Witcher 3: Odrin is the Wild Hunt

[l2 0 5 5]

Figured I'd make a separate thread for W3 so it didn't clog the Video Game feed.

Just played a couple hours and I'm pretty overwhelmed with where to start. I ventured off to the notice board, and thought the ghost well quest looked like a spooky place to start. It took me a little under thirty minutes to complete.

I haven't had many battle opportunities yet (like 3), but I'm enjoying the combat so far.

Did anyone else go a different direction?

[Jack Bauer 24]

Picked this up today at Target and got the Prima guide for free with it. Sweet deal. Can't wait to dig into this, but probably won't be able to until tomorrow. Snagged it on PS4.

I was really debating going digital, but I wanted the compendium, map, and soundtrack.

[Mark Antony]

Went in blind and got this cause I really needed something new to play. Only played like an hour but am enjoying the hell out of it.

[KiDisaster]

Does the fall damage in game seem ridiculous to anyone else? I'm talking falling less than the height of Geralt and losing 70%+ of my HP. The fuck?

[Sheep the Evicted]

Right, so its a great game, massive, incredible visuals and the character work - voice acting and the expressiveness of faces - is so far ahead of everything else that it will probably be seen as a gaming landmark. Having said all that im not here to rave, im here to rant!

Despite what everyone says the combat is pretty much the same but worse - or rather the difficulty is borked Well first of all i'm talking about the highest difficulty, which is the setting i play all the witcher games on, no idea why i don't even like Dark Souls, but there it is. Now both Witcher 1 and 2 had crazy reverse difficulty curves where it was near impossible at the start but then it all becomes trivial button mashing when you level up. To counter this CDP have given every monster a level indication and filled every area with mobs ranging from difficult-to-fight all the way to OMG!-RUUUUUUN!!. There is no in-game explanation for this though; in the second game at least he had amnesia in this one im Geralt of fucking Rivia and I spend half my monster hunting career fleeing for my life. This is not an exaggeration. I can't even fight two or more DOGS at the same time so instead i keep trying to draw them away and kill them one by one with varied results. And when i do finally succeed in my epic quest to kill a wild pack of dogs that takes 3/4 of my health bar, most of my food reserves and the better part of 10 real life minutes i get roughly 25 experience. Which is why i've been playing for the last 15 hours and i'm still only level 5. Partly my fault I forget to keep spamming quick save (the one major negative to playing with a controller) and so i can lose half an hours progress just by randomly running into a pack of ghouls (or even just one ghoul, i may suck a little).

Combats not all bad though; one on one its extremely fun and requires the use of all of Geralts abilities. So far i have managed to clear every big monster on the first attempt and i haven't had to cheese to do it just potions and preparation. But the mobs, dear lord the mobs; how is it I fear a pack of wild dogs more than I do a Griffin. Despite how fun the small scale and set-piece fights have been i think im gonna have to lower the difficulty. Or maybe i need to watch some other people playing on twitch first; there is probably an optimal group fighting strategy that i'm just too stupid to have worked out. Then again there is no better way to kill the thrill of combat then working out "the strategy!"

Oh and potions and oils suck in this game, why do they suck?!? Im a witcher !

[Jack Bauer 24]

What's the early word on console graphics and the soundtrack?

[l2 0 5 5]

Does the fall damage in game seem ridiculous to anyone else? I'm talking falling less than the height of Geralt and losing 70%+ of my HP. The fuck?

Right? I fell off that crumbled bridge (the lower end) at the Nilfgard camp and died.

The load times are obnoxious.

Right, so its a great game, massive, incredible visuals and the character work - voice acting and the expressiveness of faces - is so far ahead of everything else that it will probably be seen as a gaming landmark. Having said all that im not here to rave, im here to rant!

Despite what everyone says the combat is pretty much the same but worse - or rather the difficulty is borked Well first of all i'm talking about the highest difficulty, which is the setting i play all the witcher games on, no idea why i don't even like Dark Souls, but there it is. Now both Witcher 1 and 2 had crazy reverse difficulty curves where it was near impossible at the start but then it all becomes trivial button mashing when you level up. To counter this CDP have given every monster a level indication and filled every area with mobs ranging from difficult-to-fight all the way to OMG!-RUUUUUUN!!. There is no in-game explanation for this though; in the second game at least he had amnesia in this one im Geralt of fucking Rivia and I spend half my monster hunting career fleeing for my life. This is not an exaggeration. I can't even fight two or more DOGS at the same time so instead i keep trying to draw them away and kill them one by one with varied results. And when i do finally succeed in my epic quest to kill a wild pack of dogs that takes 3/4 of my health bar, most of my food reserves and the better part of 10 real life minutes i get roughly 25 experience. Which is why i've been playing for the last 15 hours and i'm still only level 5. Partly my fault I forget to keep spamming quick save (the one major negative to playing with a controller) and so i can lose half an hours progress just by randomly running into a pack of ghouls (or even just one ghoul, i may suck a little).

Combats not all bad though; one on one its extremely fun and requires the use of all of Geralts abilities. So far i have managed to clear every big monster on the first attempt and i haven't had to cheese to do it just potions and preparation. But the mobs, dear lord the mobs; how is it I fear a pack of wild dogs more than I do a Griffin. Despite how fun the small scale and set-piece fights have been i think im gonna have to lower the difficulty. Or maybe i need to watch some other people playing on twitch first; there is probably an optimal group fighting strategy that i'm just too stupid to have worked out. Then again there is no better way to kill the thrill of combat then working out "the strategy!"

Oh and potions and oils suck in this game, why do they suck?!? Im a witcher !

I've also noticed myself having to lead dogs/wargs/wolves out one by one to fight them opposed to taking on the whole pack (which is what I'd like to do).

[Jack Bauer 24]

Right? I fell off that crumbled bridge (the lower end) at the Nilfgard camp and died.

The load times are obnoxious.

I've also noticed myself having to lead dogs/wargs/wolves out one by one to fight them opposed to taking on the whole pack (which is what I'd like to do).

What difficulty are you on? You guys are probably taking more fall damage on the highest difficulty.

And I thought the world is seamless. Only loads when you boot up the game and/or die and load a save? Not a single loading scene going from one area to another and entering all interiors are seamless?

[l2 0 5 5]

What difficulty are you on? You guys are probably taking more fall damage on the highest difficulty.

And I thought the world is seamless. Only loads when you boot up the game and/or die and load a save? Not a single loading scene going from one area to another and entering all interiors are seamless?

I'm one level below the hardest. It has some cute phrase for it, but it's slipping my mind atm.

And yeah, I'm talking about when I die (which is happening a good bit as of right now).

[Jack Bauer 24]

I'm one level below the hardest. It has some cute phrase for it, but it's slipping my mind atm.

And yeah, I'm talking about when I die (which is happening a good bit as of right now).

Oh ok. I'm not going to be able to play until tomorrow, but I think I'm going to just explore. Only play the story missions that are required before free roam becomes available.

[AndrewJ]

What's the early word on console graphics and the soundtrack?

I'm only an hour or so in - hope to get a reasonable amount of time in this eveing (my wife may have other ideas). But in any case, from the little of seen I think the graphics are pretty damn good on PS4 - and no significant performance issues (a slight bit of slow down when I exited the inn and went out into the world - but nothing game-breaking).

I'm not really some-one who notices soundtracks much - unless they're exceptionally good or exceptionally bad. So... neither of those, i guess (in the first hour or two, at least).

[l2 0 5 5]

The soundtrack hasn't caught my attention in the slightest.

I'm prepping to fight the griffin now.

I've already heard an NPC in the pub mention Dandelion. I wonder when I'll come across that ne'er-do-well.

[KiDisaster]

I'm playing on 'Normal' difficulty (Sword and Story or whatever they called it) and still taking insane fall damage so I don't think difficulty is the issue. Apparently if you press dodge right before you hit the ground you'll roll and mitigate most if not all of the damage. I'll try that next time.

Haven't had any issue with loading screens either. Running off a SSD and they're basically nonexistent. Less than a second for fast travel. Haven't died yet so I can't speak on that.

Just killed the Griffin. Wasn't hard, just took a long time. Think I might bump the difficulty up to Blood and Broken Bones and see what happens.

[Sheep the Evicted]

Thanks for the tip didn't notice the fall damage till you mentioned it. Just like i didn't notice the particularly long loading times till Sheepherder mentioned them; moving the game to my SSD hopefully that will sort things. Also if you find the option to change difficulties let me know as I sure as hell can't.

As for me I seem to have jinxed it when i said the bosses were easier than the mobs. Just ran into the wild hunt; got my ass kicked a dozen times. But finally after throwing every potion, potato and chicken leg i had at him I prevailed.

[Gears of the Beast]

As I said in the VG thread GOG installed the game onto my SSD and I haven't noticed any loading whatsoever, SSDs are the best thing ever.

Thanks for the tip didn't notice the fall damage till you mentioned it. Just like i didn't notice the particularly long loading times till Sheepherder mentioned them; moving the game to my SSD hopefully that will sort things. Also if you find the option to change difficulties let me know as I sure as hell can't.

When in-game go options>gameplay and it'll be there.

[Sheep the Evicted]

As I said in the VG thread GOG installed the game onto my SSD and I haven't noticed any loading whatsoever, SSDs are the best thing ever.

When in-game go options>gameplay and it'll be there.

Nope, not there. First place i looked. Steam version. Death March difficulty.

[Gears of the Beast]

Nope, not there. First place i looked. Steam version. Death March difficulty.

Are you in-game when doing it? It only appears for me when I'm in-game (i.e not at the start menu when you first launch the game).

[Mark Antony]

I stopped last night right before fighting the griffin. Did a couple side quests. It's a gorgeous game, I like riding my horse around and just looking at the scenery. Reminds me of when I played Red Dead :)

[Fez]

Oh how I wish there was a different main character. Still, the reviews are very positive for the most part, and I may have to reconsider skipping this, depending on what people are saying once they start beating it. I'm not liking what I'm hearing about the combat so far though (and I hated The Witcher 2's combat). The other thing I'll be interested to hear about is if it does a better job integrating the side content into the main story than Dragon Age: Inquisition did? Because I generally don't like having a tight main narrative stretched out and broken up by huge amounts of side content that starts to feel very same-y by hour 20 and there's still 40+ hours of it to go (Its fine when there's tons of side content if that's really the point of the game, like Skyrim; but not when its interrupting the main story).

[MerenthaClone]

Oh how I wish there was a different main character. Still, the reviews are very positive for the most part, and I may have to reconsider skipping this, depending on what people are saying once they start beating it. I'm not liking what I'm hearing about the combat so far though (and I hated The Witcher 2's combat). The other thing I'll be interested to hear about is if it does a better job integrating the side content into the main story than Dragon Age: Inquisition did? Because I generally don't like having a tight main narrative stretched out and broken up by huge amounts of side content that starts to feel very same-y by hour 20 and there's still 40+ hours of it to go (Its fine when there's tons of side content if that's really the point of the game, like Skyrim; but not when its interrupting the main story).

It does a better job than DAI, imo, but I'm biased. I liked all the Witcher games and ranged from mildly enjoying to actively angry about all of the DA games.

The combat is pretty similar to Witcher 2, imo. A little more control than W2 but you'll still sometimes press an attack button and spin around before hitting them. Not the absurd variation you'd get in W2, but its there and occasionally maddening. I'm having a lot of fun with it, but again, I enjoyed W2. For people having trouble with groups: bombs and Igni work great on the swarming pack animals. For some reason, Igni is (often) one-shotting wolves/dogs in the starting area.