[Aptorian]

Just installed patch 1.07. Such small changes, yet so incredibly satisfying. Movement greatly improved, better inventory management, a stash, I really do regret not just waiting a year before playing this game but the changes are welcome.

The grey quest xp mod has also finally been updated so I installed that. Now everything gives xp again.

Now to put another hundred hours into this game.

EDIT: By the way Mentalist, here's a pro-tip I didn't know about until I was like 50 hours in. If you're playing on a controller, holding down the start button takes you straight to the map instead of going to the index.

This post has been edited by Apt: 19 July 2015 - 08:44 AM

[Traveller]

Hah, cheers Apt, that two-stage move to get the map was bugging me.

I just picked this up again yesterday. I'm about level 9, havimg reached the Return to Crookback Bog stage.

I went on a bit of a ramble, found a griffin and some wyverns that I could barely scratch, and then did some Kira quests. I'm pretty good at wading into a pack of Drowners, Ghouls, Bandits and finishing them all off, but I still get caught out when I have the wrong items in the quick slots and can't heal during prolonged combat with lots of enemies.

[Dadding]

Just a heads-up for anyone still playing through the game, the 1.07 patch broke a lot of the achievements. People (myself included) aren't getting the fist-fighting, gwent, or horse racing ones. There's also a really annoying bug with the Black Pearl quest, so try putting that off until it gets fixed.

[Mentalist]

Didn't play much all weekend, but roamed a bit on the 2 islets where the inn and Hendrik's village were. Ran into 3 different types of high-level monsters, including a wyvern that wouldn't stop chasing me. Had to axii-stun it and then book it on a horse. I'm pretty ok at killing harpies, though. Love the "knock them from flight and finish them off while they're on the ground" animation.

On my way to look for the witch, but my paper map points a village with that name in a diff part of Velen, weird. Anyways, skirted the BB's castle found a merchant and a smith, so I'm decently ok kitted again. Did a side quest there ("Wild Heart"), decently ok. I like that unlike the Batman detective bits, tracking isn't always obvious, and sometimes it can be quite subtle and reqire aa bit of running around untill you spot a trail.

Also bought the first 2 Cat school gear maps, but they're way too high lvl for me atm.

Plan for now is to continue exploring, using the village as a base untill I'm ready to go look for the witch.

[Tapper]

Dadding, on 20 July 2015 - 02:58 AM, said:

Just a heads-up for anyone still playing through the game, the 1.07 patch broke a lot of the achievements. People (myself included) aren't getting the fist-fighting, gwent, or horse racing ones. There's also a really annoying bug with the Black Pearl quest, so try putting that off until it gets fixed.

Hmm, that stinks. I put it aside because I got stuck on the Lambert quest to Skellige, where I couldn't fast travel to/from ANYWHERE without CTDs after doing the quest by slaughtering an entire village worth of pirates.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

The edge of the world mechanic is less annoying if you remember you can fast travel from there.

[Aptorian]

Ohh shit, I never thought of that. I could have used that on some of my exploration trips into the unmarked parts of the map.

[Aptorian]

I've been banging my head against the High Stakes Gwent tournament all evening.

I am not sure if I am meant to lose to Sasha or she just keeps getting lucky. I've had her dead to rights so many times, only for her to pull a handful of perfect cards out of her ass at the last moment.

As far as I can tell there is no real repurcussions for losing, it seems to be a part of a longer quest, but I WANT TO WIN. I am mostly worried that if I do not go on to win, I will lose out on cards the other players might drop.

[Avatar]

What did you think of the storyline around the crones of Crookback Bog? And the Bloody Baron. I really liked the witches, the swamp, the music. The choice you have to make and the consequences of it. Very good storytelling imo, nice and creepy atmosphere.

[Dadding]

Apt, on 21 July 2015 - 06:28 PM, said:

I've been banging my head against the High Stakes Gwent tournament all evening.

I am not sure if I am meant to lose to Sasha or she just keeps getting lucky. I've had her dead to rights so many times, only for her to pull a handful of perfect cards out of her ass at the last moment.

As far as I can tell there is no real repurcussions for losing, it seems to be a part of a longer quest, but I WANT TO WIN. I am mostly worried that if I do not go on to win, I will lose out on cards the other players might drop.

What Gwent deck are you using? I found Gwent became ridiculously easy by the time you got to Novigrad because of the Northern Realms Siegemaster deck and all the OP cards you get. I built my deck with my 22 most powerful (never more than 22) hero cards, siege engines and spymasters, and fill it in with those couple cards that double their value when you play two of them (Crinfrid reavers and Blue stripes I think). For special cards I only use 2 decoys and a clear weather, none of the other weather effects or scorch. I haven't lost a Gwent game since Velen, spymasters and decoys are OP.

Maybe you're just getting unlucky though, I found Sasha was really easy, but the first person you play against gave me a bit of a run for my money.

You do get a couple unique Gwent cards from that tournament for winning, and an achievement as well. The quest ends pretty much the same way no matter if you win or not though.

The cards you win are:

Spoiler

Foltest Steel-Forged
Emhyr the Relentless
Francesca Findabair Queen of the Dol Blathana
Eredin Destroyer of Worlds

This post has been edited by Dadding: 21 July 2015 - 08:59 PM

[Mentalist]

Gained another level clearing up a bunch of bandit/pirate camps around the village of the first witch (not sure the name in English).

Invested the skill points into upgrading Yrden, as I had to fight the nightwraith. Took. About half an hour, or 3-4 tries.

I stumbled onto the "witch"'s hut accidentally- I meant to ask around instead.

I also encountered my first "annoying" bug in the game (not counting artifacts, like drowners floating about a foot above ground on a slope)--the "missing brother" Witcher contract. I picked up the notice that said to speak to Bruno by the Crossroads Inn. I grabbed the notice off the notic board in the 1st village by the Hangmen's Tree, but before visiting the Inn I went exploring north of th tree.
I stumbled onto a mine entrance and triggered the Witcher contract "missin brother" (lvl 33!). But when I got to the inn, Bruno won't talk to me, as the game feels I already have all the requisite. Info. Sigh.

Oh, also I found a Griffin school modification blueprint, w/o triggering the quest. Gonna have to look around for the merchant selling Griffin maps.

EDIT: question for the keyboard-savvy: how does one use the alternative mode for signs?

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 23 July 2015 - 02:33 PM

[Dadding]

Mentalist, on 23 July 2015 - 12:22 PM, said:

EDIT: question for the keyboard-savvy: how does one use the alternative mode for signs?

Hold the key you use for signs (default is q I think?) for a few seconds.

Just finished the game last night after 105 hours. Ending was satisfying, from what I've read I got the "good" ending. Would have liked more politicking in the game, similar to Witcher 2. But very satisfied with the content, story, all that jazz.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

Finished. I think my ending was good, I'm pretty satisfied. Great game. I think I will put it away until the dlc comes out and then do a replay on the hardest difficulty.

[Mentalist]

Almost level 10, played till the wee hours of the morning. Addictive isn't a word strong enough to describe it.

At this point I've pretty much done everything in West Velen, bar a few high-level monsters and treasures, and contracts. I've finished part 1 of the Witch story and spoke to the BB. currently in Oxenfurt (where I swam, bypassing the checkpoints), picking up more stuff to do.

My level is way above the recommended reqs for Velen main quests, and some of the side stuff. but I'm compelled to do more contracts, because money I need the improved saddle bags, but they cost 325 crowns! ripoff and a half, if you ask me.

I need to hit Lvl 12 so that I can put on the sweet Assassin's gloves I crafted- so far it's my best piece of kit, I think.

Also, Oxenfurt merchants are kicking my ass in Gwent. I think I need to go back to Velen and buy some cards.

[Aptorian]

I've been playing this all week and the game just doesn't end.

I finished all the side quests and contracts (that weren't bugged) in anticipation of the final showdown and then the game just continues. More and more content is just pouring out of every quest. At this rate I will pass 200 hours before I am done.

This game is unreal.

[Aptorian]

Okay. Done. 192 hours, bunch of question marks left in the sea, some bugged quests, random treasure hunts I couldn't be bothered to track down. Otherwise I consumed pretty much all this game had to offer.

Extremely satisfying playthrough I think. The amount of content, not just random sidequest fluff, but actual meaty storytelling, is astounding. So many times I found myself thinking, today I will finish this and that objective and instead I went down some 5 hour quest branch that came out of nowhere. All the character big and small were sympathetic or interesting in some other way. I especially liked how the ending just kept building and building.

I really liked the Wild Hunt but I feel like the Hunt should have been introduced more thoroughly early in the game. Having not read the books, I had litterally no idea the amount of backstory that was connected to these guys. I imagine if I had read the series I might have had some kind of nerdgasm with all the obvious fan service there was in this game. Still, the Wild Hunt were amazingly designed and thoroughly intimidating.

I am curious about the ending though. If I recall correctly it was said there there could be dozens of different endings, which I find impossible unless some really crazy branching took place in other peoples games.

This was my ending/Last hours.

HUGE SPOILERS

Spoiler

Went to the Witch mountain. I sent Ciri after the Crones and murderized that big asshole. Ciri had her necklace stolen.

We killed Radovid. I ended up killing Dijstra, I actually sided with his plan, but I couldn't let him kill my buddies. That wasn't in line with the Geralt I was playing. Sort of annoyed I wasn't some how able to spare him, he was so buddy buddy with Geralt.

I put Cerys an Chraich on the Skellig throne. Was forced to kill Madman Lugos. That bothered me. I kind of liked that crazy bastard, wish there had been some way to appease him or talk him down.

Towards the ending I basically tried to give Ciri as much free choice and encouragement as possible. Similarly I put as much trust as I could in to every conversation with the sorceresses and the Elven Sage. I am curious if anything in the game would effect who was there and what they did.

In my playthrough the sorceresses are guarding the cliffs and raining fire, the skelligers and nilfgardians are fighting the Hunt. Ciri wounds that sorcerrer Wild Hunt guy and Geralt finished him off. The King of the Wild Hunt killed Crach, then I killed him. Then Elf Sage guy opened a portal to ice dimension and Yenneffer and Geralt run to the tower. Geralt steps in, elf backs down, Ciri goes into Ice portal, has flashbacks of things I said or did, then that was it. The assumption being the Ciri never came back.

The last scene is Geralt hunting down the last Crone to retrieve Ciri's necklace (The one she got when old witcher guy died). He kills the crone, digs up Ciri's necklace. The last we see of Geralt is him sitting broken in the hut, with out his swords, as monsters approach the hut. I guess the ending suggests that Geralt chose to die in that hut.

Is this the ending that other people got?

EDIT: Awh what the fuck.I looked it up. I got a bad ending?! This is total bullshit. The choices they mention throughout the last act are choices that are interpreted completely opposite of what I intended.

Especially that negative reaction to taking the emperors coin. Fuck that shit. I even wanted to reload that section but it was part of a 15 minute cutscene or something.

Bah. Still, I think my ending was pretty in line with the games grim nature.

This post has been edited by Apt: 26 July 2015 - 06:54 PM

[Mentalist]

Encountered my first "somewhat immersion-breaking "video-game" moment"

Did a portion of BB's story since I was by the seer's hut. Then rode off to East Velen, to wrap up a side quest cuz i'm push lvl 11, an it was a lvl 6 about about be greye out.

Anywhoo, ridin pas Wronicy, and it's on fire. Ignore it, go off of encounter SPOILER!!!

Spoiler

Letho. I wonder how that quest line would work if I fough him in the end of TW2?

,

And then off I go helping him for a few in-game days. By the time I'm done a bunch of stuff there, about 3 days passed. I still gotta handle a contract by the bridge to Novigrad, but I swing by Wronicy to fix up my sword... and the castle is still on fire. *rolleyes*

Besides that, loving it. Played till 5 AM. I need to set up a play schedule limit: it's been seriously interfering with my work productivity last week.

I'm about to hit a nice spot where all my secondary stuff is red, so I'll be able to do a bunch of the main quest.

Also, about to start horse races.

[Dadding]

Apt, on 26 July 2015 - 06:41 PM, said:

HUGE SPOILERS

Spoiler

Went to the Witch mountain. I sent Ciri after the Crones and murderized that big asshole. Ciri had her necklace stolen.

We killed Radovid. I ended up killing Dijstra, I actually sided with his plan, but I couldn't let him kill my buddies. That wasn't in line with the Geralt I was playing. Sort of annoyed I wasn't some how able to spare him, he was so buddy buddy with Geralt.

I put Cerys an Chraich on the Skellig throne. Was forced to kill Madman Lugos. That bothered me. I kind of liked that crazy bastard, wish there had been some way to appease him or talk him down.

Towards the ending I basically tried to give Ciri as much free choice and encouragement as possible. Similarly I put as much trust as I could in to every conversation with the sorceresses and the Elven Sage. I am curious if anything in the game would effect who was there and what they did.

In my playthrough the sorceresses are guarding the cliffs and raining fire, the skelligers and nilfgardians are fighting the Hunt. Ciri wounds that sorcerrer Wild Hunt guy and Geralt finished him off. The King of the Wild Hunt killed Crach, then I killed him. Then Elf Sage guy opened a portal to ice dimension and Yenneffer and Geralt run to the tower. Geralt steps in, elf backs down, Ciri goes into Ice portal, has flashbacks of things I said or did, then that was it. The assumption being the Ciri never came back.

The last scene is Geralt hunting down the last Crone to retrieve Ciri's necklace (The one she got when old witcher guy died). He kills the crone, digs up Ciri's necklace. The last we see of Geralt is him sitting broken in the hut, with out his swords, as monsters approach the hut. I guess the ending suggests that Geralt chose to die in that hut.

Is this the ending that other people got?

EDIT: Awh what the fuck.I looked it up. I got a bad ending?! This is total bullshit. The choices they mention throughout the last act are choices that are interpreted completely opposite of what I intended.

Especially that negative reaction to taking the emperors coin. Fuck that shit. I even wanted to reload that section but it was part of a 15 minute cutscene or something.

Bah. Still, I think my ending was pretty in line with the games grim nature.

Spoiler

I totally agree with you. The way Ciri's fate is decided by 2 or 3 dialogue choices is kind of silly. And none of the "negative" dialogue choices seemed particularly negative. The snowball fight one - the inherently "negative" choice is something along the lines of "nobody is good at everything" - how on earth is that a negative choice, and why should something that trivial affect the overall ending?

I've watched all the endings online though, and they've all got something going for them though, so at least they nailed that part.

As for the dozens of different endings - there are 3 main endings in regard to Ciri's fate I think. And then there's who you end up with (Triss, Yen, or alone) and then if you killed Radovid or not, and who got on the throne on Skellige, and then a couple other things. So not really "endings" more like "end states".

[amphibian]

The continuum of good and evil is a very, very blurry one in the Witcher books.

Sapkowski's clearest position may be lamenting the loss of diversity and differences in the advancement of technological progress. The rest is sort of a pick'em between whoever has faults that you mind least as a reader - with the overriding dictum that Geralt's deepest love is for Ciri and her freedom.

[amphibian]

I have not played the games, just read the books which derive strongly from them.

Sapkowski made it a point to show how small courses of action at seemingly non-important junctions affect everything later and the reveal is only done later, in reverie driven by regret.