Discussion What's your favourite video game you've been playing?

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Just started playing TW3 last night. The graphics are amazing, and it runs better than I expected on my spec. So far no trouble playing it, except for trying to figure out the basics, like best places to get food, how to cook food, make potions, what weapons and tactics to use on what enemies, etc. Of course I know to draw the silver sword for creatures, and steel for humans though. Roach (odd name for a horse) is a work in progress on some of the tricky terrain, but the auto ride on roads is kinda cool, and adapts well to steering corrections.

Anyone know of a good video guide for learning the basics of TW3? I've never really played any of them, and it seems a bit more complex than Skyrim, which was fairly easy to pickup.
 
To be honest they just revamped the menu system in The Witcher 3 and I have only still played about an hour with the new look. Graphics are amazing. For the first 20-30 hours I was sort of up in the air about just how good the game was going to be because it felt like a total grind. Don't give up. It pays off in spades. The story is amazing and the grind eases up when you start leveling up.

I never played the other Witcher games either. I got them on sale a few years ago and played for about 10 minutes before i decided I didn't like the first game. After I finally finish Blood and Wine I'll go back and give them another try just for the story's sake.

In my opinion the best gear is the Witcher stuff. Even the swords because of the set bonuses although they may not look like the absolute best generally end up being the best. I didn't use any one guide but I consulted google more for TW3 than any game in recent memory. At first there really is no stuff. The best potion recipes are in The Skellige Isles. You will as a matter of course find most of the potions and bombs and decoctions but it's slow.
 
I just found out (according to someone on Steam Forums) there's no cooking in TW3. I could have sworn one of the items I looted from an animal I killed was meat. I guess you just sell meat then?

Is there any simple way of knowing what is useless and should be sold, and what should be kept?

So I guess in some ways it's less complex than Skyrim. Honestly though, I never bothered cooking anything in Skyrim.

So I guess I just need to know best places to loot food and treasure, and best ways to build armor and buff combat skills. That should get me started.

I'm bouncing back and forth between a no upgrade run in TEW on Survival, and TW3 on Just the Story, which is about the oddest name for an Easy mode I've ever seen. LOL

I'm picturing a kid sobbing, saying, "No daddy, I don't want to play it, just tell me the story!"
 
Loot literally everything in TW3. Anything not under a guard's nose is fair game and you will need all the gold you can get until later in the game. Even late game it's not exactly plentiful. Then sell pretty much everything. You will need some crafting stuff but you will learn what as you go.

Also it's very hard to build a broadly powerful character. It's better to focus pretty narrowly. Once you figure out mutagens and how to activate skills you will see what I mean. Keep every red mutagen you find. They are so hard to come across and all the others are plentiful by comparison. Never sell a red, keep them to craft greater red mutagens to enhance sword skills.
 
I played the Witcher 3 on the second difficulty, 'Story and Sword' and at that difficulty, you don't actually need to brew oils or decoctions to defeat enemies. Just don't go after the ones whose level is more than yours and you'll be fine. At higher difficulty levels, as I've heard, you need to use the several oils and stuff. I think that makes the game more challenging and more fun. By the time I was half way through this game, I was already breezing past most enemies with just my sword.

In the DLC, hearts of stone, I had to use some witcher potions to defeat some bosses, even at the 'Story and Sword' difficulty.

The meat you get from wolves is edible, by Geralt's standards. Lol. They replenish your health. You don't have to cook them.

Take a look at the beastiary once you've defeated an unknown enemy. It shows what potions, oils, signs you may need to use to easily defeat it. It's really helpful.

When looting, do take a look at your carry weight. Once you become encumbered, you won't be able to run or sprint.

On the levelling up part, you may want to invest into the AXII sign and QUEN signs first. They proved to me, as the most useful ones. The AXII sign helps you avoid some unnecessary combat with idiots who are too stupid to even stand in front of you. Lol.

Like anort said, money is hard to come by at first. But in my case, they were plentiful by the end. I remember having 30k crowns or orens (I forgot the name) during the final parts.
 
I spent all the extra money I had with the Hearts of Stone DLC rune traders. Not even sure how much I have now.

I tend to use Igni more than any other sign. Killing things with fire works very well. 😛

 
Hahaha. I think I use igni most with drowners and humans. I use yrden with the wraiths as it's impossible to strike any without that sign.

I just noticed one thing. My loss of saves from the first playthrough means I can't get to use
Olgierd's sword
in the Blood and Wine. This is such a bummer!

 
DAMN! I had a nice long, detailed response typed, and my modem crashed and it didn't post.

Suffice it to say I'm getting the hang of it, but still having some problems.

1. Is there a way to considerably buff armor stats? I like the look of the starting chest piece, but it's low in stats. I'm wearing a puffy clown-looking one I found right now, with striped sleeves and waste.

2. Is there a way to repair armor and weapons more affordably? It's expensive and they wear fast.

3. Why do some unknown locations only partially grey out on the map after looting them?



 
1. You can only add some runestones to your armor, which increase a certain % of some skills. That's about it really. You're going to have to wear the clown armor till you find a better one. There's no way to increase the base armor stats. You could go on the treasure hunts to get cat, bear, griffin or witcher gear, although I never bothered to. There are lots of armors to try out, so no need to worry.

2. Unfortunately. No. You have to go to a blacksmith and have it repaired, or you could buy a reapir kit yourself.
Just have them frequently repaired and make sure you have 2 or 3 extra swords and armor in your inventory, in case something breaks during battle.
Repairing them frequently means they won't as cost much as they do when broken.

3. They grey out because it's the game telling you that you've completed that particular side quest. (It's not really a side quest, just one of the '?' missions). For example, if it involved a bandit camp and you cleared it out completely, it may still remain white in color. It's the game telling you haven't found what they wanted you to find. There may have been a chest in the camp, where you can get diagrams, swords or armors. Once you looted that, it greys out.

For your modem crash issue, I suggest you hit Ctrl+A to select all you wrote and hit Ctrl+C to copy it. That way, if your modem crashed and you hit the 'Answer' button, you won't lose all what you wrote and you can just paste in your previous answer on your new post. I do this sometimes in case I take too long to reply. The server usually times out if I take more than 20 minutes or so. I don't take 20 minutes to type! Lol, I'd probably be AFK.
 
I did the quests for all the Witcher gear and used Griffin armor just about the whole game.

http://www.gosunoob.com/witcher-3/witcher-armor-griffin-school-gear/


Ohhh guess I'll be questing after Grandmaster Griffin armor. I didn't know about Grandmaster armor.

http://www.gosunoob.com/witcher-3/new-blood-wine-armor-sets/
 
There's no way to increase the base armor stats.

Not true actually. I found the armorer in White Orchard could raise the starting chest piece all the way to 30. So I'm wearing it again now and sold the 32 stat clown piece I was wearing.

You have to go to a blacksmith and have it repaired, or you could buy a reapir kit yourself.
I've read you can also craft repair kits. Plus I've already looted a couple amateur grade ones. What I'm trying to find out now is where to find repair kit diagrams (if there IS such a thing), or at least where to find the Gnomish whetstone required to make the best one.

They grey out because it's the game telling you that you've completed that particular side quest.

There's only a few that didn't grey out, and some greyed out partially. I checked thoroughly with Witcher Sense though, and couldn't see anything else.

For your modem crash issue, I suggest you hit Ctrl+A to select all you wrote and hit Ctrl+C to copy it.

No kidding, but it doesn't happen but once in a blue moon, and you can easily forget to do that.

 
You can craft both weapon and armor repair kits. I don't remember where the diagrams are for each level kits. Google probably would unless it's random.

Oh yeah get these in White Orchard.

http://www.gosunoob.com/witcher-3/best-starting-weapons/

Good early stats.

Edit: Also all Witcher gear can be upgraded throughout the game so never sell it.
 
I guess I never had to craft them before. I just used to buy a few kits myself or happen to come upon them in chests. That's about it really.

You can increase the base armor stats? Did they add that in with a patch or something? I played through the game without knowing this at all. I never bother to read guides either, so it could be a fault on my part.

EDIT: Nevermind, I just saw anort's post.

There's only a few that didn't grey out, and some greyed out partially. I checked thoroughly with Witcher Sense though, and couldn't see anything else.
This could be a glitch. I had a few cases like this in Novigrad.
 
I already went to that place with the serpentine sword and viper gear quest anort. My problem is finding a blacksmith that can make me Viper swords. Everywhere I look is only armorers so far.

I also need to find a way to level up faster, this game is weird when it comes to levels. I cleared all areas in White Orchard, and took on a lot of enemies in the process, but am only level 4 so far.

When I got to Velen, the game prompted me that it was replacing the usual story quest with one of the ones from one of my DLC, but it's rated level 33, so I opted out of it. I found that strange since they warn you about only taking quests of recommended levels.

Plus enemies in the world will very quite a bit in level. I'm defeating bandits that are as high as level 23 fairly easily, but a Bilge Hag that was only level 15, seemed invincible, even though I was using two of the things it's weak to. I eventually got it down to about 3/4 health, then gave up.

My main problems right now are needing to level faster, and spend and use my skill points better. I'm almost feeling like finding a cheat to respend my skill points. I read there's something you can find in game to do that, but it's rare and expensive, and I really don't want to restart the game.

 
The only time I remember levelling up really quickly was during the final parts of the game. I don't really remember what level I was when I left White Orchard, but I do remember having a hard time fighting Hags. Bandits aren't difficult, unless you're fighting a horde of them at once with archers and ones with shields (Or was it the Redanian army, I forget..).

What did you spend your skillls points on?

I believe there is a potion you can get from an NPC named Keira Metz (If you haven't met her already).

EDIT: Also, I suggest using Quen a lot, as I found it useful many times and I only realised this really late in the game. If you haven't done it already, spend skill points on quen.
 
I went out of my way to play Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, a very old backlog, possibly from back when it was released (2010). It was relatively short. I completed it in like 7 or 8 hours. I couldn't finish the game back then because of major bugs that makes some doors in the palace refuse to open. I couldn't get past one such door back then, forcing me to abandon the game.
This time around, the bugs are all mostly still here, but I managed to somehow get past most doors by luck.

The game itself, is still pretty good looking. Character models are ok and environments look stunning. I've only played 'The Two Thrones' among the Prince of Persia series, and comparing it with this, the platforming is a lot better in this one. But the combat takes a huge step back. It's just hack and slash but in the older games you had to choose a certain move, hit buttons in certain ways to execute a different attack. The ending was very, very abrupt. Plot was very straight forward. The 'bosses' were a joke. I don't think I even died once during combat.

Only thing well done in this game for me, was the platforming. It introduced a lot more stuff than previous iterations and it was fun, most of the time.
I'm thinking of playing through the very first game 'The Sands of Time' and it's free on Ubisoft's website right now. I might give it a try. Hopefully it hasn't aged that badly..
 
There is no leveling up fast in The Witcher 3. I'm sitting at 166 hours and I'm level 36. As I said above the first 30+ hours feel like a huge grind because of how slowly you level.

There are plenty of online maps to consult if you need a blacksmith.

http://witcher3map.com/

Yeah there is a potion you can buy to respend skill points. Several vendors sell it.

http://www.gosunoob.com/witcher-3/skill-reset/
 
Finally found the one blacksmith in White Orchard at the military post. Had him make a Viper Steel and Silver Sword set, and a Disglair Silver sword with 100 more damage that I won't be able to use until level 12.

I'm level 6 now, have already met Kiera and done her quest, and wouldn't you know it, since finding the blacksmith quickly found two more in Velen, and looted better armor and swords. Well, one Silver sword anyway, which I used to defeat a Basilic with.

That's been my hardest fight so far, partly because I was getting lag and it was slowing my movement. I've since switched from a mix of Med/High settings, to all Low except Textures High, which I may drop to Med. I've also beaten the Werewolf, 2 Berserker Bears, and a Wyvern.

I want to like this game, and it has some cool stuff to draw you in, but it also has some near deal breaking quirks I really hate. Geralt often puts his sword away while fighting, or won't block with it, but in the Werewolf fight, after the cutscene midway through, he held it in block position, but wouldn't swing it when I tried to attack.

I've also numerous times had my selected sign change randomly to something else, which is why I always have to check it before going into battle. Plus, probably not a quirk, since I've seen a skill tied to precise hits, but I hate it when a lot of your close swings that should hit, just wiff and miss.

So far it's a mixed bag for me. A lot to like, but a lot to hate as well. I definitely can't justify it winning GotY with so many technical gameplay flaws though. Plus performance is crappy. Maybe even worse than Arkham Knight.
 
I didn't have any technical type problems like that at all that I remember. I agree that the game is a beast to run though. I average about 55 FPS at 1440p with everything maxed. It's the most demanding game I've played. I even get better frame rates ( ~58 avg ) in Rise of the Tomb Raider.

 
I had a really hard time with the Werewolf. I died around 5 or 6 times before I finally beat him. To be honest, the game, for me, was hard till the first major boss. I don't remember if the basilic was before or after but I'll put spoiler tags anyway.

First Wild hunt boss - Nihilanth

I specifically remember taking around nearly half an hour to just beat that boss. All the others from there on was pretty easy for me.
Your technical problems seem very strange to me. Like Anort, I too didn't have any problems, even on my 750 Ti (med settings at 1366x768). I have a feeling your hardware cursor is turned off. When I turned it on, I experienced a lot more responsive mouse movement. Try getting rid of AA if you have it on. It made my performance a lot better.
 


Oh wow. I completely forgot about alternate response movement. This makes running around a whole lot easier. I'm not sure if it helps in combat though. I'll have to see for myself.