So that Witcher 3, eh?

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

I am having a problem finding vendors with stuff i actually want. I am in Velen and have 2800 orens and nothing to do with it.

Psh, pauper. 45 hours into the game, just got to Skellige and I am sitting on a hoard of 21,000 orens. There's nothing of interest at the merchants stalls, bar the Gwent cards and the occasional rare crafting ingredient I might lack, because my Feline Witcher Gear is miles ahead of anything they sell and even unique drops have a hard time keeping up with that broken awesome crafted gear.

 

[Casual Shinji]

All valid points but i'd add that there's also a problem with pacing. I spent hours yesterday just trying to find a quest in my level range with no success. It's been advertised as being bigger than Skyrim, which it is, but they left out the fact that there's much less to do. Hell I enjoyed the Hinterlands in Dragon Age more than Velen. At least in the Hinterlands there was shit to do every couple of minutes. In the Witcher 3 i'm just riding around (the first game where the horse is necessary btw) desperately looking for some fucking content. I read post here where someone mentioned putting 40 hours into the game and accomplishing nothing.

Pretty game though.

Really?!

Because I've been drowning in shit to do in this game. All of which is varied and unique. Unlike in Inquisition where 90% of the side quests was either 'Collect this amount of whatever', 'Go there and talk to a guy and then come back', or 'Have your companions do the quest for you'.

That is ofcourse if you remember to activate the notice boards. You strip that of its contents and the map becomes littered with question marks. And nearly every settlement has one. Velen especially is bursting with stuff to do. I couldn't ride for more than fifty yards without bumping into something that needed sorting out.

Also, you spent hours trying to find a quest in your level range?! How is that even possible unless you've somehow found a way to stop Geralt from leveling up. I don't think there's even a (side) quest outside of your level range in the very first area of the game (White Orchard).

I'm playing on normal I think. I'm running around Novigrad at level 4 and haven't found a quest lower than level 9 yet. I've heard that basically I should be playing Gwent to boost my level but... shouldn't there be something fun to do?

Did you completely skip White Orchard or something and just went straight to Novigrad? Because I'm at around level 9 (second playthrough), I think, and I haven't even set foot in Novigrad yet. And I've only maybe played two games of Gwent, one of which I lost, so that's certainly not where my XP came from.

Either you've been skipping all the side stuff or your copy has some weird glitch.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Either you've been skipping all the side stuff or your copy has some weird glitch.

There actually is a known bug with 1.04 that can stop Geralt from getting XP from quests. That may be what's happening. Because I agree, not finding "anything to do" and comparing the content depth unfavorably to DA:I of all fucking games is comprehensively ludicrous.

I'm playing on normal I think. I'm running around Novigrad at level 4

You are unnaturally low-leveled to be in Novigrad. I don't think I even pulled up to Novigrad until I was level 14-15. You might want to check to see if you got nipped by the XP freeze bug.

[I spent hours yesterday just trying to find a quest in my level range with no success.

You too. It's completely bizarre that you should be struggling this hard to find content.

 

[Silence]

"Not finding anything to do".

I'm pretty much constantly questing and I have already overleveled Main and "big" side quests in the area I operate.

It's just not possible, if you search.


Has to be a bug. I think nobody should be lvl 4 in Novigrad if he didn't go straight there before doing any Velen quests.

----

About the people talking about sets: I'm mostly using griffin gear, but I constantly find stuff that's better than the set.
Is it just the griffin set?

 

[Fallow]

Either you've been skipping all the side stuff or your copy has some weird glitch.

There actually is a known bug with 1.04 that can stop Geralt from getting XP from quests. That may be what's happening. Because I agree, not finding "anything to do" and comparing the content depth unfavorably to DA:I of all fucking games is comprehensively ludicrous.

I'm playing on normal I think. I'm running around Novigrad at level 4

You are unnaturally low-leveled to be in Novigrad. I don't think I even pulled up to Novigrad until I was level 14-15. You might want to check to see if you got nipped by the XP freeze bug.

[I spent hours yesterday just trying to find a quest in my level range with no success.

You too. It's completely bizarre that you should be struggling this hard to find content.

I'm sharing Yuppi's concerns. I'm struggling to not drown in shit to do. I can't turn a single stone without finding quests and events and some sneaky hag that wants to throw down. I'm searching my questlog for the lowest-level stuff so I don't overlevel and miss out on quest-xp (assuming that's a thing).

 

[Rednog]

I'm honestly curious if I've run into this supposed quest exp bug, I'm only getting like 10 exp for small quests, I think the really bigger monster quests are like 75. I did everything in White Orchard and rode out from there at level 3-4. I've finished over half of Velen and I'm only 6-7. Also I'm in the same boat where I'm finding good chunks of the map with nothing to explore, I read every notice board and there's still towns with no '?'s around them.

 

[Zhukov]

All of which is varied and unique.

Ehhhh... while the sidequest design is all around decent, to be fair there are an awful lot of "Go here, follow trail, kill something" quests.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I'm honestly curious if I've run into this supposed quest exp bug

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/56206/20150528/the-witcher-3-bug-prevents-you-from-gaining-xp.htm

In case anyone is curious about the bug/wants to see if they have it.

The bug seems to be unique to the 1.04 patch, so if you've been slow about updating, you shouldn't encounter it. I actually chose to freeze myself at 1.03 due to some initial reports of performance hits from the texture upgrades in 1.04, so I've managed to avoid it completely.

Reddit thread as well:

https://www.reddit.com/r/witcher/comments/37khps/careful_bug_breaks_xp_rewards_for_quests_in_patch/

 

[Elfgore]

Hmmmmmm, since people seem to be in the know here about what levels should be at. I'm around level 5 or 6 I think and I've just meet the Peller for The Bloody Baron's questline. This average, high, too low? I restarted the game recently and I'm curious to know if I should continue, or wait and start another new game when the patch comes out?

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Hmmmmmm, since people seem to be in the know here about what levels should be at. I'm around level 5 or 6 I think and I've just meet the Peller for The Bloody Baron's questline. This average, high, too low? I restarted the game recently and I'm curious to know if I should continue, or wait and start another new game when the patch comes out?

That seems about right for that point in the game, depending on how much side-stuff you were doing on the way there.

 

[EternallyBored]

"Not finding anything to do".

I'm pretty much constantly questing and I have already overleveled Main and "big" side quests in the area I operate.

It's just not possible, if you search.


Has to be a bug. I think nobody should be lvl 4 in Novigrad if he didn't go straight there before doing any Velen quests.

----

About the people talking about sets: I'm mostly using griffin gear, but I constantly find stuff that's better than the set.
Is it just the griffin set?

The upgraded gear is the green Witcher sets, there are 3 main sets in the game that can each be upgraded 3 times. Griffen, medium armor which is sign intensity based, Cat, light armor which is attack power based, and Bear, heavy armor that is critical hit based.

Each set has a set of swords that play off similar stats, and Cat and Bear also have crossbow schematics. They all have 3 upgrade levels: enhanced, Superior, and mastercrafted. I don't know what better armor you are finding or what level you are, but the mastercrafted witcher sets can compete with any end-game armor, and the similar stats make them appealing for stacking ridiculously high bonuses. You should at least keep the witcher set with the bonus you like the most in your inventory as it requires the previous level gear to upgrade to the next level.

As for the exp bug, haven't been hit with it yet, but if you are playing on PC, you can unlock the devconsole to give yourself a few free levels, especially for situations like that poster up there saying he's in Novigrad at level 4. Really, just completing the main quests in Velen should get you to the 8-10 range, and the starting quests in Novigrad should bump you up to 15-16 pretty fast, I hit 20 (with about 30k gold) before I even left for Skillege, and ended up way overleveled for the starting quests in that area.

That does bring up a valid issue with the game, in that the monster levels are all over the place, while it can be cool to run into a really strong ? level enemy or area in Velen and make a note to come back, it often seems random at best, with level 25 griffens hanging out right next to level 8 wraiths, or a level 23 fiend guarding a treasure 10 feet away from some level 5 drowners guarding a different treasure. While I'm not a fan of level scaling, neither do I really like having to dodge a bunch of high level enemies just hanging out near the exit to a cave I just explored for a lvl 6 main story mission.

It gets annoying in the opposite direction too. For the first few hours in Skellige when the level recommendation to go on the boat to get there is like level 16, but a lot of the enemies and quests getting off the boat are 4-5 levels lower than that. Since I came to skellige at around lvl 20, I ended up with a bunch of grey quests that gave no experience and no useful items at all.

But otherwise, I was never hurting for content, my quest log always had at least a half dozen contracts or secondary quests that were right around my level, and other than a few wonky areas in Velen, the monsters in the Novigrad region seemed to have a much smoother level curve.

 

[Silence]

snip

I was playing medium armor Attack Power / Signs mix with more Skills in Attack Power.

Explains a lot. :[

 

[EternallyBored]

snip

I was playing medium armor Attack Power / Signs mix with more Skills in Attack Power.

Explains a lot. :[

If you mess up your build, or just want to experiment, there's a merchant that sells talent reset potions for 1000 crowns in Novigrad. I created a hard save and messed around with various builds before setting out for Skellige.

I used a similar build to what you describe, 80-90% sword and adrenaline skill mixed with a couple of sign skills. Griffen armor tends to work better with a heavy sign build as the intensity bonuses will make your signs monstrously powerful, I did some experimenting with a late game heavy sign build, and griffen armor makes it possible to just devastate anything in your way, mix it with a tawny owl potion and you can beat bosses without ever drawing your sword.

For a melee build though, Cat or Bear armor is better, Cat is good for being light and letting you basically spam signs (since light armor doesn't decrease stamina regen) while dodging in and out of melee, whereas Bear turns Geralt into a melee tank that crits often and crits hard, coupled with a melee build, pretty much any crit will cause smaller enemies to dismember.

The armor and swords also change how they look as you upgrade them.

 

[Casual Shinji]

All of which is varied and unique.

Ehhhh... while the sidequest design is all around decent, to be fair there are an awful lot of "Go here, follow trail, kill something" quests.

Sure, but there's generally a varied narrative framing to it. I never felt like I was just a messenger boy pasing notes along. The game pushes tracking like it's going out of style, but usually it leads to an interesting revelation regarding someone doing something shady to someone else, a treasure, or a follow-up quest.

The only real recurring "quests" I've come across are clearing bandits/monsters from settlements, destroying monster nests, and guarded treasures. And those situations lend themselves well to horse combat, which I've taking a real liking to. Horse combat can also make those 'red skull' level enemies quite doable.

Hmmmmmm, since people seem to be in the know here about what levels should be at. I'm around level 5 or 6 I think and I've just meet the Peller for The Bloody Baron's questline. This average, high, too low? I restarted the game recently and I'm curious to know if I should continue, or wait and start another new game when the patch comes out?

As long as there's no red skull icon infront of it you'll manage. This goes for enemies as well.

 

[The Madman]

Something that has been really impressing me that doesn't seem to be getting enough credit is the voice acting, or rather the voice acting plus animation details. I don't think I've seen a cast of characters that seemed this lively and, well, alive in a game in ages.

In the original Witcher I was one of those people who said 'Just play with the polish voice acting with subtitles, it's a unique and better experience.' and while the Enhanced Edition for 1 and the sequel Witcher 2 were major improvements in that regard, the voices were still often as stiff as the character animations were. For all the beautiful high resolution character models Witcher 2 often suffered from puppet syndrome where they looked neat but didn't quite look right because of how the character models moved and emoted.

Witcher 3 doesn't have the problem. Quite the opposite in fact, even side characters are often portrayed in a totally believable manner. To give an example there's some random elf assassin you interrogate briefly during a quest line, I can't really remember her name right now and ultimately she's just a bit player in a side-quest so nothing important, but I'll be damned if I didn't love her performance. Drunkenly sipping her drink and making snarky remarks, she felt like she had a story behind her, that there was more to her than just being some random stepping stone for story progression and it was great. And that's only one NPC in a game with dozens if not hundreds of them you'll talk and interact with throughout the games length!

Even Geralt delivers his best performance yet. People often complain about his stoic wooden voice and as much as I liked Witcher 1 and 2 and even knowing the reason for his tone, I can still totally understand and even agree with that complaint to a degree. In Witcher 3 however he's fantastic. I don't know whether the voice actor has just grown into his role of whether there's better directing or even just more money for multiple takes and tries for every line, but his delivery in some important emotional scenes is great. In fact other than a few children's voices which were very obviously done by adults doing their best squeaky kids impression, I can't think of a single piece of voice acting that wasn't at the least damned solid. The days of saying 'try it with the Polish voiceovers' is over for certain.

So yeah, still loving the game obviously.

 

[Silence]

Yennefer sidequest in Skellige

Spoiler

If you deny her at the end, the whole story is so great. I think it would be even better if you read the books.

Yennefer is such a great character (and had I known her beforehand, I might even have denied Triss and tried to go full Yen, but now I already confessed my love to Triss ... wouldn't fit to go for both (and I also read what happens if you do, but I felt it coming naturally now, not just "shit don't want this ending").

Funny how the her wish played a joke on her at the end.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

As long as there's no red skull icon infront of it you'll manage. This goes for enemies as well.

lol made this mistake..was going on one of the scavenger/loot hunts for special witcher armor, HOLY SHIT did that wyvern smack the bejeezus out of me, nearly a one hit curb stomp, luckily the direction I was smacked was back toward the cave opening so I could escape.

OT: to anyone who thinks dragon age inquisition (or skyrim for that matter) has more quests/is more filled than witcher 3...

try again. I was drinking caffiene drinks galore to be able to push through inquisition, while in the witcher 3 I can't kick a rock without finding another quest or random villager to help with something.

 

[Nimzabaat]

You are unnaturally low-leveled to be in Novigrad. I don't think I even pulled up to Novigrad until I was level 14-15. You might want to check to see if you got nipped by the XP freeze bug.

[I spent hours yesterday just trying to find a quest in my level range with no success.

You too. It's completely bizarre that you should be struggling this hard to find content.

I know right. It's 3 times bigger than Skyrim but with barely 1/10 of the content. As for the "really interesting sidequests" they are certainly there, and quite memorable, but not nearly as frequent as i'd like. Maybe 1 per play session (2-4 hours at my current schedule). So better in the quests area than Skyrim, but not quite as good as Oblivion

I think you're right about the no-xp glitch. I hadn't heard about that but I did everything I could find in White Orchard and ended up at level 4. If it is a glitch that could explain a bit of my current frustration with the game.

 

[Laughing Man]

So yeah this game just went up my opinion list, similar games to this that i've played are Oblivion, Skyrim the Final Fantasy games and Dragons Age and after just finishing the Bloody Baron and Crones of Crookback Bog quest lines I can easily say this game pisses all over those games.

The Bloody Baron was a superb, well written well acted character and his quest line elicited a level of emotional interest in me that no game I can think of has managed, (maybe Aeris death in FF7) with the outcome to the quest lines and the fact my decisions had brought about the outcome actually really saddened me.

17% complete so far and my god if the remaining 83% is even half as good as these two quest lines.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I know right. It's 3 times bigger than Skyrim but with barely 1/10 of the content. As for the "really interesting sidequests" they are certainly there, and quite memorable, but not nearly as frequent as i'd like. Maybe 1 per play session (2-4 hours at my current schedule). So better in the quests area than Skyrim, but not quite as good as Oblivion

I think you're right about the no-xp glitch. I hadn't heard about that but I did everything I could find in White Orchard and ended up at level 4. If it is a glitch that could explain a bit of my current frustration with the game.

I was a huge Skyrim fan, and it was my GOTY for 2011. Witcher 3 has *significantly* more of what I would consider genuine crafted content. The main story absolutely blows Skyrim's out of the water, and the side quests are many orders of magnitude better.

Skyrim is more of a sandbox, and will appeal more from a "mod it to hell and back and do whatever you want" point of view, but as a structured gaming experience Witcher 3 towers over it.

~level 4 after White Orchard is not too bad (I was somewhere between level 4-6, cannot recall offhand). I never struggled to find content in the game, and never went more than a few minutes without doing something level appropriate. Velen, due to sheer size, makes it pretty easy to blunder into over-leveled encounters early, but certainly not to the point where that's all I could find.

If you've found yourself stalled out and literally cannot find new quests that are level-appropriate, you've most definitely run afoul of the experience bug. Either use the console to gift yourself some xp to make up the shortfall, or wait for a patch and restart the game from an older save.

17% complete so far and my god if the remaining 83% is even half as good as these two quest lines.

Those two quest lines are definitely high points, but far from the only ones so far. You definitely have stuff to look forward to.

Have you done the quest "A Towerful of Mice" yet? I thought it was excellent, and it crops up around your level.