The Witcher 3

I reinstalled the DLC, the bugs are gone now.

I played through the expansion, first time I let Master Mirror take Olgierd, but that didn't give me a chance to get rid of Master Mirror, so I reloaded an old save and went the other route, though that didn't give me a chance to punch Olgierd in the face, so I was disappointed the either way.

I have to love the sound track for this game.

Some of these quests I am loving the fact I can do the "Witcher Mind Trick" and avoid fight unless someone really needs to die. Like the Witch Hunters torturing Triss. I just couldn't take it after one hand and the asshole wasn't cooperating after playing nice. It was so worth it.

Just now getting around to finding all the unmarked sites and towns whose sign posts I haven't discovered yet. Finding all sorts of interesting things just bumping around. I cleared the northern part of the map of quests and things to find. Found some decent loot and lots of blue prints I still can't use. Once I am done chasing down all the ? on the map I will get to finishing those treasure hunts I have. Before too long I have to go to Skellege

I haven't bought those things yet. I'm still working on my New Game Plus on a slightly higher difficulty. The combination of the two is a bit dangerous: the enemy scaling isn't nearly as stark when 10 levels are only a 20% difference in stats versus an 80% difference. I can still get my arse handed to me by minor bandits if I'm not careful.

I am just about done with Novigrad and I managed to get Triss to stay this time. I have to say: sex in a lighthouse sounds very uncomfortable. For the life of me, though, I couldn't see any way to get out of the Menge quest line with useful information about Dijkstra's treasure. When I pried about it, Menge got suspicious and the encounter didn't have the best ending. None of the guides offer any insight here. Do you have to accept a worse outcome to the interrogation if you want to get Dijkstra's best outcome?

I'm looking for it in guides, but having a hard time getting Google to cough up good results. If you romance both Triss and Yen, at what point do you have to choose between them? Am I required to renounce my love for Yen during her sidequest, prior to Kaer Morhen, or is there some kind of fiery confrontation there?

edited 1st Nov '15 9:58:56 PM by Fighteer

If you romance both they decide Geralt is not worth it. Bye bye, mission complete.

Got it, so I have to tell Yen to get lost now. /sigh

So I downloaded Hearts of Stone and started a New Game+ and I was a bit dissapointed to see just how much they reset. Gwent Cards, Recipes and Diagrams are all gone.

I get it, it's New Game + and part of the fun is getting to explore the game anew, but collecting all the Gwent cards again just sounds...tedious. Not to mention I lost all the crafting diagrams for Mastercrafted gear that I didn't get around to making yet. It would have been better in my opinion to simply have a reset of the quests and leave all the collectible stuff...collected.

But whatever, it's a minor complaint. The game is still good the second time around. I'm trying to get a different outcome with the Djisktra/Radovid plotline this time around.

I too lost my shit when those Witch Hunters struck Triss, and proceeded to kill them all. I want to see what happens if I actually play along this time.

Losing your Gwent deck is disappointing, but if you didn't then the Gwent quests would probably be broken, or try to award you duplicates of unique cards. I imagine that the developers didn't feel it was worth it to adjust all of them to take into account, for example, that you already have the three rare cards that Zoltan wants you to help him find in Novigrad.

With respect to crafting, though, you didn't lose anything important — the game will let you unlock a new set of crafting recipes that are level-adjusted to match the New Game Plus. I'm currently anticipating making the Legendary Mastercrafted Feline set for myself at level 53 — one more to go! Keeping the old recipes would have been pointless as they are too weak to be useful.

I suppose the glyph and runestone recipes are an exception to this, since their bonuses don't change, but it hardly matters in the grand scheme of things. Just takes a bit of coin to reacquire them.

You do keep most of your Alchemy recipes, except for quest-specific ones. I am still trying to find the ones to upgrade my last few blade oils, though.

It's worthwhile to let Triss suffer through the interrogation; play your cards right and you not only make her happy with you but get to witness a much more satisfying end for Menge than being cut down with a sword.

edited 2nd Nov '15 7:02:57 AM by Fighteer

Oh, now that you mention it, I see that there are better diagrams now. Hadn't noticed them in my frustration over my missing Mastercraft Ursine Silver Sword

And yeah, I had fun with Gwent my first playthrough, but I'll probably just skip the gwent related stuff this time around. Question: how do you move forward with the Radovid assasination questline? Like I said, I killed Menge after his men struck Triss and near the end of the game I broke Djisktra's (other) leg. Is this why I didn't get to go after that witch-persecuting scum Radovid?

edited 2nd Nov '15 8:10:31 AM by GutstheBerserker

To get in on Radovid's assassination, you must (as I understand it):

• Help Djikstra get his stolen treasure back to the best of your ability.
• Once Triss gets the mages out of Novigrad (regardless of the outcome of your relationship), accept his offer to join the conspiracy against Radovid.
• Meet with Vernon Roche and accompany him to the "chess club".
• (Optional?) Accept Radovid's quest to locate Phillipa Eilhart. I don't know if this is necessary but she does become important later in the plot.
• Accept and complete the quest to track down Thaler.

Once this is done, the assassination plot will remain dormant until after the Battle of Kaer Morhen.

edited 2nd Nov '15 9:25:29 AM by Fighteer

Ah, I see. Yeah I missed a couple of those, so I'm guessing the quest flag wasn't activating for me.

Gonna try that to get in on tthe regicide. Radovid's a douche.

Are any of you playing the game on PC? I've found some really good mods that make the game much more convenient.

Right now my 3 favourites ones are (These are all available on the Nexus):

1 - Friendly HUD: Really cleans up and optimizes the interface. Best feature? A quick-Meditation button on the LB/L1 menu.

2 - Fast Travel Anywhere: Need I say more?

3 - I'm forgetting the name of the last one but it's something like "Economy Rebalance". It makes shopkeepers carry more money so you don't have to jump between numerous shops to unload your vendor trash.

edited 2nd Nov '15 9:55:29 AM by GutstheBerserker

Heh, that last would be very useful. Do mods disable achievements in this game, like they do in some others?

Fast travel anywhere is nice in principle, but kind of breaks immersion. I may check out Friendly HUD.

edited 2nd Nov '15 9:52:21 AM by Fighteer

Achievements still work if you install mods.

Fast Travel Anywhere is one of those nice-to-have mods. I mostly ride my horse around everywhere but it's nice to have the option to fast travel if you are stuck somewhere in the level geometry and don't want to reload

What's also great about Friendly HUD is that, since my PC is connected to my TV and I play with an X360 controller, the in-game text can be really small at times when sitting far way from the screen.

The mod adds some small keywords to potions in your inventory so you can quickly at a glance determine wich potion it is without having to hover over it with the controller. Saves me a lot of time.

I haven't delved too much into the visual mods, mostly because I didn't want to wade through the dozens of obligatory nude skins, but I hear there are also some pretty nifty visual enhancement mods if your rig can handle it.

edited 2nd Nov '15 10:02:50 AM by GutstheBerserker

Eh, nothing wrong with nude skins, but I wasn't aware that TW3 had attained that level of moddability. I gather that the recent updates have made it much easier to do.

Oh don't get me wrong, nude skins are fine and dandy. It's just that they are usually the top results when filtering for visual mods.

And yeah, the developpers have made modding pretty easy for those interested from what I understand.

Fighteer: Thanks for those tips on the Radovid quest.

I have been digging around a bit and the outcome of the Treasure quest is almost irrelevant apparently. You get the info for Dandelion anyways is partly why i sucked it up for one full hand of finger nails for Triss. He got uncooperative when I asked about the treasure and just mentioned where it was and what the key you find on him goes to. Apparently it counts. Some folks seem to suggest you can just say fuck it and kill everyone at the gate and you will find the info on the corpse of the asshat in charge.

You find the key but you don't get any info as to what the key actually opens. That's the outcome I got.

Djikstra isn't happy, but he considers that he can do the rest of the searching for now and considers your task fulfilled.

The Witcher is getting another movie.

I saw that. Hope it turns out out at least.

I think though the Witcher would lend itself better as a hour long slot tv series.

For those interested in picking up the previous games on the cheap for PC Goodl Ol Games is having a dirt cheap sale for them. Like less then $5 cheap. So if you want to play the other games to get the full story before this game now is your chance for a cheap grab if you can.

edited 6th Nov '15 3:47:38 AM by TuefelHundenIV

so... I finished the Witcher 3... and got the bad ending... I'm going to need some time alone after this... and another 50 hours on the game...

THAT's how you do endings :)

Now I just need to work out how to avoid it. I'm vaguely annoyed that my save import didn't bring in letho for some reason the save I put in marked him as dead, but it could be it was an auto save from JUST before the end of the game.

I petered out on W3 but need to get back to it. May have to just hook it up to a steam streamer and a controller so I can play downstairs. How is it with a gamepad?

I rarely use the keyboard, so all I can see is the controller works as you would expect, I don't see why everyone is always going on about it, it's uncomfortable, easier to hit the wrong buttons, and not as intuitive, I never touched the Witcher 3 or any other game that takes a controller with the keyboard

I mean I love it on my PC, but I think I need to stream it to my TV. If I sit downstairs in the family room I'll be more likely to play it / finish it.

And I really need to do the DLC. Only thing that stops me is there always seems to be so much more to do in the game. Which is great, but also quite daunting.

Oh and I can't kill that bloody creature in the cave, the Chort that you have to fight in close quarters. That's knackering.

I know, right? I haven't killed that thing either (mainly because I haven't played the game in months)

Igni is your friend there, and remember to dodge!

I think it's also recommended you have a certain bomb that I forget the name of.