The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine Expansion

[meanwhileInPoland]

First expansion is more like 8-10hours main quest. Maybe 12-14 with sidequests. Dont know where did you find that 20hours bullshit. Still pretty good length for dlc in 2016

 

[Immortal]

I heard the expansion added like a 20ish hour story then fleshed out large chunks of Velen that were a little more sparse..
I think that is definitely the route to go. Create a compelling story then put a little more lipstick on the pig as it were..

To say everything in W3 exploration wise was perfect would be drifting dangerously close to fanboy territory.. some of those areas could use some love for sure.

First expansion is more like 8-10hours main quest. Maybe 12-14 with sidequests. Dont know where did you find that 20hours bullshit. Still pretty good length for dlc in 2016

Thanks for Clarifying. Did they hash out the more barren areas of the map? Is that part of the side quest content your talking about?

 

[Azarkon]

How does CDPR produce content so fast? These guys are on fire.

Potatoes are cheap.

Puts Bethesda and Bioware to shame.

I will wait until they are done with all the expansions / DLC they are doing (I bought the season pass) then replay the game from scratch with all this shit installed.

No cause to. The first expansion is separate from the main quest and it fits in well as an adventure Geralt goes on after; same with this new one.

In fact, one of the best aspects of the Witcher story is that it's easy to create these contained stories - it's just another contract. Try doing that in other RPGs and it feels completely stupid because the story usually comes down to "you are the chosen one, now go and save the world."

 

[Perkel]

First expansion is more like 8-10hours main quest. Maybe 12-14 with sidequests. Dont know where did you find that 20hours bullshit. Still pretty good length for dlc in 2016

Did you play it ?

I mean from what you are telling you can get easily 20h if you include stuff like exploring new lands trying to find some things etc.
Also how is linearity of expansion ?

 

[Immortal]

How does CDPR produce content so fast? These guys are on fire.

Potatoes are cheap.

Puts Bethesda and Bioware to shame.

I will wait until they are done with all the expansions / DLC they are doing (I bought the season pass) then replay the game from scratch with all this shit installed.

No cause to. The first expansion is separate from the main quest and it fits in well as an adventure Geralt goes on after; same with this new one.

In fact, one of the best aspects of the Witcher story is that it's easy to create these contained stories - it's just another contract. Try doing that in other RPGs and it feels completely stupid because the story usually comes down to "you are the chosen one, now go and save the world."

It can easily be done.. There is nothing wrong with inserting more content into a world like Skyrim.. AS if the main quest is that good to begin with. I thought the premise of another dragon born was just fine..

It was actually more interesting than URMAGAD BAD DURGAN DESTORYING STUFF

 

[Carrion]

Also how is linearity of expansion ?

A trimmed-down BioWare structure, basically, meaning that it lets you do stuff in a slightly different order but the actual story is straightforward. It's alright for an expansion of that scale, especially since it focuses more on the quality than the quantity of the quests.

20 hours doesn't sound that far off for Hearts of Stone. I'm pretty sure it took me more than 14 hours to finish all the quests and visit all the points of interest (which are much better than in the main game), even though I only died a couple of times during the expansion. Then again, I didn't use fast travel and didn't want to rush anything, taking my time exploring each location thoroughly. If you just rush through the main quest, you can probably finish it in ten hours or so.

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

First expansion is more like 8-10hours main quest. Maybe 12-14 with sidequests. Dont know where did you find that 20hours bullshit. Still pretty good length for dlc in 2016

Did you play it ?

I mean from what you are telling you can get easily 20h if you include stuff like exploring new lands trying to find some things etc.
Also how is linearity of expansion ?

i gave up on twicher 3 on skelllige. my roommate played dlc and finished it over the weekend playing 4-5 hours each evening. He didnt bother to find every single point of interest(but did finish every "quest") but from what i have seen he didnt use fast travel and ride on horse everywhere he could. fucking larpers main quest is pretty cool with colorful characters and some good dialogues/one-liners but it is in typical "new bioware/mass effect" fashion. cut-scene after cut-scene with some walking between them. boss battles look cool and are more complex than just "teleporting guy in armor" but its still the same clunky combat system

 

[Neanderthal]

Took me about 25 - 30 hours to finish everything, well everything I could find anyway, keep feeling I might have missed someat because of all the shit they added just for this. I'm pretty fucking anal and completionist though, and I like just trotting along on Roach an all sorry to say.

 

[typical user]

You know that each game developing studio has different teams of graphics designers, script-writers and such? Game has released in May but people were probably working on DLCs before this game got released.

20 hours of non-rushed main story? That's as much as most AAA games offer most of the time. For DLC it is great.

 

[Kem0sabe]

The problem with the expansion is that you end up being extremely overleveled by the time you get around to it.

I was level 41 when I started the expansion content and I was doing the game main quest.

Cdprojekt really went overboard with the exp rewards for the main quest, you get like 6 levels on the Isle of mists alone.

 

[Jezal_k23]

I'm gonna start playing TW3 for the first time in a few weeks when I get my new GPU. Did CDPR screw up leveling that badly? I'd like to do the most content that I can, and would hate to run into extreme overleveling issues throughout the game.

Do you guys have any recommendations to help me avoid this issue? Is it possible?

Edit: yeah I intend to play on the highest difficulty that doesn't erase my save or anything like that. I intend (hope) for the game to be a challenge throughout.

 

[Kem0sabe]

I'm gonna start playing TW3 for the first time in a few weeks when I get my new GPU. Did CDPR screw up leveling that badly? I'd like to do the most content that I can, and would hate to run into extreme overleveling issues throughout the game.

Do you guys have any recommendations to help me avoid this issue? Is it possible?

Edit: yeah I intend to play on the highest difficulty that doesn't erase my save or anything like that. I intend (hope) for the game to be a challenge throughout.

Depends, do you like to OCD your way around the map completing everything? If so, then you will be extremely overleveled, but that's really the only way to see the content as there is no continuing to play after the main quest ends, so if you want to see that content better get started.

 

[Jezal_k23]

What about this?

http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/642/?tab=1&navtag=http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/ajax/moddescription/?id=642&preview=&pUp=1

Has anyone used it? Any recommended values for me? I was thinking of disabling combat XP as the mod does by default but also setting quest XP to like .5. How about that? What values do you guys recommend, if anyone has used this mod or played through the game? I suppose I don't want to be severely underleveled all the time either, lol. Without having ever played the game it's hard to tell how much I should limit the quest/combat XP gain.

 

[Paul_cz]

First expansion is more like 8-10hours main quest. Maybe 12-14 with sidequests. Dont know where did you find that 20hours bullshit. Still pretty good length for dlc in 2016

My HoS playthrough took exactly 20 hours. I did all the quests and explored new locations thoroughly though, yeah.

 

[Carrion]

I went through every single point of interest in the game and completed every notable quest (except one small sidequest that was bugged) and DLC, and I finished the main game at level 34. After finishing the expansion I still can't equip one of the armor sets due to being too low a level. On the other hand, on my first playthrough I was a lot less thorough (played with the question marks off) and was level 35 at the end. Why? Because I wasn't so overleveled near the endgame, so I got bigger rewards from some of the later quests. The game is basically self-balancing, meaning that if you get overleveled, your XP rewards from quests will be very small, and pretty quickly you'll be around the "correct" level again.

I can only see maybe two ways that you might get clearly overleveled without some really obsessive grinding. One is following the quest level requirements to the letter, which might allow you to maximize your XP rewards — I mostly finished the quests based on their location, so by the time I hit Skellige I was seriously overleveled for almost the entirety of the main quest and therefore didn't get much in the way of rewards. Going to Skellige at the recommended level and then coming back for the high-level stuff might've prevented that. Another way is exploring the points of interest after doing the main quest, as I don't think the XP rewards from those scale to your level, which might allow you to gain a couple of extra levels. I still don't know how you can hit level 40+ without fiddling with mods or playing the game in some really fucked-up way, though.

 

[Perkel]

to people who finished HoS. You should do a review in separate thread "HoS dex reviews" or something like that.

 

[Joni Odin von Hassenstein]

TW3 was supposed to be 50h main events and in the end i did it in around 90 hours basically skipping and saving most of the quests for second playtrough.

Huh? That's odd. It took ~ 110 hours for me but I did nearly every side quest I stumbled across. Also my playstyle is rather slow.

 

[typical user]

I'm gonna start playing TW3 for the first time in a few weeks when I get my new GPU. Did CDPR screw up leveling that badly? I'd like to do the most content that I can, and would hate to run into extreme overleveling issues throughout the game.

Do you guys have any recommendations to help me avoid this issue? Is it possible?

Edit: yeah I intend to play on the highest difficulty that doesn't erase my save or anything like that. I intend (hope) for the game to be a challenge throughout.

Depends, do you like to OCD your way around the map completing everything? If so, then you will be extremely overleveled, but that's really the only way to see the content as there is no continuing to play after the main quest ends, so if you want to see that content better get started.

In vanilla game if you complete every quest then you will reach state where every quest gives you 2-3xp so I don't know how you got to level 41. Main quest still overlevels you ridiculously, I got 2 levels by speaking with Avallac'h after Kaer Morhen battle. You get overleveled only if you rush through main quest and leave high level missions for later. I finished main story twice, each time achieving required level to wear mastercrafted witcher gear. That's level 35 and 65 for NG+ and I did collect all the trash around Skellige Isles each time.

 

[Taskityo]

Assuming Vigo is there... Vigo. Vigo i think also was cousin to the queen.

Yup, its been hinted. But, its definitely not this Vigo:

Definitely this Vigo:

Fringilla Vigo

Fringilla Vigo is a Nilfgaardian sorceress and a member of the Lodge of Sorceresses along with her fellow countrywoman, Assire var Anahid. She is also the second cousin of Anna Henrietta of Toussaint. She is a woman with natural grace, green eyes and close-cropped black hair.

During the First Northern War Fringilla fought for Nilfgaard at the Battle of Sodden Hill where she blinded Yennefer who was fighting on the opposing side.

When Geralt and his team reached Toussaint, Fringilla embarked on a romantic relationship with Geralt and did everything in her power to keep him from leaving the castle. While the witcher did develop some feelings for her, he never quite was able to put Yennefer out of his mind, even going so far as to use Yennefer's name instead of Fringilla's in the throes of passion.

 

[Tytus]

Assuming Vigo is there... Vigo. Vigo i think also was cousin to the queen.

Yup, its been hinted. But, its definitely not this Vigo:

Definitely this Vigo:

Fringilla Vigo

Fringilla Vigo is a Nilfgaardian sorceress and a member of the Lodge of Sorceresses along with her fellow countrywoman, Assire var Anahid. She is also the second cousin of Anna Henrietta of Toussaint. She is a woman with natural grace, green eyes and close-cropped black hair.

During the First Northern War Fringilla fought for Nilfgaard at the Battle of Sodden Hill where she blinded Yennefer who was fighting on the opposing side.

When Geralt and his team reached Toussaint, Fringilla embarked on a romantic relationship with Geralt and did everything in her power to keep him from leaving the castle. While the witcher did develop some feelings for her, he never quite was able to put Yennefer out of his mind, even going so far as to use Yennefer's name instead of Fringilla's in the throes of passion.

So, another inconsequential romance option incoming?

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/116...e-will-be-even-better-than-the-main-game.html

During the course of a fairly lengthy interview with the folks at Eurogamer.it, CD Projekt RED senior story writer Jakub Szamalek talked about the history of CD Projekt RED, the developers work in adapting Andrzej Sapkowski's universe, and, most interestingly, gave a few vague snippets of info on Blood and Wine, the second and larger expansion for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Szamalek appeared confident and noted that the developers believe the expansion to be "even better" than the main game and that a lot of work went into making the villain "unique".

I'm going to translate the relevant parts, though keep in mind that the chat was probably originally in English and this is effectively a translation of an already translated piece:

After Blood and Wine we'll stop working on the Witcher universe, at least for a while. It will be the last adventure with Geralt as the main character. Aside from this, there's nothing set in stone. Blood and Wine will be our conclusion for Geralt's story, after which we'll focus all our energies on Cyberpunk 2077.

Blood and Wine is an independent story, without many ties to the main plot. Thanks to our own experience working on the game and the feedback we've received from players since release, we think we managed to make something even better than the main game.

For example, we don't think we managed to create a charismatic villain for players to fight in Wild Hunt, so we worked on making this expansion's foe memorable and unique. We also made a very complex story that we think our players will appreciate. We're very satisfied with the work we've done but we also know that we can do even better.
​

While I recognize it's less than ideal, if you're interested in the full interview and don't understand Italian, you can try reading the Google Translated page. The quality is sub-optimal, but a quick skim proves the meaning of the article mostly carries over.

 

[taxalot]

I have not played Hearts of Stone yet, and when Blood & Wine comes out, I intend to restart Witcher 3 and to play in New Game+ before tackling the expansions.

Any feedback from a codexer who did the New Game + ?

 

[Tytus]

I have not played Hearts of Stone yet, and when Blood & Wine comes out, I intend to restart Witcher 3 and to play in New Game+ before tackling the expansions.

Any feedback from a codexer who did the New Game + ?

It's shit. It's the best example of how not make NG+.

The Witcher 3 'Blood and Wine' expansion details leaked

It appears as though someone has leaked the details surrounding The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt's upcoming expansion 'Blood and Wine.' The leaker revealed new weapons, armors, animation, and signs, as well as detailing expansion requirements, map size and the potential release date.

According to the leak, in a now deleted post on the CD Projekt Red forums (via WCCF), preserved by a Steam and Reddit post, the expansion will bring four new skills, three different endings andwill release in June.

You can check out the details below:

"DarthasBinar who said he got some backstage information about BaW but he cant tell hes source name the post deleted few minutes later but I got most information saved and I want to share it here with you!

"I must add that if this information is true its gonna be epic expansion."

BaW Level Req: BaW minimum level will be 40 and you can start it before or after the main story.

Expansion “VIBE”: huge “Brotherhood of the Wolf” Vibe- no idea what he meant here. i don’t know this Brotherhood thingy.

Endings: BaW will offer 2 Standard endings and 1 secret ending that will be available only if you did something specific in the main story.

New Sword: a new “Bone” Sword that probably connected to the Brotherhood of the Wolf.

New NPC Type: New npc’s that will offer to change Armors Colors and we will 1 in each of the major areas-Novigrad/Skellige/Toussaint.

New Skills: 4 new Skills for Combat/Alchemy/Signs and 12 New General Skills also 3 new Skills slots and 1 mutagen Slot

Trophies Rework: Something about Trophys no longer useless but gives good buffs that effects your whole gameplay.

New Armors: Something about Witcher gear will have alternate Upgrades for each set.

Map Size: Devs said that the map grows bigger over time and right now its around 75% of Novigrad/Velen and by the end of development it will be even bigger.

New Animations: New combat Animations and New Combat MOVES< maybe the new skills ? New Fist Fights Animations New Drinking Decoctions Animations – something like the CGI Trailers

Rebalance Changes: Huge Combat Balance-a new balance for the Difficulty levels which will be harder to play in the later acts.

New Sign: Helitrop Sign is coming back from W2 and will be a bit different and also offer an alternate mode.

Boss Fights: we gonna see some awesome boss fights like HOS but we will also have 1 HUGE boss fight that will be the hardest ever made – something like the Kraken from W2

Graphics: something about Toussaint gonna have the most complex lighting system. Bigger visible Distance, reduced FOG, better LOD and basically Toussaint gonna be the most amazing Graphic area ever made – the tech changes will be applied to Toussaint ONLY! other areas remain the same.

Camera: New Camera Settings and FOV Settings will be available- Also CDPR working on new First Person mode.

Iorveth\Saskia- Not gonna be in the new Expansion.

Gwent: New Skills??,New Cards,New Leader Cards and something about you gonna have Double the things to do in Gwent now ? probably a blessed rework for gwent?

Story: He did not ask for any story information because of spoilers.

Release Date: Early June , Devs said they dont want to push things sooner because they want the Fans to miss The Witcher more and more. Development will be over around the End of April and Early May, but might pushed later for release. We gonna see new gameplay movies around End of May.

http://www.gamezone.com/news/the-witcher-3-blood-and-wine-expansion-details-leaked-3433600

 

[Perkel]

If this is true then this expansion will be one of the best expansions in history of gaming.
Having basically second Vellen/Novigrad would be fucking amazing.

Well by June it would be more than one year since release, considering they started work on expansion even before release of game, they hired ton of new people for they Krakow studio and main studio it is imo doable.

Considering they did from scratch Witcher 3 in 3 years along with their new engine and massive velen/novigrad/skellig/whitOrchard/otherworlds environments (and with such detail at that) it is completely reasonable that they would be able add 1/3 of game with this expansions. Especially since it will be mostly about sidequests instead of long and expensive mainquest.