Re: The Witcher 3 - May 19, 2015 - PS4, XBO, PC
 

Yup, I preferred the more casual play style, but everything I read said when you bump up the difficulties the potions and oils become much more important to surviving against monsters.

Re: The Witcher 3 - May 19, 2015 - PS4, XBO, PC
 

so is like more like Fallout and much less like Outer Worlds or Borderlands (which i know not true RPG). i'm not a big rpg fan, but like OW. really only one i played thus far and haven't even gotten that far yet. and does it matter if i don't play 1 & 2?

Re: The Witcher 3 - May 19, 2015 - PS4, XBO, PC
 

I suppose it's kind of like Borderlands, in that you unlock different abilities and spells, and are able to upgrade them. There isn't quite as linear of an upgrade path as Borderlands lays out though. As far as not playing the first two, I didn't and don't feel like it negatively impacted my playthrough. There is a lot of backstory that you won't know, but you can infer a lot of it through dialogue and books. Even if you didn't bother learning anything, you can still play through the game without a care in the world. Frankly, as long winded as some of the missions are, and how many there are, I lost the plot on more than one occasion. My suggestion is to do one sidequest at a time, and see it to completion before doing another one. The sidequests are often quite involved, and could hold up as a mini-game all in themselves (albeit several with an over-reliance on fetch quests).

Re: The Witcher 3 - May 19, 2015 - PS4, XBO, PC
 

it's on Game Pass. yippee! xmas! even though $15 will all DLC. is the DLC worth it?

Re: The Witcher 3 - May 19, 2015 - PS4, XBO, PC
 

The DLC is MORE than worth it and probably the best kind of DLC on the market.

Re: The Witcher 3 - May 19, 2015 - PS4, XBO, PC
 

yeah, i bought it. it was free bc i had gift cards. all single player, right?

Re: The Witcher 3 - May 19, 2015 - PS4, XBO, PC
 

I’m not sure if there were smaller DLC. But the big story ones (Heart of Stone and Blood and Wine) were fantastic. The latter was bigger than many complete games.

Re: The Witcher 3 - May 19, 2015 - PS4, XBO, PC
 

I found it a bit challenging. I still haven't played past the introductory world though. I had trouble getting to the suggested level of some of the quests. I was playing at least four levels below the suggested level. It's especially challenging when you get overwhelmed by a pack of wolves or a group of drowners. I plan on picking it back up some. Watching the tv series has made me want to play some more.

Re: The Witcher 3 - May 19, 2015 - PS4, XBO, PC
 

Yes, the game has no multiplayer of any kind (unless maybe it has multiplayer for it's card-game, Gwent, which I wouldn't know if it did, as I never played Gwent)

The smaller DLCs were missions and quests they added here and there throughout the existing game world for free. The paid DLC, especially the second one, were bigger expansions, adding nto just major storylines, missions, characters, and collectables, but major new locations to the game world.

Re: The Witcher 3 - May 19, 2015 - PS4, XBO, PC
 

Sounds good. Gonna try to watch ep. 1 of NF series now and get into this tomorrow. I’m not an rpg guy at all, but like Outer Worlds (the kinda rpg-ish Borderlands, maybe BioShocks) and think I can handle this. Even at $15 with all dlc and expansion is a great deal. Saw high reviews, even for dlc...

Re: The Witcher 3 - May 19, 2015 - PS4, XBO, PC
 

anyone else not a big rpg fan and got into and loved this?

Re: The Witcher 3 - May 19, 2015 - PS4, XBO, PC
 

I enjoy rpg-lite elements: progression trees, unlocking new abilities through choice, leveling up. I do not enjoy min-maxing, inventory management, eating to stay healthy, things like that. I enjoyed Witcher 3 a lot, because it wasn't entirely required of me to do the things I didn't like. They are certainly available if you want to, but as I mentioned above, I just went with the flow of what was presented to me as they came along. The most I did was search out the various pieces of Witcher armor, but I did fine without having the fanciest of gear. The ability screen can look a bit in-depth, but you can take it at a surface level if you want. Just slap things up there that suit your playstyle. For me, it was based around the two main signs I used, and I think health buffs or something.

The expansions were awesome. Both of them had great storylines, and were basically full games unto themselves. It takes quite a while to get through the opening of the game, the first town. It kind of felt like a slog, but once it opened up, boy did it open up. I avoided Gwent in the beginning, but ultimately ended up enjoying it. If you don't like it, it's not necessary to the game at all, beyond the introductory tutorial.

Re: The Witcher 3 - May 19, 2015 - PS4, XBO, PC
 

Agree with these. I just wanted to get out and explore, so the beginning part before you can just run off and do your own thing made me a bit antsy.

I also hated Gwent initially, but once I actually learned how to play it and started building a decent deck it became one of my favorite elements. I got to the point where whenever I found a new settlement my first goal was to find the Gwent players to build up my deck.

Re: The Witcher 3 - May 19, 2015 - PS4, XBO, PC
 

nice write up. thanks. very excited now! gonna get into soon...

Re: The Witcher 3 - May 19, 2015 - PS4, XBO, PC
 

digging it so far. lots of exposition and story in beginning. not too much fighting, but starting to pick up missions and finding Bandit camps, but sometimes when i place way markers it takes me there, but there is nothing to be found. it's a little frustrating, but liking...

Re: The Witcher 3 - May 19, 2015 - PS4, XBO, PC
 

The action does ramp up, right?

Purchased Witcher 2 enhanced, I believe. It was $2.99. I figured couldn’t go wrong.

So I can’t play part 1 on Xbox?

Re: The Witcher 3 - May 19, 2015 - PS4, XBO, PC
 

As I mentioned, the game opening is long and kind of boring. And by long, I mean hours. There's a lot of talking involved at first. Keep in mind that you're jumping into the middle of a series of three games, based off of however many books. They info dump on you to get you brought up to speed. There is a lot of talking in this game. The action will ramp up, although it's not a mob-a-second like Borderlands throws at you. It's a bit more realistic in that you travel from town to town, come across bandit camps of a few enemies, or maybe a few animals that may or may not attack you without provocation. You'll be sent after larger enemies that, depending on how you are playing, may require some preparation or leveling before you can take them down. If you're looking for a hack and slash, this isn't it.

This is one of the few RPG games where I actually tried to play like I was the character. Exploring instead of just blasting from one waypoint to another (although that was occasionally fun, just to see what I could get Geralt or Roach to cross). I did one mission at a time, so that I could fully devote myself to seeing out that one thing. The results of some missions will also affect other missions. Try not to worry about that, attempting to get whatever ending you think you'll want. Just play the game without looking things up, trying to plan in advance what you're going to do. I turned off almost every element of the HUD, keeping I think just the compass and mini-map. I didn't care about anything else: damage counters, horse fear, etc. Once I played enough of the game, and wanted to start finding the collectables, I turned on that setting for the map.

There are A LOT of settings you can customize, I suggest doing a search for "new to Witcher 3" on the interwebs, and seeing what you can do to immerse yourself in the game. Alternate Controller Config mode is a big one that I advise you to use.

Re: The Witcher 3 - May 19, 2015 - PS4, XBO, PC
 

^ ok. thanks so much.

Re: The Witcher 3 - May 19, 2015 - PS4, XBO, PC
 

As I remember, this was the shortest of the three games. It would probably be interesting playing the series in reverse since Witcher 2 set up a number of key story elements that didn't get resolved until the third game: most notably


We had a nice discussion of the game here. Even though all of the Witcher games feature branching decision-based storylines, Witcher 2 takes it to the biggest extreme where a decision at the end of the first act leads to two very different ways the rest of the story can go. Because of that, this was one of the rare RPGs that I immediately replayed (at least at the point of the giant story branch). The linked thread has good advice for the recommended path to take (especially if you're unlikely to do a replay).

Re: The Witcher 3 - May 19, 2015 - PS4, XBO, PC
 

i don't think you can even buy Witcher 1 for XBOX. i can't even get passed first wraith or use the signs. i think i'm hopeless...

Re: The Witcher 3 - May 19, 2015 - PS4, XBO, PC
 

you know with that first noonwraith or whatever, i thought i wasn't doing any damage with sword bc ghost and all, but apparently i was and the signs helped. figured out i was taking away health slowly, then just dodge, swing, repeat...

Re: The Witcher 3 - May 19, 2015 - PS4, XBO, PC
 

On PC the games are almost always on sale. You can get all three combined with all the DLC for about $14 fairly often.

Re: The Witcher 3 - May 19, 2015 - PS4, XBO, PC
 

i don't play games on PC...

Re: The Witcher 3 - May 19, 2015 - PS4, XBO, PC
 

I don't either anymore, and recently bought the Witcher 2 for a couple bucks, and then tried to use my steam box to stream it from my PC to the living room TV. Needless to say I didn't make it very far :) The biggest issue was the text was too small, and I couldn't find any way to increase it.

Re: The Witcher 3 - May 19, 2015 - PS4, XBO, PC
 

yeah 2 was $2.99. oh well, i'll never play W1 until 4 comes out with a remastered 1 :lol: