The Witcher 3 GOTY Edition

[Carrion]

But in that case you have to have a method of replenishing your purse, so you can buy new potions or alcohol when necessary. So basically, "grind to win".

These kinds of games always need a money sink, and TW3 has several of those, like crafting, weapon repair (which honestly has a pretty negligible effect) and a couple of other things that are introduced in the expansions. Alchemy could've been another one (like it was in TW1), but because the system is what it is, one of the defining apects of being a witcher plays no real role in the game's economy.

The concept of grinding (as in, doing repetitive shit with no real in-game justification) sits very poorly with the idea of being a witcher, but on the other hand doing shitty jobs because you're low on coin is pretty much what Geralt does most of the time according to the lore.

I just don't understand this line of thought where you'd need to have unlimited inventories with unlimited resources, when it's much more fun when you barely manage to scrape by.

 

[nomask7]

These kinds of games always need a money sink, and TW3 has several of those, like crafting, weapon repair (which honestly has a pretty negligible effect) and a couple of other things that are introduced in the expansions. Alchemy could've been another one (like it was in TW1), but because the system is what it is, one of the defining apects of being a witcher plays no real role in the game's economy.

The concept of grinding (as in, doing repetitive shit with no real in-game justification) sits very poorly with the idea of being a witcher, but on the other hand doing shitty jobs because you're low on coin is pretty much what Geralt does most of the time according to the lore.

I just don't understand this line of thought where you'd need to have unlimited inventories with unlimited resources, when it's much more fun when you barely manage to scrape by.

Do you mean that even the shitty jobs that you do when you're low on coin should challenge you resource-wise so that if you don't excel (in them or in general) you'll just end up dulling your blades and have to load an earlier save? I guess something like that might make sense, at least for the first third of the game. See, you'll eventually get good enough as a player anyway that those side jobs just won't challenge you properly, they'll just feel like grinding.

Then I guess the next thing you'll ask for is a better combat system and more varied monsters and AI to keep you on the edge up until end game and beyond. And let's not forget a bigger budget and hiring some guys from From Software.

 

[Carrion]

Do you mean that even the shitty jobs that you do when you're low on coin should challenge you resource-wise so that if you don't excel (in them or in general) you'll just end up dulling your blades and have to load an earlier save?

I guess it's pretty obvious that if the player is playing badly, he should not succeed. Every fight should carry a risk, yes (after all, even in the books Geralt got killed by a random peasant), because otherwise there's not much point in fighting them.

But really, we're not talking quantum physics here. Have you played The Witcher 1? Alchemy is a thing that CDPR already got right on their first try, but for one reason or another they didn't want to transfer it to the sequels. Having an open world might call for some adjustments, sure, but I don't think resource management is one of them. If anything, in an open world there's actually a smaller risk of running out of coin and resources at a critical moment, because it's pretty unlikely that you'd suddenly run out of side quests to do, or get to a point where there's no more loot to be found in the game world.

Then I guess the next thing you'll ask for is a better combat system and more varied monsters and AI to keep you on the edge up until end game and beyond.

Now that you mention it, yes, that would be very welcome. I'd probably start from the broken character progression (which alchemy is a part of), though, but that has been already discussed to death in the other threads.

 

[nomask7]

I guess it's pretty obvious that if the player is playing badly, he should not succeed. Every fight should carry a risk, yes (after all, even in the books Geralt got killed by a random peasant), because otherwise there's not much point in fighting them.

But really, we're not talking quantum physics here. Have you played The Witcher 1? Alchemy is a thing that CDPR already got right on their first try, but for one reason or another they didn't want to transfer it to the sequels. Having an open world might call for some adjustments, sure, but I don't think resource management is one of them. If anything, in an open world there's actually a smaller risk of running out of coin and resources at a critical moment, because it's pretty unlikely that you'd suddenly run out of side quests to do, or get to a point where there's no more loot to be found in the game world.

Unfortunately, I think we are talking about something more complex than you presume. It seems like you have a certain feel or mental image about this issue that you got from playing Witcher 1, and you're refusing to think about it in proper detail and rationally. For example, you finally admit that there's a fundamental difference between Witcher 1 and Witcher 3, but then you say nothing more about it than that "there's more side quests in an open world game so you're wong anyway and regardless, lulz".

You failed to address how these side quests should be handled by the devs so that they'd remain challenging whenever the player takes them on - in this huge open world game that doesn't have LEVEL SCALING. I mean, what would stop the player from backtracking to early game content to get some easy coin if he gets stuck? Or to mid-game side content while stuck in late game main-story quest? I guess you could just remove rewards for quests that are beneath your level, but then the player would be forced to do quests in a certain order and - again - hoard money and resources because they wouldn't be able to backtrack. We're talking about a much smaller pool of worthwhile side quests at any given moment. Or we're talking about level-scaling, both of which would drastically change the way the game plays right now.

Right now - I'm in Skellige now - and the game seems like the side quests are meant to be optional challenges that will push you harder than the main game, which is actually pretty casual and about story. So insofar as the easy to master combat system allows, the game provides challenge optionally; and easy to play story for those who just want the story. What you're proposing would pretty much turn this whole dynamic upside down, as well as involve some sort of redesigning of the whole quest reward system or even the leveling system.

 

[Carrion]

You failed to address how these side quests should be handled by the devs so that they'd remain challenging whenever the player takes them on - in this huge open world game that doesn't have LEVEL SCALING. I mean, what would stop the player from backtracking to early game content to get some easy coin if he gets stuck? Or to mid-game side content while stuck in late game main-story quest? I guess you could just remove rewards for quests that are beneath your level, but then the player would be forced to do quests in a certain order and - again - hoard money and resources because they wouldn't be able to backtrack. We're talking about a much smaller pool of worthwhile side quests at any given moment. Or we're talking about level-scaling, both of which would drastically change the way the game plays right now.

Like I said, the subject has been discussed to death already in other threads. The main culprit is the fucked-up power curve, which causes all late game-enemies (even ones that are up to five levels above you) to become pushovers. Your progression should be much flatter, meaning that low-level enemies should still be able to hurt you late in the game. It'd improve the world-building as well, as now it's just silly to have both level 2 drowners and level 30 drowners, with the former barely being able to scratch you and the latter possibly one-shotting you depending on your level. The whole level requirement system is shit design that means that later on it's really hard to find a proper challenge from anywhere.

For example, you finally admit that there's a fundamental difference between Witcher 1 and Witcher 3, but then you say nothing more about it than that "there's more side quests in an open world game so you're wong anyway and regardless, lulz".

And what exactly is this fundamental difference? What is it about open worlds that supposedly makes the incompatible with resource management? You keep describing this weird scenario where the player might completely fuck things up by using too many potions or something, but I really don't see how it would apply to an open-world game more than it does to a TW1-style game.

 

[Frozen]

Im currently replaying it with goty edition and I think they changed level cap for quests...its more streamlined now because im level 5 (and done everything at white orchid) and beside some small things at the beginning there is nothing you can do but main quest parts (Keira, The witches or Baron) because they are level 5-6 and everything else I found is 10+ I don't remember being like that before.

 

[nomask7]

You keep describing this weird scenario where the player might completely fuck things up by using too many potions or something, but I really don't see how it would apply to an open-world game more than it does to a TW1-style game.

It's not a "weird scenario", but the logical outcome of a proper resource management system as it appears in countless games. You obviously have no clue about the whole topic, like I said you're just pining for Witcher 1 without having properly analysed this whole issue.

That scenario describes a resource management system done properly and as it occurs in many games from the early days of video gaming. But those games were meant to "play" like that, and meant to be attempted many times. It provided longevity to games like Dark Omen that were otherwise rather short.

That is literally the only way to do a resource management system properly on the scale of a game rather than single level or dungeon. What you want is not resource management, it's "grind to win", and would be difficult to make a challenge in an open world game of this magnitude. It's not a challenge in Bloodborne even in early game - regardless of enemies being able to hurt you - and it wouldn't be a challenge in Witcher 3 either. Devs like CD Project probably don't take people like you seriously because you don't seem to take issues like this seriously enough to even understand what someone is talking about when they talk about a proper resource management system. I don't know about others in this thread, but I find it hard to believe they'd made a game like this without having a better grasp of these topics than you. They probably brainstormed about this sort of thing and figured they'd better do the game like this and not like that. And that's that. If they wanted to do a game with proper resource management, I can guarantee you they wouldn't do huge open world. Like someone said, there's not a single game like that in fucking existence. You don't think there might be a reason for that.

P.S. If the character & gear progression were any flatter, getting better swords for Skellige, not to mention Velen, would pretty much be pointless. You could probably beat over half of the game with your starting gear about as well as with anything else. That's almost the case right now, at least in the GOTY. It wouldn't be what most people want and it's not what the devs wanted, even though they seem to have made these progressions flatter than many would expect, than at least I expected. In other words, get a clue and stop play acting a game design expert.

 

[Carrion]

That is literally the only way to do a resource management system properly on the scale of a game rather than single level or dungeon. What you want is not resource management, it's "grind to win", and would be difficult to make a challenge in an open world game of this magnitude. It's not a challenge in Bloodborne even in early game - regardless of enemies being able to hurt you - and it wouldn't be a challenge in Witcher 3 either. Devs like CD Project probably don't take people like you seriously because you don't seem to take issues like this seriously enough to even understand what someone is talking about when they talk about a proper resource management system. I don't know about others in this thread, but I find it hard to believe they'd made a game like this without having a better grasp of these topics than you. They probably brainstormed about this sort of thing and figured they'd better do the game like this and not like that. And that's that. If they wanted to do a game with proper resource management, I can guarantee you they wouldn't do huge open world. Like someone said, there's not a single game like that in fucking existence. You don't think there might be a reason for that.

Yes, let's just trust CDPR in these things, because obviously they know best.

Stop being a moron. What I said was that I wanted potions to not be unlimited and have some sort of a cost to them. That is, make them a resource that requires some sort of management. Revolutionary idea, I know, as surely it has never been done in an open world game (SPOILER: it has, countless times). TW1 is the example I use simply because so far it's the game where CDPR got the most things right and which they should be using as their blueprint instead of reinventing the wheel every single time.

P.S. If the character & gear progression were any flatter, getting better swords for Skellige, not to mention Velen, would pretty much be pointless. You could probably beat over half of the game with your starting gear about as well as with anything else. That's almost the case right now, at least in the GOTY. It wouldn't be what most people want and it's not what the devs wanted, even though they seem to have made these progressions flatter than many would expect, than at least I expected. In other words, get a clue and stop play acting a game design expert.

You can double your damage output within a few levels. Then you get to triple it, then quadruple it etc., and for the whole game your stats just keep skyrocketing like there's no tomorrow. The power curve is absurd, and the itemization suffers as a result as you'll just keep chasing higher damage numbers throughout the whole game while the stuff you picked up earlier becomes increasingly useless. The game also becomes piss-easy at around level 8 as you grow in power much quicker than your enemies do.

It really boggles the mind that someone can actually play the game and still not notice how broken some of its mechanics are.

 

[Ivan]

mods will fix it

 

[Roguey]

The Witcher 3 Complete Edition Roguey Verdict: finest big budget RPG created to date. While true, the combat feels lousy, it's tolerable enough, and more than made up for in the areas of role playing, writing, art, and music. They showed Bioware a thing or four about how to properly end a trilogy, and unlike Dragon Age Inquisition, it properly melds what I liked the most about its two predecessors and (thanks to building off a pre-existing engine) manages to succeed in creating both large open environments and a big city to explore. On that note, it was funnily appropriate that English Ciri is voiced by femHawke considering the Button-Awesome moment that happens near the end of the base game.

The two expansions are great, though unfortunately lacking a bit in polish by comparison. The trash mobs (drowners in particular) in Hearts of Stone had too much health, and though I appreciate the concept of the runewright as a moneysink it's just not worth it; it could be if loot were rare, but with this treadmill it's just pouring a lot of money into something you don't need that you could very well be replacing within an hour or two. Blood and Wine's problem is that its endgame falls into the hordes of trash mobs endgame rut that the base and HoS avoided (the land of fables would be just great if pixies were removed entirely). I imagine Josh Sawyer would also be annoyed by its content density, but I'm not bothered by such things.

Also in regard to B&W content, I'm reasonably confident the quest reward for Equine Phantoms (which was hilarious) is a subtle shout-out to the Codex, and, perhaps a bit more coincidentally, the antagonist is Lesifoere (who unsurprisingly identifies with her).



As for any future Witcher titles, I predict they'll go with a canon choice and

Spoiler

continue on with Ciri as a Witcher. That intentionally loose plot thread with Weavess getting away with stealing her medallion was certainly some sequel bait.

CD Projekt seriously needs to include cutscene pausing support in Cyberpunk though. It's an essential QoL feature for any game with minutes-long cinematics, and I imagine its non-appearance can be chalked up to the usual European cargo cult incompetence since I don't see how their testers could stand to play it without bringing it up. At least, like Larian before them, they've finally achieved the IO Interactive Effect (wherein a cargo cult European game developer keeps iterating on the same trash enough times, they finally make something to be proud of).

 

[Carrion]

Spoiler

That intentionally loose plot thread with Weavess getting away with stealing her medallion was certainly some sequel bait.

Spoiler

It's resolved in the "bad" ending.

 

[Gerrard]

The thing I like the most about people who empathize with a psychopath is that they assume everything they were told by one was true.
Actually, you gotta love people who assume everything a character tells them is true in general. They were trained well.

 

[Lambach]

Do you guys mod the game? I wanna do another playthrough, of the GOTY edition this time, but I'm having a hard time finding total overhaul mods. "School of The Roach", from the description, sounds like it is to TW 3 what "Requiem" is to Skyrim which is what I'm looking for. However, it appears it was never updated properly so there are script errors with the GOTY version.

Is there something similar to it? I've tried the "Enhanced Edition" mod, but that one is less of an added challenge/overhaul and more of an exercise in frustration.

 

[Roguey]

The thing I like the most about people who empathize with a psychopath is that they assume everything they were told by one was true.
Actually, you gotta love people who assume everything a character tells them is true in general. They were trained well.

While the details could very well be a total lie, it is true that Syanna was exiled for being a psychopath, and that's enough for a fellow psychopath to consider any retaliation justified.

 

[norolim]

As of yesterday, I'm done with Witcher 3

And how, may I ask, did you find it?

 

[Roguey]

And how, may I ask, did you find it?

Scroll up a few posts ^_^ http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...her-3-goty-edition.109709/page-5#post-4770049

 

[Doktor Best]

nomask7

How exactly do you define grind? Because it seems to me like you are so eager to tell everyone it is to be avoided by us like the cats avoid water. Not every side activity you do in a game for the sole purpose of obtaining ressources is necessarily a grind to me, atleast not in the negative sense. It becomes grind if it is presented in a dull way and if the player is consciously aware of the fact that he is probably wasting his time with this.

The good games dont make you feel this way, they make the grind invisible to your perception.

In Witcher 3 i played many side contracts, but not for the money mostly, only to see its story unfold. It would have been even more satisfactory if i took those contracts both to see the content AND to be able to buy alcohol and herbs for potions.

Dont get me wrong, i am probably one of the biggest Witcher 3 fanboys on the codex. To me, it was GOTY 2016. But it would have been even better with a tighter ressource management. The lack of it is a flaw i am ready to forgive it for its fine qualities, not something i do entirely not care about.

 

[Frozen]

http://lyumos.deviantart.com/

Now this fine lady has a right idea.
I bet brothers codexers will pull in for art's sake.

 

[nomask7]

nomask7

How exactly do you define grind? Because it seems to me like you are so eager to tell everyone it is to be avoided by us like the cats avoid water. Not every side activity you do in a game for the sole purpose of obtaining ressources is necessarily a grind to me, atleast not in the negative sense. It becomes grind if it is presented in a dull way and if the player is consciously aware of the fact that he is probably wasting his time with this.

The good games dont make you feel this way, they make the grind invisible to your perception.

In Witcher 3 i played many side contracts, but not for the money mostly, only to see its story unfold. It would have been even more satisfactory if i took those contracts both to see the content AND to be able to buy alcohol and herbs for potions.

Dont get me wrong, i am probably one of the biggest Witcher 3 fanboys on the codex. To me, it was GOTY 2016. But it would have been even better with a tighter ressource management. The lack of it is a flaw i am ready to forgive it for its fine qualities, not something i do entirely not care about.

In other words, you didn't want optional quests to be optional challenges like DLC in Dark Souls and Bloodborne or indeed high level contracts in Witcher 3 that test your skills beyond anything in the main game, you wanted them to be necessary for resource gathering. Are you sure you're not confusing and conflating different genres? In a stat based game like Fallout 2, all you can really do is grind if you want to survive. In a game like that, it's natural for side quests to be about grinding, whether that's grinding for potions or necessary gear upgrades. In a skill based action RPG, side quests that are about grinding are just a bore. The game is mostly about player skill, so you'd want the side quests to be optional tests of your skills. Being OPTIONAL, they must reward you in some manner that isn't necessary for survival in the main game.

Proper resource management is about being forced to play well enough that you don't run out of resources FOR GOOD - like the limited lives and things that give extra lives in Super Mario Bros. It's not proper resource management if you can at any point replenish your stock when needed - that's "grind to win". At least call it what it is and stop pretending to be a monocled pro instead of typical autist. That's what I do when I enjoy grinding, I admit to myself that even though I enjoy it I could be spending my time in some more intelligent fashion if RPG devs bothered to make their games intelligent instead of catering to the lowest common denominator that is grinding based games.

 

[nomask7]

Fuckers didn't fix the voice acting issue for the GOTY. Geralt is still voiced by a different voice actor at times in the middle of the fucking main story quest. Are they insane? I've been wanting to continue my playthrough after the initial shock but this issue has ruined the game for me.

 

[Fry]

In the English version? I never noticed.

 

[nomask7]

In the English version? I never noticed.

Yes, English version. It first happens in Skellige, like somewhere in the middle of doing that area if I recall right.

Maybe it's easier to notice if you use relatively expensive headphones and have a lot of experience with stuff like classical music and listening to things carefully, but it was very noticeable to me. The main voice actor for Geralt has a very characterful voice and is superb for the role in general. The replacement sounds flat and lame in comparison.

I've read they forgot to record some dialogs with the original voice actor so they had to use a replacement for parts of the game. I don't have a good source for this claim, but unless I was hallucinating - and other people seem to have commented on it too - then it's a real issue that they didn't fix for some reason, and I'll hate them forever for it.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

The main voice actor for Geralt has a very characterful voice and is superb for the role in general. The replacement sounds flat and lame in comparison.

Are you sure it's not just how the actor read the lines?

I've read they forgot to record some dialogs so they had to use a replacement for parts of the game. I don't have a good source for this claim, but unless I was hallucinating - and other people seem to have commented on it too - then it's a real issue that they didn't fix for some reason, and I'll hate them forever for it.

It wouldn't surprise me as I've heard it in other games before - Baldur's Gate 2, for example - but I need proofs.

 

[Fry]

I have a pretty good ear for voices and accents, so I dunno. Not sure I buy it.

Also can't agree on the quality of the English voice actor in general. I think he's pretty bad. Or at least the choice he's making for the character is really cheesy. It's a mediocre Clint Eastwood impression.

 

[nomask7]

I need proofs.

In other words, you want to hear what CD Projekt says about it. There you go:

https://www.cdprojekt.com/en/contact/