I have a weird tale to tell here, and I am assuming this was a bug, but I'll spoiler it since I think it could be a spoiler but really I had no idea what the hell was going on.
I was exploring around the Velen(?) area in the northeast and wanted to see what that huge estate was on the map. I came up to it from the southeast side and found a little gate that I thought was the entrance but it did not open and did not even say it was locked. "No problem," I thought, "I'll just jump the very short wall". So I did - it let me no problem. Now I'm on the grounds of this beautiful manor with butlers and guards and whatnot who seemed to have no issue with the fact I hopped the fence into their locked mansion. I am very confused at this point since I figured such a large and detailed area should serve some sort of purpose but I haven't found any quests or events or anything. Now here is where it got weird:
I enter the manor itself with more butlers/servants and whatnot and make my way upstairs. There in the bedroom is a dead naked woman tied to the bedposts. Just there, you know, chillin'. No one seems to care. When I used the Witcher senses she glows red as does a bottle on the nightstand. I can investigate the bottle and Geralt will check it out but not say anything.
Eventually I just decided to leave, but then couldn't get out. All the doors were locked and I couldn't jump back over the wall. That's when I figured I probably wasn't supposed to get in there in the first place. Very weird experience. I reloaded a save and went around to another side and found out this was called the Vederburg(?) estate.
It's not that weird... You sequence broke and saw a scene you weren't supposed to see yet and aren't supposed to access in any other way than through the quest in which you're supposed to see ithat. And, yes, the estate has multiple quests tied to it.
Hammond alludes to them currently doing business. And his fake name was suspicious, as was his letter to Hammond telling him to do business with OTHER (wink) merchants. And the dude basically killed a fellow Witcher for money :/
So I chose to side with mah dude Lambert over him.
Yeah it was a hard decision, but I didn't wan't to do anything too severe without concrete evidence.
The whole family thing kind of saved him too, I don't know if I would have made the same decision if they weren't there. Plus Lambert is nuts. If it was my homie Eskel, sure, but I don't trust Lambert in these kind of situations one bit haha
This game isn't very subtle at humbling you just when you're getting the hang of things and feel you've built yourself a decent deck. I gave up because I started too late, but now I am focusing on Gwent for my 2nd time, and I am out for blood.
I had all these animal skins taking up tons of weight but early on I noticed that dismantling them into parts didn't lower my overall inventory weight so I started selling them or dropping them for later. I later realized its just because the inventory weight total doesn't update at the time you're in the blacksmith window. Dismantle, exit and then look and it does have a massive impact. I felt stupid for not realizing that... And my Weight dropped by about 40 units after a huge dismantle spree because I was holding a few dozen skins.
Even though you can drop items anywhere and get them later I still really wish Geralt had a chest. I'd really love if Geralt could buy a house of his own somewhere, give me something to save/spend coin on as money seems to become pointless 2/3 through the game. DLC make it happen!
I think in general the game has an abundance of level 10 - 20 quests that you maybe cannot uniformly capitalise on for XP. In the sense that if you intend to do all of them you'll inevitably over level. Which is fine, but the way act one is designed skewers most exposure to those quests in Velen over Skellige. The story probably should have sent you to Skellige a bit earlier. The current structure kinda emphasises Velen -> Novigrad -> Skellige, but something more like Velen -> Skellige -> Novigrad might have done a better job of introducing and pacing the two landmasses, given Novigrad is just a part of Velen anyway.
I think the story quest structure is just about perfect. I like the progression of Forest (Velen), City (Novigrad), and then back to Forest (Skellige). The levels just need to be adjusted. As you say there is far too much 10-20 level content. Novigrad should be 10-18 or 10-20 and then Skellige should be 15-25.
As is, I'm Level 23 in Skellige (with Ugly Baby as my next Main Quest) and won't be doing any more sidequests there other than King's Gambit because I have obliterated the entire level structure at this point and almost every single quest left in my log is now Gray. Which is a shame because there are still a bunch of islands in the area that I haven't touched.
I said it before but if they had been more upfront about the plans for New Game + and what it will entail then I would have put off some of these sidequests and contacts for that.
As is, I'm Level 23 in Skellige (with Ugly Baby as my next Main Quest) and won't be doing any more sidequests there other than King's Gambit because I have obliterated the entire level structure at this point and almost every single quest left in my log is now Gray. Which is a shame because there are still a bunch of islands in the area that I haven't touched.
Like I posted earlier, the point you're at right now is the exact point the game turned around and leveled itself back out for me. I just completed Ugly Baby last night after clearing out all my overleveled quests and now my entire quest log is red and green, I'm only 2 levels above my lowest quest and I have 20-30 quests open. It's just a domino effect created by the misleveling of "Destination: Skellige", but it evens back out.
Also, I really don't understand the rationale behind completely abandoning the quests because you're over-leveled... Do you play games only for XP rewards? Exclusively to see numbers tick up and bars fill? You don't care one bit about hearing a good story, seeing a cool environment or having an interesting fight?
Just has a scary thought about Gwent. Is that scholar in White Orchard the only player? And did I need to play him more than once to get the card he held since I beat him the first time? I'm terrified I might have locked myself out and would need to start over.
I wonder what new game + would entail for this game.
And that's because card rewards from random merchants are randomized, not because you switched difficulties.
Like I posted earlier, the point you're at right now is the exact point the game turned around and leveled itself back out for me. I just completed Ugly Baby last night after clearing out all my overleveled quests and now my entire quest log is red and green, I'm only 2 levels above my lowest quest and I have 20-30 quests open. It's just a domino effect created by the misleveling of "Destination: Skellige", but it evens back out.
Also, I really don't understand the rationale behind completely abandoning the quests because you're over-leveled... Do you play games only for XP rewards? Exclusively to see numbers tick up and bars fill? You don't care one bit about hearing a good story, seeing a cool environment or having an interesting fight?
I'd really love if Geralt could buy a house of his own somewhere, give me something to save/spend coin on as money seems to become pointless 2/3 through the game. DLC make it happen!
Just has a scary thought about Gwent. Is that scholar in White Orchard the only player? And did I need to play him more than once to get the card he held since I beat him the first time? I'm terrified I might have locked myself out and would need to start over.
I wonder what new game + would entail for this game.
Saw this on Reddit and thought it was interesting...
Witcher 3 on pc reached 94% on metacritics and is now the second highest rated RPG of all time alongside Skyrim, Oblivion, Mass Effect 2 and Diablo. But the user scores....
I love this game so much. But I really hope CD release a new patch to fix this damned 20 fps lock on ps4 because it's really horrible play in this condition in some points. What a pity.
The final mission of the quest with Triss it's a fucking nightmare in performance.
Anyone know if the game breaks sequence if you go Velen->Skellige->Novigrad? Was thinking about doing Skellige before Novigrad, but then I thought about the
vision about Uma. If you get to that part, shouldn't you hypothetically not have anything to do Ciri related in Novigrad, and just go get Uma?
And that's because card rewards from random merchants are randomized, not because you switched difficulties.
Like I posted earlier, the point you're at right now is the exact point the game turned around and leveled itself back out for me. I just completed Ugly Baby last night after clearing out all my overleveled quests and now my entire quest log is red and green, I'm only 2 levels above my lowest quest and I have 20-30 quests open. It's just a domino effect created by the misleveling of "Destination: Skellige", but it evens back out.
Where did you get the quests that level appropriate? Because pretty much everything I'm finding in Skellige seems to be top out at 20 with only 1 or 2 exceptions. I do have a few contracts that are level appropriate I can do.
Also, I really don't understand the rationale behind completely abandoning the quests because you're over-leveled... Do you play games only for XP rewards? Exclusively to see numbers tick up and bars fill? You don't care one bit about hearing a good story, seeing a cool environment or having an interesting fight?
It's the interesting fight part that is tripping me up. For example last night I did the Lord of Undvik sidequest and the final fight against the
Ice Giant
was trivially easy because I'm so over-leveled. I would have enjoyed that fight much more if it had actually been a decent challenge. I'm actively considering respeccing and removing the points I put into Igni Firestream just to bring back some challenge (I'm playing on Death March).
To be clear though- I still plan to do the sidequests that are presented as relatively "major" (like
the Skellige succession storyline, the sidequests for the supporting characters, etc
) precisely because their design is every bit as good as the main quests but I've completed almost all of those at this point. The stuff that I find exploring can be cool but don't seem to have the same "meat" *. And with the combat no longer particularly interesting and no longer needing significant gear or alchemy upgrades (at this point I have access to almost all of the ranks of potions, oils, etc) I do feel like a lot of the impetus for general exportation has dropped off.
*One exception was the Woodland Creature sidequest. Thought that one was really neat.
Which is fine really- I've already put in over 100 hours and at Level 23 it may just be time to buckle in and focus on the story quests from this point forward.
Anyone know if the game breaks sequence if you go Velen->Skellige->Novigrad? Was thinking about doing Skellige before Novigrad, but then I thought about the
vision about Uma. If you get to that part, shouldn't you hypothetically not have anything to do Ciri related in Novigrad, and just go get Uma?
I'm sure it doesn't sequent break because the game is explicitly designed to let you do them in any order. But it's a good question and I'm curious how the game handles that piece. I definitely plan to mess with things like that on any future replays or New Game +.
Anyone know if the game breaks sequence if you go Velen->Skellige->Novigrad? Was thinking about doing Skellige before Novigrad, but then I thought about the
vision about Uma. If you get to that part, shouldn't you hypothetically not have anything to do Ciri related in Novigrad, and just go get Uma?
Next playthrough I'll attempt to do story quests only in Skellige before any other main story, but there is reason for going to Novigrad.
In Novigrad, you get the phylactery, the words for a spell, and know that Ciri is trying to lift some curse. Maybe Geralt will piece it together well enough so that you go get Uma immediately and take him to Kaer Mohren, maybe not.
God damn, just finished the Bloody Baron quest line. How is this a secondary quest, its just amazing.
Question:
So if I choose to kill the Tree Spirit, does that mean the Baron and his wife are safe? What happens in this scenario? And what happens if I choose the other dolls, I chose the violet.
For those of you who have finished the game... is there a quest that signifies a point of no return? Or will I be able to continue playing / doing side-quests once I finished the main story?
Just did the
assassination of Radovid
quest, and now I'm helping
Ciri
do some things around Novigrad. I believe the quest is
Final Preparations
. Most likely, this would be the quest, eh? Just wanted to make sure.
Next playthrough I'll attempt to do story quests only in Skellige before any other main story, but there is reason for going to Novigrad.
In Novigrad, you get the phylactery, the words for a spell, and know that Ciri is trying to lift some curse. Maybe Geralt will piece it together well enough so that you go get Uma immediately and take him to Kaer Mohren, maybe not.
I'm sure it doesn't sequent break because the game is explicitly designed to let you do them in any order. But it's a good question and I'm curious how the game handles that piece. I definitely plan to mess with things like that on any future replays or New Game +.
God damn, just finished the Bloody Baron quest line. How is this a secondary quest, its just amazing.
Question:
So if I choose to kill the Tree Spirit, does that mean the Baron and his wife are safe? What happens in this scenario? And what happens if I choose the other dolls, I chose the violet.
The witches eat the kids, and the Baron takes his wife off into the sunset.Not sure about the other dolls - I also chose the flower, which was the correct one.
Nope, that's all Lovecraft. It's talking about Cthulhu and the other elder gods and cosmic horrors. That's also where Evil Dead lifted the name of the book.
To be clear though- I still plan to do the sidequests that are presented as relatively "major" (like
the Skellige succession storyline, the sidequests for the supporting characters, etc
) precisely because their design is every bit as good as the main quests but I've completed almost all of those at this point. The stuff that I find exploring can be cool but don't seem to have the same "meat" *. And with the combat no longer particularly interesting and no longer needing significant gear or alchemy upgrades (at this point I have access to almost all of the ranks of potions, oils, etc) I do feel like a lot of the impetus for general exportation has dropped off.
*One exception was the Woodland Creature sidequest. Thought that one was really neat.
I think you're doing yourself a disservice by assuming that this game has bog standard "go get this guy's fishing rod for no reason" side quests when the whole reason people love them is the fact that the game doesn't do very much of that. It has 3 minute quests that are still more touching and poignant than most games' entire plotlines.
Nilfgaardian armor is sweet but it sucks that the gauntlets are level 37. Don't really have much left to do other than grind and destroy monster nests.
I think you're doing yourself a disservice by assuming that this game has bog standard "go get this guy's fishing rod for no reason" side quests when the whole reason people love them is the fact that the game doesn't do very much of that. It has 3 minute quests that are still more touching and poignant than most games' entire plotlines.
To be fair- I've done an absolutely enormous number of sidequests in the game so I've already experienced a huge amount of what these quests have to offer.
At ~25 hours, I'm ready to bee-line the main quest and put this game behind me. I don't see the point in doing any more sidequests that reduce to "go to yellow waypoint and use witcher sense to find red splotch." This ocean of content they've created is too shallow. Combat requires neither tactics nor skill. Build choices have narrow effects almost entirely restricted to how you approach combat. Dialogue is a straightforward affair, and relatively few choices have meaningful gameplay consequences. I'll give CDPR credit for writing and graphics -- both of which are above average for the medium, but that not enough to make me want to explore all of this gigantic world. Without the flexible quest design and deep dialogue trees of a Fallout New Vegas, games in this subgenre of open-world, waypoint-driven RPGs become walking simulators.
Nope, that's all Lovecraft. It's talking about Cthulhu and the other elder gods and cosmic horrors. That's also where Evil Dead lifted the name of the book.
Do it a great game even on PS4 for performance it not perfect or PC quality sure but it solid. I never had major issues like some people have. The game is a time sink and nice graphic showcase to show other people
Just dawned on me that this weeks DLC mission (Involving the pigs) is the same location (Lurtch) as the infamous GIF. Despite all the downgrade talk I think it ended up looking pretty similar:
