have now, but I refuse to use them to not break immersion. After two games and an entire book series of picturing and seeing Geralt as a lightly armored speedster type, putting him into heavy armor would be incredibly jarring. Not to mention all the cutscenes in the middle of the countryside and all the trekking in swamps and boggy backwater forests he has to do. Doing that in full plate, just no.

I'm 18 hours in, and I feel like I'm just beginning to peek under the surface to see the rest of this massive iceberg of a game. Just a couple of hours ago I figured out how the synergies between mutagens and abilities even work. I wonder if all my further posts will just be repeating how crushingly colossal this game is.

The quests with the Bloody Baron were great, and only further solidified the point I made earlier about video games being the ideal adaptation format for fantasy. In what other medium could you imagine a character who could easily be just a one-note bastard of a side character, being given not only this much depth, but an entire storyline and character arc to boot? Even at the end I was left rather ambivalent about the character, and felt his pleas of remorse were too little, too late. He survived, thanks to a hint in Yahtzee's review (I assume he's the "particularly nuanced character" who dies as a result of you turning the tree into a horse), but I felt he won't change, just return to his old ways.

 

[sageoftruth]

For example, only in my last 30 minutes of gameplay did I realize that potions are replenished via meditation. And this was through a google search! My guess is that I skimmed over it during the tutorial.

Oh, yeah - I remember that, as well. I did find out earlier but I was still as confused as you. I thought "damn, making potions seems to use a lot of resources now. Well, at least you get several doses of it. Wait, why can't I make more potions?" and at some point I meditated and got a message saying they've been replenished. Then I realised.

As a side note - same applies to bombs. I remember clearing out a nest of some nekkers or something but I didn't have a bomb to destroy it - that was still when I didn't know why I couldn't make more.

If you want some thoughts on which skills to go for, I went blue/green myself. The combat abilities didn't really seem good enough to put points into.

Good alchemy abilities:

- Poisoned Blades - it's amazing, the poison can really deal nasty damage to some enemies. For example, giants seem to take a lot of poison damage, so you can easily attack them just enough to apply the DOT and then dance around until they die. You might need two applications of the poison but it's way easier than just wailing on them.
- Heightened Tolerance - it's OK. Not a game breaker but it serves its purpose.
- Refreshment - it's really quite good. As you progress through the game, you get a lot of potions and meditating to recover Swallow or just munching on food is easily avoided if you just consume the ones you don't need to heal. It also helps that it's instant heal, so it can save you in a tight situation.
- Acquired Tolerance - it could be worth picking it later on in the game, since it scales based on recipes known. It's not a big deal, though, you can also omit it.

Good magic abilities:
- Delusion - it's great, since it gives you more dialogue options and it's an easy solution to some situations.
- every other first tier ability - depending on which sign you feel like using, all the enhancements are great.

Also, Igni can be extremely OP when you focus on that as a skill. Get it to the point where you can set anything without fire resistance on fire, and you're broken the game, since burning damages according to an enemy's max HP, rather than Geralt's own stats.

 

[Zombie Proof]

For example, only in my last 30 minutes of gameplay did I realize that potions are replenished via meditation. And this was through a google search! My guess is that I skimmed over it during the tutorial.

Oh, yeah - I remember that, as well. I did find out earlier but I was still as confused as you. I thought "damn, making potions seems to use a lot of resources now. Well, at least you get several doses of it. Wait, why can't I make more potions?" and at some point I meditated and got a message saying they've been replenished. Then I realised.

As a side note - same applies to bombs. I remember clearing out a nest of some nekkers or something but I didn't have a bomb to destroy it - that was still when I didn't know why I couldn't make more.

If you want some thoughts on which skills to go for, I went blue/green myself. The combat abilities didn't really seem good enough to put points into.

Good alchemy abilities:

- Poisoned Blades - it's amazing, the poison can really deal nasty damage to some enemies. For example, giants seem to take a lot of poison damage, so you can easily attack them just enough to apply the DOT and then dance around until they die. You might need two applications of the poison but it's way easier than just wailing on them.
- Heightened Tolerance - it's OK. Not a game breaker but it serves its purpose.
- Refreshment - it's really quite good. As you progress through the game, you get a lot of potions and meditating to recover Swallow or just munching on food is easily avoided if you just consume the ones you don't need to heal. It also helps that it's instant heal, so it can save you in a tight situation.
- Acquired Tolerance - it could be worth picking it later on in the game, since it scales based on recipes known. It's not a big deal, though, you can also omit it.

Good magic abilities:
- Delusion - it's great, since it gives you more dialogue options and it's an easy solution to some situations.
- every other first tier ability - depending on which sign you feel like using, all the enhancements are great.

Also, Igni can be extremely OP when you focus on that as a skill. Get it to the point where you can set anything without fire resistance on fire, and you're broken the game, since burning damages according to an enemy's max HP, rather than Geralt's own stats.

Damn straight. Using fully leveled igni with the grandmaster griffin gear buffs and that new ice mutation for Aard turns Geralt into a magic jedi that's infinitely fun to play

 

[Vassassell]

Huh. I actually hate this game, because it makes no goddamn sense. x)
Why Geralt is so slow? Why half-naked bandit could kill goddamn witcher in one hit but near invincible to the witcher himself? What the hell why weapons have levels? Why anything have levels, it's not like Geralt is gonna grow any further through the events of the game, literally no reason for leveling to exist. Why levels don't reflect the logical enemy power levels, in other words, why bandits can be super weak or take on a wolf pack by themselves without any visual difference? Why potions replenish themselves? Why can't we do anything by ourselves and need to have markers or the eagle vision everywhere? Suspension of disbelief is dead. Very dead.
The game tries to appeal to all possible audiences in a simplest of possible ways, merely mimicking design of most MMO's low-levels and doesn't have anything else to gameplay at all. Cutscenes, writing, graphics and optimization doesn't change the fact that most time of the game i will spend doing the same boring shit over and over. And writing is pretty formulaic and brings nothing new to the table, same thing with graphics. I can look outside to see the scenery, and FPS would probably be higher. Show me something that i couldn't see IRL, game!

 

[DoPo]

Why Geralt is so slow? Why half-naked bandit could kill goddamn witcher in one hit but near invincible to the witcher himself? What the hell why weapons have levels? Why anything have levels, it's not like Geralt is gonna grow any further through the events of the game, literally no reason for leveling to exist. Why levels don't reflect the logical enemy power levels, in other words, why bandits can be super weak or take on a wolf pack by themselves without any visual difference?

Yeah, I feel you. I don't really hate the game - I do find it's quite good, but for some reason, every time I try to reflect upon it, I can only think of the shortcomings. I guess the high overall value of the game just makes the imperfections to stand out more.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

Huh. I actually hate this game, because it makes no goddamn sense. x)
Why Geralt is so slow? Why half-naked bandit could kill goddamn witcher in one hit but near invincible to the witcher himself? What the hell why weapons have levels? Why anything have levels, it's not like Geralt is gonna grow any further through the events of the game, literally no reason for leveling to exist. Why levels don't reflect the logical enemy power levels, in other words, why bandits can be super weak or take on a wolf pack by themselves without any visual difference?

Slow? In combat maybe. Otherwise I don't see what the deal is supposed to be. And doesn't your every other complaint apply to every RPG ever made ever? Same enemies becoming stronger as you progress through the game? I don't see how Witcher 3 should get a special flogging for it.

Why potions replenish themselves?

I dunno, maybe because you need to meditate to do it, and specifically need alcohol to be able to do so.

Why can't we do anything by ourselves and need to have markers or the eagle vision everywhere? Suspension of disbelief is dead. Very dead.

The game is rather handholdy compared to previous entries, but I'll tell you this: I'll take it any fucking day over the countless hours I spent running around Vizima in the first Witcher, talking to every goddamn NPC I could find in the hopes that one of them might let me proceed with the damn game. While being misled by the shitty quest tracking and grinding my teeth out in frustration.

OT: I continue to be more and more impressed. Having arrived in Novigrad the game's moved to full on jaw-dropping territory. This game's already raised my standards of games in a multitude of domains. My comparison to Skyrim is starting to seem weaker and weaker by the minute. It's like this: if Skyrim in this analogy is a kid's pool, Witcher 3 is an ocean as deep as the Mariana trench. I have absolutely no idea how far into the story I am at the moment, but it seems it'll take something like 60 hours with the rate which I'm proceeding at now. And I seem to just trip over sidequests like 15 levels higher than I am right now, but would like to do this instant. Bloody hell, maybe I ought to just cash in my summer vacation now.

I didn't know exactly what things to expect when going into this game, but a transvestite elf certainly wasn't one of them.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Snip

I agree for the most, there was nothing gameplay-wise that I actually enjoyed in Witcher 3 from combat to just plain walking around, gameplay was below par across the board. The quest lines were actually good, sometimes great. But I can't help but feel like Witcher 3 is a failure of a game when I could've had more enjoyment just watching a playthrough vs playing it myself.

I don't see what the deal is supposed to be. And doesn't your every other complaint apply to every RPG ever made ever? Same enemies becoming stronger as you progress through the game? I don't see how Witcher 3 should get a special flogging for it.

Most RPGs do start out with you as kid or novice. Lots of things with Witcher 3 didn't make sense like I'm a master witcher at the start but I can't use a level 2 sword. Mass Effect 3 gave you a shit-ton of skill points at the start because Shepard was far beyond a level 1 character. Horizon Zero Dawn doesn't make enemies artificially hard based on levels. RPGs have been doing lots of things wrong for awhile, continuing to do them wrong isn't a valid defense. Witcher 3 did quest lines and the end decisions with Ciri really well, but really not much else.