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[Exentryk]

A user named Shavod on the official Witcher 3 forums gathered new info from a polish Q&A (made by the guys who played the game, without RED's participation) and articles from unrelated websites for the sake of clarification about certain subject matters.

- there are many different types of additional weapons that you can pick up. What's interesting, you need a higher level in order to be able to use it

- weapons (including swords) will not last forever and can be destroyed if used too much. You need to regularly pay a visit to a craftsman to maintain it

- HUD is very customizable. There are several options available, including turning off minimap and all sorts of notifications if you so desire

- all graphical settings are present in in-game menu

- enemies will parry crossbow's bolts with a shields

- skill tree is really massive. There are 5 trees (according to witchersite there was 4, so I'm not sure who is closer to the truth), each has 5 tiers and each tier contains 5 skills. Every skill has 3 or 4 levels to unlock. Even though later Geralt will gain more skill points per level it's still will be impossible to unlock all of it

- after unlocking the skill it needs to be activated. You do that by putting it into separate tree, which contains a limited number of slots (it will increase with character's progress). Activated skills affects Geralt's fighting style. Activating set of skills from the same category will increase it's effects. It adds another layer to preparations and tactical planning, as you have to choose an appropriate set of active skills depending on what kind of opponent you going to face (for example, if you going to fight with heavily armored knights, you can activate Igni upgrade that allows you to melt armors)

- there are also four slots for mutagens, which also affects your abilities

- temporary companions are quite helpful and even use different fighting styles. For example, one woman that accompany them waited for a right moment while enemies were focused on Geralt to backstab them for massive damage

- game is pretty difficult, as you can die even on easy if you're not careful

- some details about dynamic weather: there will be snow, different phases of day/night, different stages of cloudiness, storms, a few types of rain and even a morning mist

- enemy AI is really good. Wolves and bandits spread to cut off all of Geralt's escape routes. If you kill their respective leaders, they end up completely disorganized. One enemy can use himself as a living bait to give the rest of his squad a chance to put Geralt in a corner If you set up a trap or Yrden sign in front of the enemy, he will avoid it

- NPC's models are very diverse and interior of every hut looks different, so there will be no feeling of deja vu

Up: Devs shared some more info:

Q: Explain the skills and armors then.
A: Okay. Activated skills determine tactics. You choose (activate) some of them and you have resources to manage (stamina and adrenaline), so behaviour in combat depends on skill choices. In other words, to use your build properly, you cast signs, parry, dodge and hit with you sword more or less frequently. Some skills grant additional signs modes or special blows.

There are 3 types of armor elements: light, medium and heavy. Protection they grant is less important than synergy with combat tactics they are designed for. For example heavy armor favors aggressive swordfighting. But you can mix armor elements to balance bonuses they offer.

If you like to tweak and customize, you'll find it attractive, I think.

Here's the way the skill development works.

There are 4 groups of skills. Swordsmanship, Alchemy, Signs and Miscellaneous. The fifth group some folks were talking about is Mutagens.

As you level up the character, you unlock various skills. You can then assign them to one of the slots. Assigning a skill to a slot makes it active - you can activate and deactivate skills at will making custom builds to suit your current needs best. There are up to 12 slots (+ 4 for mutagens) which are being unlocked as you progress - mutagens modify skills making the skills stronger. To make mutagens even more effective, it's best to use the same type of mutagen and skills in one combination.

We've talked about it but ultimately there will be no presets.

 

[KINGofCRA5H]

this is good

 

[LegalEagleMike]

Glad to hear about weapon diversity and durability.

Hope the skill trees are balanced. Witcher 2 felt like you had to take the sword tree or you were just wasting your points.

 

[-MD-]

Hope most of that is true as it all sounds good.

 

[Crossing Eden]

- some details about dynamic weather: there will be snow, different phases of day/night, different stages of cloudiness, storms, a few types of rain and even a morning mist

- enemy AI is really good. Wolves and bandits spread to cut off all of Geralt's escape routes. If you kill their respective leaders, they end up completely disorganized. One enemy can use himself as a living bait to give the rest of his squad a chance to put Geralt in a corner If you set up a trap or Yrden sign in front of the enemy, he will avoid it

- NPC's models are very diverse and interior of every hut looks different, so there will be no feeling of deja vu

Oh my god this game is gonna be so good.

 

[Xaero Gravity]

A lack of Dynamic weather and a day/night cycle were my biggest issues with the world of Dragon Age: Inquisition, so this has me even more hyped.

 

[texhnolyze]

Love it, especially the AI part.
That note on easy difficulty may worry some gamers though.

 

[inky]

- all graphical settings are present in in-game menu

Cool. I hated having to relaunch the game every time I made some changes

 

[FourMyle]

Hope most of that is true as it all sounds good.

.

Specially the weapon diversity part. I do not want to be using swords all the time.

 

[Philippo]

morning mist

This + disabled UI =

 

[TheStruggler]

how about showing console footage for once ps4 to be exact i want to see how it performs and not just a still screen of all versions being shown on diff tvs

 

[Crossing Eden]

This + disabled UI =

Would be really sweet if they patched in a photo mode.

 

[Philippo]

Would be really sweet if they patched in a photo mode.

This, so much this.
We can only hope...

 

[Mifec]

Well we already saw that the NPC's look better than in Unity, the diversity is a nice touch if true

 

[Super Stardust]

I hate having to maintain weapons but other than that it all sounds good

 

[Alo0oy]

I really need to clear my insane backlog very soon, I don't want to be very late to Bloodborne & this.

 

[NavyPharaoh]

I think rotating out skills sounds dumb. I would like some type of justification behind it. I mean what, Geralt didn't bring his armor melting igni to this fight, just the normal one? If your Igni can melt armor then it can melt armor. It doesn't make any sense that you need to equip it.

 

[Glass]

I don't mind a generally harder game then many are used to, so long as the learning curve is more balanced and the intro section/tutorial is more forgiving then the original Witcher 2, the number of people who probably got put off by it and didn't give it another look makes me sad.

 

[OmegaTreeFish]

What's interesting about weapons having lvl requirements? That like most ROGs?

Most sounds great but the above is an odd thing to say and weapon maintenance is almost always pointless. It will either be trivial or frustrating . Can live with it though.

 

[Will M]

Breakable weapons makes me sad but everything else is fantastic.

 

[StevePharma]

God I hate weapon durability mechanics. Hope it's not too obnoxious.

Otherwise extremely excited for this.

 

[tioslash]

- weapons (including swords) will not last forever and can be destroyed if used too much. You need to regularly pay a visit to a craftsman to maintain it

I hope this is well balanced. I don´t want to need to visit a craftsman over and over, especially on a huge world. Everything else sounds great.

 

[Hollow]

I feel like weapon life is a pain in the ass.

Micromanaging weapon durability if not a fun design element. It just takes away from the rest of the game to have to leave an area you're exploring and make your way back to a town just because you forgot to repair your sword after a fight.


Rest of it sounds good.

 

[Rosur]

Not a fan of durability on weapons. That said everything else sounds good and do like the sound that the ai will be decent for once.

 

[HK-47]

Weapon durability is only annoying when combined with a lack of portable restoration and limited inventory space.

 

[Exentryk]

I feel like weapon life is a pain in the ass.

Micromanaging weapon durability if not a fun design element. It just takes away from the rest of the game to have to leave an area you're exploring and make your way back to a town just because you forgot to repair your sword after a fight.


Rest of it sounds good.

Same. Not a fan of weapon durability. But let's see how it works out in this game.

 

[RyudBoy]

Yep, count me in on being against breakable weapons. At least you can fix them. Still annoying, though.

I'm so ready for this game. Got me a new beastly PC. Screw XB1 and PS4 lol.

 

[WheelHoss1]

This is the weather system I've been waiting for. Now all we need is seasons

 

[LonelyGreyWolf]

Damn, all of that is good to hear. This game will be awesome.

 

[Dragon1893]

Sounds good. As long as weapons don't break too fast it doesn't bother me.

 

[Shadownet]

Good thing for PC players is that if you don't like weapon durability. There will be a mod for that. Everything else sounds like a dream. Can't wait.

 

[Dragon1893]

Good thing for PC players is that if you don't like weapon durability. There will be a mod for that. Everything else sounds like a dream. Can't wait.

Yeah, that's true.
Not sure about having to activate skills to be honest.
I see what they're trying to do though. It allows you to create different builds for specific situations, but wont it always be more limiting than having access to all the skills you've unlocked like in previous games?
Why do I have to equip an upgraded igni sign if I should be able to access it at all times since I've already unlocked it?
Just feels like a way of complicating things unnecessarily.
Of course there are lots of other rpgs where you can only have a limited amounts of skills equipped at any given time but in this case it feels like a step down from previous games in the franchise.

 

[sublimit]

I hope they don't include weapon durability just because of the Souls games popularity (CDPR are supposed to be fans of Dark Souls) and it's actually implemented well in the game's design without it being cumbersome.

 

[SJRB]

Other than the weapons maintenance that list sounds really good.

Weapon degradation often is an arbitrary, gimmicky gameplay mechanic. I hope it won't be too annoying.

 

[StrongBlackVine]

Gross. Even Techland was smart enough to remove work benches from their games.

 

[Nordicus]

Yeah, that's true.
Not sure about having to activate skills to be honest.
I see what they're trying to do though. It allows you to create different builds for specific situations, but wont it always be more limiting than having access to all the skills you've unlocked like in previous games?
Why do I have to equip an upgraded igni sign if I should be able to access it at all times since I've already unlocked it?
Just feels like a way of complicating things unnecessarily.
Of course there are lots of other rpgs where you can only have a limited amounts of skills equipped at any given time but in this case it feels like a step down from previous games in the franchise.

It is kind of limiting, and makes no sense if we think of realism, but at the same time, having a limited amount of skills means that you can balance each individual skill to be more powerful and significant than you could otherwise if all 125 (or a big chunk of those) could be used at once. Because you didn't equip your superior igni, it must means that for the current situation there are far more useful skills to have.

I usually like systems like this. Guild Wars 1&2, Dawn of War 2: Last Stand, D&D spells, etc. You try to synergize a few things like a card deck for maximum effectiveness.

 

[jtar86]

I upgraded every single part of my pc with the exception of the motherboard because of this game. So it better be worth it. Everything sounds good with the exception of the weapon durability.

 

[misho8723]

So when weapons maintenance is in a Souls game, everyone is ok with that, but if it's in W3, everyone is shiting on it? ehmmm..why?

 

[Loris146]

Hope this is true. Amazing news.

 

[Dragon1893]

It is kind of limiting, and makes no sense if we think of realism, but at the same time, having a limited amount of skills means that you can balance each individual skill to be more powerful and significant than you could otherwise if all 125 (or a big chunk of those) could be used at once. Because you didn't equip your superior igni, it must means that for the current situation there are far more useful skills to have.

I usually like systems like this. Guild Wars 1&2, Dawn of War 2: Last Stand, D&D spells, etc. You try to synergize a few things like a card deck for maximum effectiveness.

Yeah. I'll only have a definitive opinion on this after I play the game.

 

[Starsunder]

New monster PC rig I'm building welcomes this game

Can't wait!

 

[Turin Turambar]

Not a fan of durability on weapons. That said everything else sounds good and do like the sound that the ai will be decent for once.

That raised my eyebrow. Durability of weapons in a Witcher game? It's also absent in other open world fantasy RPG games like Elder Scrolls.

Of course it all depends of how fast the weapons deteriorate.

 

[deeptech]

Great info, it's gonna be so good. I love that it's gonna be challenging and that AI won't be dumb.

 

[Starsunder]

That raised my eyebrow. Durability of weapons in a Witcher game? It's also absent in other open world fantasy RPG games like Elder Scrolls.

Of course it all depends of how fast the weapons deteriorate.

To be fair, it didn't used to be. Oblivion had durability on weapons; you needed to maintain them.

 

[Nordicus]

Yeah. I'll only have a definitive opinion on this after I play the game.

One thing is for sure, CDProjekt is trying to put significant emphasis on the preparation metagame. You got skills, equipment, durability, and potions that you need to take care of before you do anything

That raised my eyebrow. Durability of weapons in a Witcher game? It's also absent in other open world fantasy RPG games like Elder Scrolls.

You mean Elder Scrolls 5.

 

[Khal_B]

I hate having to maintain my weapon to make sure it doesn't break. Hate, hate, hate it.

 

[Elysium-777]

Most excited about the AI advancements. Also hoping there is a way to pit bandits against other monsters in the wild.

 

[Durante]

Call me shallow, but I really appreciate these two most:

- HUD is very customizable. There are several options available, including turning off minimap and all sorts of notifications if you so desire

- all graphical settings are present in in-game menu

 

[Savitar]

Aside from the weapons not lasting I like all this, but yeah the weapon thing I don't care for.

 

[Ricker]

Weapon vulnerability and limited space in Inventory is really something that needs to stop...I hated the management of Mutagens in 2 and it looks like it's back...as for the difficulty well,we wont know that until the game releases but yeah,Witcher games have always been hard...never finished 2 because of this(not a fan of dropping a game to easy mid game)...