The Witcher 3 discussion and nitpicking, and praise

[Arina Love]

I've decided to give Witcher franchise another try so here is my thoughts

1. Character animation, everything from running to combat is absolute shit.

2. Too many things to loot, DA:I did crafting better imo.

3. Game is not really optimized for middle PC hardware, i struggle with my GTX 970.

4. As always main character is dry and uninteresting, but world and adventures to be had in that world keeps me in game for now.

So far i'm enjoying it more than Witcher 2 but mainly because of the open world. I fear it will share the fate of W2 and i will abandon the game when i'm done/tired with the world and story/characters didn't grab me.

 

[Silence]

Two words:

Bloody Baron.


Edit: There is an article on Eurogamer about the graphics stuff. They plan loads and loads of patches. Let's see where this leads.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-05-19-cd-projekt-red-tackles-the-witcher-3-graphics-downgrade-issue-head-on

On another note, I found out I could push my graphics a lot higher than I thought. That's nice. Still runs like a charm on my R9 280.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

So far I've noticed a fair few animation glitches and hiccups which have bothered me a little and ruined the immersion. For example items that have their own animation pattern that are attached to characters (like the wolf medallion for example) seem to bounced around or vibrate during cutscenes. I've seen some pretty bad animations in cutscenes like when people are eating for example and they just move their wooden hand and rub food on their mouths seemingly. There's also the horse getting stuck on trees and terrain or in walls and such, not a big deal but it ruins my immersion meaning I have to get out of range and call the horse to me again.

Other than that it would be nice if quick access keys to the menus weren't locked and actually were rebindable. I don't see the point in locking keys, at all, ever. To holster your sword is C, which isn't even in the key rebinding menu, so I can't use C for anything useful which is annoying because C is one of my most used keys. I would like to able to lock onto targets with C but it puts my damn sword away.

Some other very smalls things that are a little bothersome but despite all that I'm really enjoying the game so far. I'm in the second area now and my god it's absolutely massive on it's own. It'll take me a couple months to finish this game at least I reckon. Boat load of fun.

 

[RyQ_TMC]

So, patch 1.03 is out. Haven't installed it yet, but judging by the list of fixes, it should eliminate some minor technical issues I've experienced.

So I've finished the first chapter (White Orchard & the griffin fight). One question the game failed to address so far: what's up with the locked chests? Are there specific keys for each chest, or is there a general "key" resource? I'm asking cause I've found two locked chests, tried searching around them with Witvision, but no keys to be found...

I'm not sure if it was meant to happen but in the first village I helped the Griffon victim in the herbalist hut and when I returned for a later quest she had gone, but half way through my conversation she came back and lay back down on her bed.

I had the same thing happen to me. I wonder if it's some kind of bug where she spawns outside or gets some pathing into her AI for some reason, or if it's supposed to be a little shorthand for "she got better, but still needs to lie down a lot". A bug is more likely, I assume if they wanted to communicate that she got better, they'd make her possible to talk to.

I'm enjoying the combat for the most part but bandits/deserters with two handed axes are annoying cause they can block all your attacks and hit through all your blocks.

Two ways I managed to deal with that problem was to either sign them and hit while they're vulnerable, or dodge roll behind them and strike from the back. They're still annoying.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

3. Game is not really optimized for middle PC hardware, i struggle with my GTX 970.

Are you sure it's not your processor or something else? I'm running the game on a single GTX 570 and it runs fine. Granted, I have all the settings set to low and the framerate to 30 FPS, but even with that the game still looks gorgeous.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

3. Game is not really optimized for middle PC hardware, i struggle with my GTX 970.

I have a 770 and once I tweaked some settings everything is running really smooth on high/ultra. There are like, 2-3 problematic things to address.

The foliage setting is a major FPS killer...turn that down first (mine is set to medium).

Make sure you're in full screen, the game defaults to borderless window and this causes a slight FPS loss.

Turn off NVidia hairworks, it causes massive FPS loss. Not sure about post-patch, but that feature alone dropped me from 50+ to 10-20 FPS.

 

[Fallow]

So, patch 1.03 is out. Haven't installed it yet, but judging by the list of fixes, it should eliminate some minor technical issues I've experienced.

So I've finished the first chapter (White Orchard & the griffin fight). One question the game failed to address so far: what's up with the locked chests? Are there specific keys for each chest, or is there a general "key" resource? I'm asking cause I've found two locked chests, tried searching around them with Witvision, but no keys to be found...

I'm not sure if it was meant to happen but in the first village I helped the Griffon victim in the herbalist hut and when I returned for a later quest she had gone, but half way through my conversation she came back and lay back down on her bed.

I had the same thing happen to me. I wonder if it's some kind of bug where she spawns outside or gets some pathing into her AI for some reason, or if it's supposed to be a little shorthand for "she got better, but still needs to lie down a lot". A bug is more likely, I assume if they wanted to communicate that she got better, they'd make her possible to talk to.

I'm enjoying the combat for the most part but bandits/deserters with two handed axes are annoying cause they can block all your attacks and hit through all your blocks.

Two ways I managed to deal with that problem was to either sign them and hit while they're vulnerable, or dodge roll behind them and strike from the back. They're still annoying.

Check the nearby bridge. Under the surface you should find a chest (locked), and just by the bridge foundation you should find a corpse. The corpse will solve your key related problems.

 

[mad825]

All I can say at the moment is that I'm chasing after a girl who I've never known before TW3 (who also has the elder blood even though a little boy know as Alvin has it as well) for a girl I've also never met before TW3. My comrades and past enemies seem to be non-existent and I'm not liking it.

 

[The Madman]

So after having played a fair bit more and gotten a good taste of the game I'm still really digging it. Also how the how the hell are people complaining about this games visuals, the game looks mind-blowingly good and with my 780 runs perfectly smooth with just a few tweaked settings.

The weather effects and the character models both stand out as exceptional. Unlike most games, even recent ones like DA:Inquisition, there's no noticeable 'seam' when characters change facial expressions, no little click when you can see the npc just went from happy mode to sad more and whatnot. Facial animation is all very seamless and ridiculously good even on minor characters and side-quests. Meanwhile the weather is just stunning, I haven't been this drawn in by a games weather system since the STALKER games. Trees swaying and creaking, misty rain making it hard to see, trees casting shadows that bounce and dance all over the place, it looks stunning!

Screenshots really just don't do this game justice, it looks so much better in motion.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Trees swaying and creaking, misty rain making it hard to see, trees casting shadows that bounce and dance all over the place, it looks stunning!

Agreed, with the caveat that Geralt's hair is always blowing around as though he were in a strong gale, regardless of whether or not he's indoors.

 

[The Madman]

Agreed, with the caveat that Geralt's hair is always blowing around as though he were in a strong gale, regardless of whether or not he's indoors.

Well that's just protagonist syndrome, it happens in most cases in which capes and/or long hair are involved.

Frankly I'd be more surprised if his hair wasn't majestically blowing in the wind in every scene.

 

[RyQ_TMC]

Check the nearby bridge. Under the surface you should find a chest (locked), and just by the bridge foundation you should find a corpse. The corpse will solve your key related problems.

Thanks for the help!

I'm in Velen now, and the first moments were... overwhelming. You get dropped in the middle of a huge area, with a main quest marker pointing to a place a fair distance away... There is a village close by with little going on except a notice board. As I decided to progress along the main quest for a bit, the game dropped several quests on my lap, with wildly varied recommended level range (one is for lvl 33, come on, I'm only 4). And I quickly gathered a lot of loot (enough to overencumber me) that my main focus was to find a store... Which seemed to be missing in every village.

The game is back to its former self now, with interesting quests and varied locales, so I'm drawn back in with force. But those 15 min or so, being dropped into the middle of nowhere with very little direction, was probably the low point of the experience so far.

 

[Amaror]

Well, I have it, but I got it as a freebie after getting parts for a computer upgrade. Judging from the comments, it sounds like I should do the actual upgrading before I install the game. Considering how my computer handled Far Cry 4, I doubt that my current graphics card is up to snuff for Witcher 3.

Anyway, I need to stop reading all of this praise. My friend isn't coming to help me upgrade until Saturday and the anticipation is killing me.

If your just upgrading your graphics card it's really easy.
1. Uninstall you graphic cards driver and manually download the one for you new card, but don't install it.
2. Shut down the pc and unplug the power.
3. press the "start" button of the pc once to make sure there's no power in it. If you want to be super duper sure there's no problems you can touch a heater to make sure you're not charged yourself.
4. unplug the old graphics card and remember which cables were in it.
5. Plug in the new card which the same cables(They are for power btw.)
6. plug all cables back into the pc, start it, install the new driver and your good to go.

On topic of the game: It's awesoem.

 

[Fallow]

Check the nearby bridge. Under the surface you should find a chest (locked), and just by the bridge foundation you should find a corpse. The corpse will solve your key related problems.

Thanks for the help!

I'm in Velen now, and the first moments were... overwhelming. You get dropped in the middle of a huge area, with a main quest marker pointing to a place a fair distance away... There is a village close by with little going on except a notice board. As I decided to progress along the main quest for a bit, the game dropped several quests on my lap, with wildly varied recommended level range (one is for lvl 33, come on, I'm only 4). And I quickly gathered a lot of loot (enough to overencumber me) that my main focus was to find a store... Which seemed to be missing in every village.

The game is back to its former self now, with interesting quests and varied locales, so I'm drawn back in with force. But those 15 min or so, being dropped into the middle of nowhere with very little direction, was probably the low point of the experience so far.

I lost my cool there. Went to see Hendrik and some uggo pissed me off. I killed them all, snuck out the back to avoid his friends, then had a change of heart, ran up to the front and killed his friends too, set fire to the wagons and rammed the horses.
Sometimes you just have to put your foot down.

 

[MrCalavera_v1legacy]

All I can say at the moment is that I'm chasing after a girl who I've never known before TW3 (who also has the elder blood even though a little boy know as Alvin has it as well) for a girl I've also never met before TW3. My comrades and past enemies seem to be non-existent and I'm not liking it.

Spoiler: Some major spoiler from the book series.

That's because Ciri was the original descendant of the Elder Blood in the books, which made her special and essentially turned into living MacGuffin. She was also a daughter-like figure to Geralt. REDs tried to re-enact that in first Witcher - it's turned out pale in comparison, imho.

 

[DemomanHusband]

Seeing all this talk of Gwent and giving up on it, I have to ask. Does anyone know how it works? I thought I had a good idea of what was going on in the tutorial, but then my opponent and I all used our "return certain row power to 1" cards, and just when I was about to pass on my turn to see what happened, my game crashed! It's almost as if the game itself understood that we were in a pickle and just scattered the table before we could call a draw.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Seeing all this talk of Gwent and giving up on it, I have to ask. Does anyone know how it works?

Yeah, I know how it works.

What specifically are you confused about?

 

[DemomanHusband]

Seeing all this talk of Gwent and giving up on it, I have to ask. Does anyone know how it works?

Yeah, I know how it works.

What specifically are you confused about?

I'm not really sure where to start. How do you determine the winner, I suppose? Like I said in my previous post, my tutorial match ended with every row power dampening card being played and it crashed when I finally passed to see what happens. Does passing earlier on before I play my effect cards do anything? Is there any way to prevent the game from becoming "smack down all your cards and hope you had more"?

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I'm not really sure where to start. How do you determine the winner, I suppose? Like I said in my previous post, my tutorial match ended with every row power dampening card being played and it crashed when I finally passed to see what happens. Does passing earlier on before I play my effect cards do anything? Is there any way to prevent the game from becoming "smack down all your cards and hope you had more"?

The winner of a round is determined by score (which is determined by card power). The winner of the game entire is determined by whomever wins 2 of 3 rounds. Nilfgaard decks win ties.

The best way to try and secure victory is to have at least one throwaway round where you try and gain card advantage, usually by playing spies (who give your enemy attack power, but draw you two cards). As you are only ever playing with a portion of your deck, card advantage is extremely powerful. One trick is to use decoys (return a card on the battlefield to your hand) on enemy spies so you can play them again yourself. AI loves to do this.

It seems like you already understand how weather cards work. There are other abilities that can directly remove cards, bolster rows. Some cards have abilities that call other cards into (or back into) play.

Generally speaking you want high card strength (10 is the maximum), good synergy, good variety of card type (so you don't get neutered by a single weather card), and good special abilities like medic. Hero cards cannot be affected by buffs or weather (they have a gold sun around their power).

Whenever you pass, you basically indicate you are done playing cards. You cannot take another turn after passing. If the AI does it, they are either completely out of plays, or they are conceding that round. If you're planning on throwing a round to gain/maintain a card advantage, it can be fruitful to try and bait the AI into playing some good cards, then either clawing your bait back with a decoy or dumping a bunch of spies on them to make their advantage crushing, and then just conceding.

 

[DemomanHusband]

I'm not really sure where to start. How do you determine the winner, I suppose? Like I said in my previous post, my tutorial match ended with every row power dampening card being played and it crashed when I finally passed to see what happens. Does passing earlier on before I play my effect cards do anything? Is there any way to prevent the game from becoming "smack down all your cards and hope you had more"?

The winner of a round is determined by score (which is determined by card power). The winner of the game entire is determined by whomever wins 2 of 3 rounds. Nilfgaard decks win ties.

The best way to try and secure victory is to have at least one throwaway round where you try and gain card advantage, usually by playing spies (who give your enemy attack power, but draw you two cards). As you are only ever playing with a portion of your deck, card advantage is extremely powerful. One trick is to use decoys (return a card on the battlefield to your hand) on enemy spies so you can play them again yourself. AI loves to do this.

It seems like you already understand how weather cards work. There are other abilities that can directly remove cards, bolster rows. Some cards have abilities that call other cards into (or back into) play.

Generally speaking you want high card strength (10 is the maximum), good synergy, good variety of card type (so you don't get neutered by a single weather card), and good special abilities like medic. Hero cards cannot be affected by buffs or weather (they have a gold sun around their power).

Whenever you pass, you basically indicate you are done playing cards. You cannot take another turn after passing. If the AI does it, they are either completely out of plays, or they are conceding that round. If you're planning on throwing a round to gain/maintain a card advantage, it can be fruitful to try and bait the AI into playing some good cards, then either clawing your bait back with a decoy or dumping a bunch of spies on them to make their advantage crushing, and then just conceding.

Hmm, okay. I think I understand it better now, the AI must've just been pretty stubborn in the tutorial. Hopefully the game won't crash if I decide to play it again, thanks!