Grant me patience...
Uh huh, that's why diablo, mmo's and nuBeth games are filled to the brim with non random, hand placed loot
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Those games are certainly filled to the brim with rewards and loot (handplaced, unique or otherwise) for every single thing that you do, everything that you find, everything that you kill, every chain of activities getting a reward -no matter its pertinence- to keep feeding the compulsion loop. They pander to the player who asks for constant validation for everything he does much like killing some big dumb animal in the middle of nowhere in the witcher, and it's the pandering to these expectations that got us crap like achievements, or ubisoft-esque trash POIs.
You know what yeah, I do enjoy to find a unique, non randomized piece of gear as a reward for exploring a distant, off the beaten path location, it gives the player a nice motivation to see the gameworld the devs created, Morrowind did this, New Vegas did this, the Gothic games did this and hell even Wicther 1 and 2 did this to an extent.
Sure, finding a daedric sword after fighting through a daedric shrine would be enjoyable and it would make sense to go there looking for it given that by listening to rumors the game tells you that equipment made by daedra is the best as well as collected by the rich & powerful so you have a reasonable expectation of where to find it(although in pratice you likely won't find it there and you already get quests to get you to visit just about every location in the game). Yet if you go to some bumfuck Sheogorad island at the edge of the map and choose to take on the ogrim who could kill you in one hit and manage to kill it he's still just going to drop the same daedra heart a common scamp would, he doesn't have swords hidden in his considerable rump, and the game is better for it(although both it and new vegas certainly suffered from considerable levelscaling).
In TW3 your path to obtaining the best gear starts in a logical way by talking to merchants who point you to master smiths and sell you maps to rumored witcher stashes or talking to other witchers or getting involved with the rich and/or powerful who could own such gear, usually involving quests or at least treasure hunts that will have you exploring plenty of distinctive locations and challenges.
The game doesn't tell you to expect superior gear as a reward for killing the big dumb animals that populate the remote edges of the map.
You seem to think that RPGs should not have any sort of unique loot or other or other such rewards for exploring around interesting locations because, what, "realism"? fuck that shit.
I believe loot(as well as most aspects of a game) should at the very least be coherent with its gameworld. That means no peasant baskets overflowing with jewelry in poverty-stricken velen, a master swordsmith's blade "fit for killing gods" shouldn't be worse than the sword you picked off a backalley robber and the myriad beasts roaming the edges of the map shouldn't be compulsive treasure hoarders nor witcher gear pinatas. Whether you need to find loot in order to feel justified for exploring an interesting location(keyword: interesting) instead of just seeing loot as a bonus is a separate issue. Loot as a primary driver for exploration might make sense in a loose post-apoc game where you need to scavenge for survival, not so much in a story-driven one where you're not even on a quest to survive/establish yourself/become more powerful.
"Finding interesting quests" my ass, the vast majority of those question marks are nothing but repetitive drags.
While I do wish the mechanics for identifying, tracking and battling contract monsters were more involved I still enjoyed the vast majority of the game's quests(even the unmarked little ones that stay hidden for hundreds of hours) so we'll just have to disagree.
But I'll point out that just before you were claiming he should get nothing more than useless monster faeces, in which case, yes I do believe making an exploration rpg where the player gets literally nothing for said exploring is dumb as hell
No, I said you should get little more than shit for rummaging through an oversized bird's nest and you can already get useful bits off its corpse(even some dung is used in alchemy). There are more interesting and loot-likely things to explore in TW3 than a wyvern's arse rest.
the vast majority of those "points of interest" in this game don't give the player even that[...] really might as well not be fucking there.
Oh I totally agree, those guarded treasures, isolated monster nests etc POIs that litter the map, placed as to never be more than 30 secs away from the next POI are garbage that shouldn't have been in the game(and should at least be disabled from the map). Which is ironic because they are in the game precisely to feed those who require constant loot/rewards to suffer through traversing an open world.
And what the heck does Frodo has to do with anything...
A wyvern isn't a treasure-hoarding lotr or d&d dragon, it's a pest. Your complaint about killing an ancient wyvern at the edge of the map and not pulling a legendary unique blade as a reward for it sounds like the kind of thing the game should make fun of if it wasn't already infected with that sort of decline:
Geralt: Fresh scar.
Eskel: Still hurts.
Geralt: Forktail?
Eskel: Wyvern.
Geralt: ...
Eskel: BIG wyvern.
Geralt: Good coin?
Eskel: No contract.
Geralt: So a rescue?
Eskel: Nope, climbed all the way up a mountain peak looking for the biggest one.
Geralt: Ah, potion ingredients.
Eskel: Nah, full flask.
Geralt: What then?
Eskel: Had a theory.
Geralt: About?
Eskel: Balance.
Geralt: Balance?
Eskel: How exceptional rewards should come to those who perform exceptional feats. I expected that for my troubles I would find a finely crafted blade inside the creature's innards, or maybe its nest.
Geralt: Find anything?
Eskel: Just the scar.
Geralt: Who'da thunk it.
Eskel: Enough.
Geralt: Well, I can bunnyhop all the way from Novigrad to Oxenfurt, maybe I'd get some new armor for doing it?
Eskel: I hate you, Wolf.
Lithium Flower put together a
compilation of mods with his own tweaks, one of which rebalances the loot economy of the game to put the valuable loot in dungeons, caves, and mines and keep stuff out of barrels and crates in villages.
Updated FCR3 also empties out 85% of trash containers, but IMO it's not enough to significantly improve gear progression.
Neither gear nor enemies should have had levels to begin with.