OFFICIAL The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (Discussion)

[moproblems99]

I haven't had any of the issues you mentioned. Although, occasionally I hit 1 or 2 while reaching for q which will screw up my sword situation.

 

[rtwjunkie]

I haven't had any of the issues you mentioned. Although, occasionally I hit 1 or 2 while reaching for q which will screw up my sword situation.

Pretty much the only time Geralt gets confused for me too, if I am not paying attention to the q button.

@Frag Maniac build up quen in every way possible, including rune buffs. Then you'll rarely if ever need to block. I always attacked, attacked, roll. Rinse, repeat. Rolling and quen are the best defense you can do.

 

[Frag_Maniac]

Doesn't Quen break every time you get hit though? Then you have to wait for stamina to regen to reapply it. Keep in mind I'm at the start of the game, so it's not like I can max it yet. I was using it against a Bilge Hag, but I didn't have nearly a strong enough sword. Plus it's only defensive, and you need Aard and Igni for a lot of creatures, so it's not like you can just spend all your first points on Quen sign wise.

Anyway, after scavenging better swords and armor, I've since defeated the Werewolf, a couple Berserker Bears, a Basilic, and a Wyvern, the latter of which was much easier than I anticipated after the Basilic. I've got a fairly strong Fast and Strong attack, buffered 4x damage on Fast, 2x on Strong, but I hate how the game makes a lot of your close range swings just miss, even though they look like they're hitting, and should be counted as hits.

How is it a creature's swings only miss if you dodge, but a lot of yours just wiff, as if you're no-clipping through them? I guess they gotta cram in another redundant precision skill that makes close combat swings that should hit every time get counted every time, or maybe just more often get counted after seeing how this team makes games. LOL

So yeah, with all the odd quirks, I feel this game is overrated. It has a lot of things that pull you in, but doesn't really holistically deliver as many claim.

 

[rtwjunkie]

I feel this game is overrated. It has a lot of things that pull you in, but doesn't really holistically deliver as many claim.

Honestly, it is the amount of content, the story, both main and side, and the excellent way many integrate, and the immersion into a lovingly crafted world where details matttered to the team. It's how CDPR have always made games: Story, high fantasy immersion and lots of quests.

The rest has always been accepted by the fans as quirky, and the studio has always fixed actual bugs quickly. So things like your complaints are basically given a pass because they are still playable, with the rest of the game excellent. My theory only.

 

[moproblems99]

It has a lot of things that pull you in, but doesn't really holistically deliver as many claim.

The story for me was always the winner. There was nothing about the game I didn't like. As with any other game, there are quirks but the story and story telling makes everything else acceptable. Perhaps if you had played the series you would understand. Take Fallout 4. For me, I just can't play it. Its boring, the story is bland, and I am never really sure what is going on. However, I never played any of the other Fallout games.

 

[okidna]

Other annoyances are the game seems horrible for KB/M controls. This was one of Angry Joe's biggest gripes, even though he scored the PC version 10/10. My main problems control wise, are 1) Geralt often will put his sword away in the middle of battle, and I have to keep spamming 1 or 2 to draw it. Otherwise he's punching with fists like an idiot. 2) Geralt often won't hold his weapon in block position, even though I'm holding down RMB, this results in taking lots of damage. 3) annoyingly, sign selection will often change out of the blue from Igni to Quen or Avard. 4) Often time Z won't make Geralt lock onto one enemy, or when I want him to move freely, he'll move like he's locked on, even though he isn't.

Movement and action response in general is clumsy and slow. When he stops running, he keeps going when you stop and runs into things. He's slow and awkward at turning, doing large clumsy loops, and often times just pulling a weapon or using it feels like there's heavy input lag. I doubt it's frame rate, because the settings I'm at now yield mostly 60 FPS. Is it true that the game just sucks on KB/M, because if that's the case, it could be a deal breaker for me. There's a lot to like about this game, but on KB/M, there's also a lot to hate, and makes me think it's overrated. Plus CDPR themselves are touted as devs that care a lot about PC, but if they force you to use god awful gamepads just to get smooth controls, that doesn't appear to be the case to me.

I spent more than 450 hours playing this game on KB&M, the KB&M control is not perfect but I don't have any major problem with it.

You can enable manual swords sheathing via options so Geralt won't accidentally sheath his swords mid-combat (but also remember that he won't auto-draw his weapon whenever you meet enemy/monster) and you can try to enable alternative movement response (much more responsive, fluid, and fast, including turning speed) via options.

 

[Frag_Maniac]

I basically agree with you guys. The story, settings, quality voice acting, and quest scenarios are very immersive, and what draws me in. In fairness I guess it's mostly that those elements raise the bar to a level where the technical side can't keep up which is frustrating to me.

I may try the manual sword draw setting, but I wish there was also something to account for sign selection switching mysteriously. I think I'll try alternate movement response too, I forgot that was in there, and never tested it. Thanks for the tips.

Skyrim was not all good. It had tedious repeat voices, and some lackluster textures. I'm hoping there will be a tipping point where what comes ahead story wise will win over the tech issues.

For now it's back to my no upgrade TEW run on Survival. I plan to tackle it same way on Nightmare after that. I think I'm going to play TW3 in chunks and pieces. Too much at once can be frustrating.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

What a great game, i havent played it loads but i am very impressed. Im playing with Sapphire HD 7970 OC boost 1000/1450. Im getting 50/60 fps on high settings. (motion blur off) 1080p

The game looks great, the colours and scenery are fabulous.

The storyline is ace and the characters are surprisingly engaging. The dialogue is clever and witty and very well written.

My wife wants me to restart the game cos she missed the intro....

Spoiler: not a game spoiler

It's great to see so many Welsh inspired names in there too....

 

[Frag_Maniac]

Almost level 20 now and have greater blue and green mutagens, with blue set up with maxed Igni, Yrden, and switch the 3rd between level 1 Quen and level 2 Delusion. I finally got enough lesser red mutagens to make a red mutagen with maxed Fast Attack, Level 4 Strong Attack, and level 2 Resolve. I still need to get 6 more lesser red mutagens before I can craft a greater red. I'm told you need to be level 20-25 to farm lesser red mutagens, and I'm about 270 XP away from level 20, so I'm currently stalking a Fiend contract in hopes to get another lesser red. On Green I have a greater, but only have one matching category skill under it, Heightened Tolerance, at level 3. I also have level 1 Survival Instinct and Devastating Blows in that tree. When the 4th tree unlock, I'll be moving the General category skills over to it, and probably add Poisoned Blades and Frenzy to the Alchemy tree.

I'm still playing with alternate movement response, but it's really only faster, with the same sloppiness. For some reason I get less random sign selection changing now, though it still happens now and then. Maybe it's just that I've gotten in the habit of always checking it before battles. I'm getting much better at dodging and striking from behind with harder enemies like the shield guys, but the combat often feels clunky and AI very dumb. If you so much as do a couple rolls, they will be standing right near you at 3/4 angle and not even see you. Plus I still get the odd stuck in a certain pose or without weapon drawn problem now and then.

I've also found the Bestiary often isn't really worth a damn, or even most wiki sources, because they mostly go by the Bestiary. The game will even tell you in the detailed info about Higher Vampires, that they're invulnerable to fire. Yet the Bestiary says to use Igni on them. The best way I've found to deal with creatures is to either experiment to see what works best, or chat with those whom know the game well. Golems are another prime example. The Bestiary and many wikis will lead you to believe they are pretty much invulnerable to signs, listing none, yet I've found that ALt mode level 3 Yrden not only distracts them, it damages them quite a bit, and if you circle around behind them with max Igni, you don't really even have to damage your blade.

Creatively the game is beyond expectations though, with the depth of even minor quests, the vastness and variety of the game world, and the sheer number of creatures, which also vary quite a bit in how they attack. It certainly has it's quirks, but many of them I'm figuring out how to minimize or deal with. Like simply selling goods for instance. Often times the item highlighted is not the one sold, but I've found you have to wait for the info of the highlighted item to pop up before you can be sure it's the one that's going to sell. The inventory menu is a bit sluggish that way.

I don't know if I'd call it GotY, especially since it's so buggy over a year after launch, but clearly it's better than I thought it would be.

 

[the54thvoid]

Boooo.

Pretty much done every quest and side quest (apart from Gwent) on B&W. No failed quests! Got my happy ending.

Spoiler

A fully restored Vinyard with a lovely Yennifer to keep me company

Well done CDProject Red.

Though the combat is awful compared to Dark Souls 3.

 

[Frag_Maniac]

Pretty much done every quest and side quest (apart from Gwent) on B&W. No failed quests!

Yeah I don't play Gwent either. I DID however fail The Gangs of Novigrad quest, and had to go back a little ways to do it over. I found in my Googling that many were failing it or Get Junior, especially with earlier build versions. There were people writing up details with a specific order you had to do things to complete both quests and get the hidden stash.

For me, on the current game build, all I had to do is go back to a point where I had to complete the final tasks of TGoN, then I was able to get the hidden stash and complete GJ.

I think what caused the problem for me is I got side tracked and did something else while in the middle of TGoN.

I've seen others say the combat is plain and easy compared to DSIII, but it seems to me, if DSIII is as interesting as they imply, they wouldn't be spending their time chatting about it on a TW3 Steam forum, especially since DSIII came out a whole 10 months AFTER TW3.

I expect full well DSIII would have more sophisticated combat, because it better have. Boss fight after boss fight is about all there is to DS, except for having to explore a lot if you want to find every useful item.

 

[Ferrum Master]

The Gangs of Novigrad quest

Did the same. This kind of need a warning... but... I am on my second play... only if I could spare more time for it... so much work... 14 hours at work kills my need for gaming...

 

[Frag_Maniac]

Did the same. This kind of need a warning... but...

Like I said, if you stay focused on the quest, and especially if you do the tasks in the order they list them, I'm pretty sure it works fine in the latest build. It's only when you get side tracked and get the tasks mucked up that problems happen since they did the patching. The main problem I have with the patching is it seems it's considerably lowered the optimization.

 

[Ferrum Master]

I have with the patching is it seems it's considerably lowered the optimization.

Hmm didn't notice that. Quite the opposite. Maybe try reinstalling from scratch?

 

[Frag_Maniac]

Hmm didn't notice that. Quite the opposite. Maybe try reinstalling from scratch?

I've seen plenty others on TW3 Steam forum say it too, though it may also be worse on AMD. And no, it's not the install.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Im confused

I swapped my Sapphire HD7970 OC boost for my EVGA GTX 680 SC


and the frame rate is worse.....quite a bit worse.

7970........50/60
680...........40/50

exact same settings, when i enabled hairworks on the GTX there was a further (though small) drop in fps.

The game looks lovely with the AMD card and more like GTA with the Nvidia. I checked GPUZ when i was running the game and the loads and clocks on both cards looked correct.


20 minutes later i put the 7970 back in.

 

[Ferrum Master]

I've seen plenty others on TW3 Steam forum say it too, though it may also be worse on AMD. And no, it's not the install.

I am on the GOG version. They change patches into one.

Well it is the one of the most demanding games... try decreasing shadows to medium btw. And they changed engine settings in between patches to. The medium first patch is different for the other... just play around the real settings file.

 

[ViperXTR]

I get FPS drops on specific custscenes with many NPC or detailed backgrounds at 1440p, do cutscenes use some ubersampling or something? (or does DSR from 1080p to 1440p have overhead?)

Also, having hitches on some places mostly novigrad or palces with many buildings and NPCs and the garbage collection tweak doesn't seem to be available anymore, my old CPU getting wrecked? Otherwise i have solid 60FPS most of the time (fps limit to 59 actually since some say it reduces stutters)

 

[Ferrum Master]

do cutscenes use some ubersampling or something

Yes they do, and have FPS limit. Thus the stutter. You can alter it in ini files. Google around...

 

[pigulici]

How do I know what formula(for alchemy) to not buy from people, because already have it, or that recipe will not show in their stock if I already have?

 

[ViperXTR]

Yes they do, and have FPS limit. Thus the stutter. You can alter it in ini files. Google around...

Hmm it seems that the ubersample settings is not doing anything but i lowered shadows from Ultra to High and get full speed again. Shadow seems to eat a lot of GPU resources (from 100% GPU usage on a scene from the expansion and down to ~90% when i lowered from ultra to high) Its the only place i got this slight slowdown. Used just high anyway, i hardly see any difference between ultra and high shadow settings

 

[Ferrum Master]

Hmm it seems that the ubersample settings is not doing anything but i lowered shadows from Ultra to High and get full speed again. Shadow seems to eat a lot of GPU resources (from 100% GPU usage on a scene from the expansion and down to ~90% when i lowered from ultra to high) Its the only place i got this slight slowdown. Used just high anyway, i hardly see any difference between ultra and high shadow settings

I use even medium shadows. Did some screenshots and compared, if SSAO/HBAO is on I really could not tell much difference, but the FPS did improve a lot by 5-8FPS

 

[alexsubri]

Just bought a new ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1070 AMP! Edition, I`ll be picking it up after work and can't wait to play this in on my 2k G-SYNC 144MHZ monitor

 

[Frag_Maniac]

I am on the GOG version.

So am I.

try decreasing shadows to medium...

Way ahead of you there...

Seems to me you're forgetting you're on quite a bit more powerful GPU than mine.

 

[Devil-Walker]

its happening

https://www.playgwent.com/en/signup