The Witcher 3

[Pappy Knuckles]

Re: The Witcher 3

I feel pretty comfortable saying that this is my favorite RPG. I haven't played a ton of them, but I prefer this to Skyrim and Dragon Age Origins. I hold Mass Effect 1 & 2 in high regards as well, and I find this more engaging.

[Leon]

Re: The Witcher 3

Does Geralt's beard not grow when you're rocking a styled beard from the barber? Basically, does it only grow back if we have him clean shaven?

[CMH]

Re: The Witcher 3

Does Geralt's beard not grow when you're rocking a styled beard from the barber? Basically, does it only grow back if we have him clean shaven?

It does not grow if styled. Developers said they didn't want people to continue getting haircuts since most would get a styled beard specifically to have that style.

sent from my mobile device

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: The Witcher 3

Ran into the first encounter that I would say is poorly conceived. It's not really a quest, I guess, in the southern outskirts of Novigrad there was a yellow arrow, went there and it was three elves and a merchant in an argument

Spoiler

Unless I missed something, the elves claimed this guy sold tainted fisstech to some kids, guy claimed he didn't. Only option you have is to ask if he had any fisstech on him, after that you have to make a decision to either let them kill the guy or step in and (likely forcefully) make the elves back off. No option to investigate, no using axii to find the truth, nothing. You have a he said/she said and you are forced to make a decision, with Geralt acting as if he had made some huge moral decision. If it would have just been something you could engage with if you wanted it would be one thing, but when the game pushes you into the confrontation with a quest marker, it needs to be better than this. In a game with such well thought out and memorable questlines, this just isn't up to snuff.

For the record, without being able to investigate I didn't see any reason to intervene. They had no real proof of what he did, but he couldn't exactly mount a defense sputtering racist stuff about elves. It just really bothered me that they made Geralt stand there like he had done some great misdeed.

Spoiler

They straight up attacked me after I I basically told them they had no real evidence. Whether or not the guy actually sold drugs wasn't my concern it was this vigilante justice based on pure vengeance. They were prepared to kill him based on nothing. I took issue with that.

[fearwhatnow]

Re: The Witcher 3

For those on PC so you prefer the low sharpening or high sharpening setting? I'm favoring low at the moment

Low here. High makes everything too gloomy.
Idk if it will be possible to play any other game after this one is finished. I have only touched PCars and Audiosurf 2 (just to hear the new FFS and Muse albums) while playing TW3. The bar for open world RPGs is raised to very high levels. Skyrim's quests are a joke compared to TW3 and DA:I is simply unplayable.
Console owners are lucky because Wasteland 2 is on the way.
I hope the new Batman will be good but I'm afraid it will get boring after a couple of hours.

[Burns11]

Re: The Witcher 3

Spoiler

They straight up attacked me after I I basically told them they had no real evidence. Whether or not the guy actually sold drugs wasn't my concern it was this vigilante justice based on pure vengeance. They were prepared to kill him based on nothing. I took issue with that.

Spoiler

Problem I have with that, you never even ask why they think it was him, you just get to ask if he had fisstech on him. You don't ask the kids, for all you know the kids all told them where they got it and the guy is a well known fisstech dealer. We just aren't given near enough information to intervene either way and aren't given any options to investigate.

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: The Witcher 3

Spoiler

Problem I have with that, you never even ask why they think it was him, you just get to ask if he had fisstech on him. You don't ask the kids, for all you know the kids all told them where they got it and the guy is a well known fisstech dealer. We just aren't given near enough information to intervene either way and aren't given any options to investigate.

Spoiler

I think that's the point, though. They didn't have anything to go on other than emotion and are prepared to kill the guy for seemingly no reason other than the fact he deals drugs. I typically err on the side of "not killing" when there is little to no evidence involved.

I completed the Dandelion questline last night. I never thought I would put on a play in a game like this, but there ya go. Geralt is a terrible actor.

[Burns11]

Re: The Witcher 3

Spoiler

I think that's the point, though. They didn't have anything to go on other than emotion and are prepared to kill the guy for seemingly no reason other than the fact he deals drugs. I typically err on the side of "not killing" when there is little to no evidence involved.

I completed the Dandelion questline last night. I never thought I would put on a play in a game like this, but there ya go. Geralt is a terrible actor.

Spoiler

Well, the guy sold tainted drugs to kids, so there's ample reason there. He also gave me the vibe like he did it on purpose.

That's kind of the problem with the quest, we are given no info really and no options to even ask simple questions. So our choice is to kill three guys to protect someone we know nothing about, or let the three guys kill a guy we have no reason to save. It's a ****ty quest.

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: The Witcher 3

Its not the only random encounter like that. For me its just a smaller portion of the moral greyness this game lives in. I wouldn't necessarily call it ****ty. Hell, we've spent more time talking about it and thinking about the decision than the length of the actual encounter.

[Heroesandvillains]

Re: The Witcher 3

Ran into the first encounter that I would say is poorly conceived. It's not really a quest, I guess, in the southern outskirts of Novigrad there was a yellow arrow, went there and it was three elves and a merchant in an argument

Spoiler

Unless I missed something, the elves claimed this guy sold tainted fisstech to some kids, guy claimed he didn't. Only option you have is to ask if he had any fisstech on him, after that you have to make a decision to either let them kill the guy or step in and (likely forcefully) make the elves back off. No option to investigate, no using axii to find the truth, nothing. You have a he said/she said and you are forced to make a decision, with Geralt acting as if he had made some huge moral decision. If it would have just been something you could engage with if you wanted it would be one thing, but when the game pushes you into the confrontation with a quest marker, it needs to be better than this. In a game with such well thought out and memorable questlines, this just isn't up to snuff.

For the record, without being able to investigate I didn't see any reason to intervene. They had no real proof of what he did, but he couldn't exactly mount a defense sputtering racist stuff about elves. It just really bothered me that they made Geralt stand there like he had done some great misdeed.

Here's how I felt about that random encounter:

Spoiler

The elves were really dead set on killing that guy. I didn't feel that they would have just let Geralt take his time and go investigate something. They wanted justice. If we had been given the chance to go and discover the truth, I felt it would have been unrealistic to just expect them to not just go ahead and kill him while we were gone. It was an urgent situation that needed an urgent decision.

Keep in mind, to my surprise, some of these random encounters actually come back into play during future random encounters. Here's an example about the religious leader one from Novigrad.

Spoiler

Roaming around the city, this priest leader was talking **** about Witchers. Suddenly, I see a yellow exclamation mark. This encounter allowed me to call out the preacher, asking him how many people he had saved! It shut him up quickly, and the people watching him preach walked away after Geralt embarrassed him publicly.

Fast forward a few nights later and suddenly I walk into a completely random cutscene (with no exclamation mark or anything), with these thugs! They said they were sent to take care of me for publicly embarrassing the preacher.

So I slaughtered them.

Now I'm not something like that will happen in this case. But this game will really surprise you so I wouldn't rule out some repercussions on this decision later on in the game.

[choadler]

Re: The Witcher 3

I have spent at least 4 to 5 hours playing Gwent. It is a remarkably well made card game. I have the cpu play terribly and be able to beat them with a weaker deck, but I have seen some of the merchants do perform some good strategy. Blows my mind that they created this remarkable game within an already amazing game.

[Burns11]

Re: The Witcher 3

Here's how I felt about that random encounter:

Spoiler

The elves were really dead set on killing that guy. I didn't feel that they would have just let Geralt take his time and go investigate something. They wanted justice. If we had been given the chance to go and discover the truth, I felt it would have been unrealistic to just expect them to not just go ahead and kill him while we were gone. It was an urgent situation that needed an urgent decision.

Spoiler

They didn't seem unreasonable to me, they were willing to discuss the matter, it just gave you no real options it was just let them kill a guy or kill three guys. They wanted justice, and never seemed to say "**** off", the game just never gave options. In fact, when you ask if he had fisstech on him, they had already checked. But anyway that's not the point, if we were given dialogue to wait and investigate and they wouldn't comply that is one thing, but we are not. There are no options, and no intimations that the three guys were unreasonable, it was just make a decision with no information.

As far as this being a "moral grey area", there's no way to know what the moral choice is, because we are never presented with facts. It's poorly written, poorly executed, and poorly conceived. It was cheap, and in a game where the quests are deep and well written, it sticks out like a sore thumb.

I did run by that priest as well, and that's a well written encounter. You are given the information, priest calling you a freak and whatnot, then given options. There's no missing information, it's just tell the guy off or not.

I didn't mean to turn this into a thing, it just really stuck out and, in fact, still bothers me.

[The JareBear]

Re: The Witcher 3

I switched to the PC version and am loving it so far. Took my time going through White Orchard and enjoyed soaking it all in again. There were things I completely forgot happened, like it literally was happening for the first time (I might have a problem!), like the herbalist encounter there.

My 780ti runs this game way better than I thought it would. Looks great and runs great so far. Gotta love the loading times from SSD drives.

I choose to simulate my choices this time through. Not sure what all those choices fully mean but I have a better understanding now than my first time going through the game.

This time through I am taking Gwent more seriously and collecting all the cards I can right away.

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: The Witcher 3

I'm kind of already looking forward to playing through as weird as that sounds. Just going through the side quests again and choosing the different decisions to see how things play out different is enticing enough for me.

Plus, death march.

I still have a long ways to go as I haven't even sailed to Skellige yet, but I know as soon as I "finish" the game I will starting it up again.

[DGuinta1]

Re: The Witcher 3

I hear a new patch dropped for the PC 1.05. Soon to come to consoles I hope.