Witcher 3

Gilgamel_sl said:

I played this 5 hours the day I bought it and haven't touched it since. The length of time it's going to take it just so daunting.

Click to expand...

You'll figure out real damn quickly that 70% of the content is soul-less copy/paste garbage. Avoid almost all '?'s on the map because they are just repetitive bandit camps, guarded treasure (90% of loot is worthless, and the best gear is crafted) or monster nests. Run around and grab all the notice boards and '!'s and totally ignore every other POI. I suggest spending $10 on the digital Prima guide just so you know which POIs are the garbage ones that you can skip over without being paranoid you're missing something.

It's not as daunting as it seems when you realize the only content worth doing is the main quest, secondary quests, and witcher contracts. Play the game, but focus on these things almost exclusively. It's some of the best content in any RPG ever made.

I made it two or three days but the same thing basically happened to me. Always happens with open world games :/

You have to push through Novigrad. That area is poorly done IMO and you have the typical garbage of needing to do 30 mindless things to progress something moderately interesting.

Once you get out of Novigrad, even though you BRIEFLY go back there later on in the game, its pretty much clear sailing. Get to Skel, start the succession quests there and focus on the main story because it is outstanding.

I found the open world of this game to be boring, copy paste garbage. Beautiful, if very empty. The main story and most of the secondary ! are excellent and save an othewise /yawn experience. You do yourself a disservice if you don't at least power through the main quests.

The open world of this game is simply a time sink with all the running around and not a very imaginative one content wise. I think you'd cut about 30% or more of the game time if they had a Skyrim like fast travel and didn't have to run to a sign post to be able to do it.

I've put a ton of hours into this game without actively seeking out the "?"s after leaving the prologue area. I just do "!" quests and only hit the PoIs if they're right next to me, and this game is still long as fuck. The quests are really well done.

Dandai_sl said:

I was going to argue that 70% is pretty exaggerated, but I guess there are a fuckton of ?'s between the continent and Skellige. I'd hate for someone to read what you wrote and interpret that as the game is all filler, though.

Click to expand...

oh no way. I think I'm at 80 hours played and I still haven't beaten the game... And I'm basically ignoring all POIs that aren't directly related to story/secondary/witcher contracts/witcher gear.

God I'm struggling with Novigrad. The main quest there is so bad compared to the Bloody Baron questline. I'm so sick and tired of wandering from house to house looking for person XYZ. I keep wandering off into the wilderness just so I can have some actual fun killing monsters; but as a result the quest is taking even longer than it should. Feels like work not fun. Can't wait to put this part of the game behind me. Terrible quest design too btw. It is not fun to have to look for 5 different people at 5 different locations before something interesting happens. Just pointless padding.

Yup. Nivigrad sucks. It's worth pushing through it but doesn't change the fact there is a lot of shit steps. Also finish dandelion secondary quest through carnal. The last part is worth all the other stupid. Especially if you do it right and don't just chop chop chop.

Skel is much better and the game really picks up speed there.

Witcher has a TON of time padding. After playing DAI again I realize how much less running around I'm doing in there compared to witcher because of the better fast travel.

Do some witcher contracts in between the main quest line. They are better then the main novigrad quest line imo and help break up the monotony. Just finished black pearl =(.

I wouldn't even hold the running around against the game, because some vistas you stumble upon are just so damn pretty.

Finally finished this on PS4. Noticed a lot more graphical/performance issues after the 1.04 patch (sometimes it was really unplayable for me. Probably had around 1-10 fps in certain areas/fights, but I come from the PC master race era) Anyway, what a fantastic game, probably on my top 3 RPGs ever!
Toughest choice now is deciding on a new game

I don't think the POI's are that bad, my main problem is they don't bread crumb you to actually go out and explore things. I spend most of my time looking at the main map so as not to get lost running to a POI, and the ingame HUD is so damn tiny you don't see anything notable on it till you're already practically on top of it. So I end up spending more time looking at the map than the world they made.

Just drop a custom waypoint on the map. Every time there is a POI or something other than a quest that I want to check out I just drop a custom waypoint and then enjoy the scenic ride.

So just wondering if I pass on the ?? quests will I still be able to get designs and crafting components? I just started the game but when I went to those bandit camps I always found either a recipe or crafting component that i could use. Seems those areas have some decent loot for crafting. I just want to avoid any quests that are not going to be beneficial. Thanks lots of good info here and really enjoying the game so far. Its doesn't run bad on my GTX 670 but starting to look at better video cards for my PC. Any recommendations on a good card to run this game on Ultra?

Honestly, they should let you fast-travel to any road sign at any time, as long as you aren't in combat. You'd still have to do a decent amount of running from the destination sign to your actual POI/quest, but making you run to one sign, just to travel to another sign for more running is a little dumb.

Killswitch_sl said:

So just wondering if I pass on the ?? quests will I still be able to get designs and crafting components? I just started the game but when I went to those bandit camps I always found either a recipe or crafting component that i could use. Seems those areas have some decent loot for crafting. I just want to avoid any quests that are not going to be beneficial. Thanks lots of good info here and really enjoying the game so far. Its doesn't run bad on my GTX 670 but starting to look at better video cards for my PC. Any recommendations on a good card to run this game on Ultra?

Click to expand...

I run the game with the only settings not at ultra/max being shadows(high) and hair FX(turned off) on my 970 @ 1440p and it always stays at a perfectly playable 30-50 FPS.

If you're playing at 1080p, you could definitely crank everything to max on a 970 and stay well above 30fps at all times. Now, if you want to crank everything to ultra and be at 60+ FPS, you're probably going to need 970SLI or a 980ti to pull that off.

Killswitch_sl said:

So just wondering if I pass on the ?? quests will I still be able to get designs and crafting components? I just started the game but when I went to those bandit camps I always found either a recipe or crafting component that i could use. Seems those areas have some decent loot for crafting. I just want to avoid any quests that are not going to be beneficial. Thanks lots of good info here and really enjoying the game so far. Its doesn't run bad on my GTX 670 but starting to look at better video cards for my PC. Any recommendations on a good card to run this game on Ultra?

Click to expand...

I would advise that early on in the game you loot as much as you can, money is tight at the beginning, especially on harder difficulties, and you will need the gold for repair bills. Don't worry about recipes so much, but do try and buy any you find at inns because you will need the base component to make the more advanced versions, and it's beneficial to have the base recipes from the starting White Orchard area (for example, you will need the Swallow potion in order to make the Enhanced Swallow potion, and in turn you will need a Enhanced Swallow potion to make a Superior Swallow potion). Later on in the game you will find vendors who sell practically all the recipes and you will have plenty of gold by then to buy them all.

If there is any piece of advice I would give you, it's that you should try and do the Witcher Armor/Weapon Treasure Hunts as soon as you are able to. You will find the treasure maps on various vendors, so be sure to check them all. Once you craft yourself a set of Witcher armor and weapons, you will never look back, and basically all armor and loot you get thereafter you will sell, and you will then be rolling in money and no longer need to bother looting all the boxes nor will you need to gather herbs anymore.

Also, just to elaborate on Witcher armor a little more, there are 3 sets you can obtain.....Griffin (medium armor), Feline (light armor), and Ursine (heavy armor). Each set has different stats that suit different play styles, whether you like using signs more or maybe are more melee-oriented. The sets have different level requirements, Griffin being the lowest, and Ursine being the highest. Personally I ended up making all 3 and just using the best one I could whenever I out-leveled the old piece. The downside to this is, as far as I can tell there is no storage function like in Witcher 1 and 2, so you will end up lugging around all these armors and weapons, and you will need them in order to upgrade them to the next level (armor and weapons go from base level --> Enhanced --> Superior --> Mastercrafted). I guess you could sell them to a vendor and buy them back at a higher cost but I never bothered doing that. If you end up doing what I did, make sure you have upgraded saddlebags to carry all the extra weight. Towards the end of the game weight won't matter anymore unless you are OCD because you are going to stop looting; as I mentioned before money will become a non-issue.

Thanks Joeboo for insight on your settings. I've been on the fence on picking up a 970 lately but waiting on AMD R9 390X. Fucking video cards are always such a pain in the ass to decide upon.

Izuldan I did pretty much everything in White Orchard but not sure if I picked up that potion recipe at the inn or not. Are you able to go back to previous areas ? I just moved to the next scenario to talk to the Lord while hot chicks were wiping my wiener in the bathtub. So haven't started this new area yet.

Don't break down any weapons or armor, just sell it all with the exception of alchemy shit. You will make money fast and with the drops you get from chests and packages you can easily craft your gear without buying any mats. Just do the griffin/cat/bear quests since the plans are free.