Just finished up The Witcher 3 (apparently 64 hours but given the game counter has glitched anywhere from 1 day to 5 days played I'm guessing it's considerably more than that).

Following only the main missions, secondary quests and monster contracts is definitely the way to maintain pacing - ignore the urge to chase down "points of interest" unless you're short on cash or crafting/alchemy items.

Overall, technical and gameplay bugs aside (in the end I had only one bugged quests - for the final horse racing event), it was one of the most enjoyable RPG stories I've played through in a long time.

The game pulls an ME2-ending section about 75% of the way through which was brilliant, then does a bit of an ME3 ending leaving you confused, and finally has a quiet epilogue section which I thought was fantastic (this will vary a lot depending on choices in the game - for me the outcomes for the main characters were great but politically, dubious).

Regarding the latest 1.04/1.05 patch, there's been a decent amount of improvement. Thing's I immediately noticed:
- Camera is a lot smoother (even if the frame-rate isn't). Good for people sensitive to that.
- Colourblind-mode witcher sense which I prefer to the standard red/orange glow.
- Larger text size on most things in the inventory/shops and slightly quicker menu transitions.
- Potions have had some ingredients changed, Most importantly the removal of the damn Ekimmara hides required for so many potion/oil/bomb upgrades (there were only 3 in the whole game that I slew so they changed it to a rare herb instead). Also a "damage reflect" rune has just become a boost to attack power for some reason.
- Roach is still an idiot but there seem to be less issues mounting him. Also the issue with talking to shopkeepers/NPCs when loading into a new area seems to have been fixed.
- If you've just gone to Skellige or on the way, swimming is a lot smoother and quicker.

Also, a few tips I found useful for using the slow menu screens (for PS4 at any rate):
- Holding in the touchpad goes straight to inventory.
- Swiping the touchpad goes straight to map.
- If you're in any menu and you want to back straight out, it's quicker to just click the touchpad and it'll take you straight back to the game.
- Move the cursor into your default inventory page then across the the store inventory instead of moving across the headers which'll pause to load each damn page full of inventory items.

@ DP - It all depends on the lvl you were when you took him on...as with every other fight. Last night I went and did every quest that was either below or 4 lvl's above my lvl, as these quests are just brain numbingly easy. All my quests (I haven't gotten to all the notice boards yet) are now between 6 and 8 lvl higher than my lvl, which adds a decent amount of difficulty to these contracts/quests. Once I've done all of them, i'll get to the other quests, be it higher or lower than my lvl, I'm aslo disappointed that I didn't go balls to the wall and chose the hardest difficulty to play this game on...but hey, I'll do that on my next play through

I have found a big negative so far in this game, and that's the lack of any, and I mean ANY, jaw dropping bosses, bosses where you go "HOLY[censored]!!!" There has not been 1 quest, and I have done PLENTY, where when you get to the end of the quest, you have to fight a difficult boss, a BIG one, an AWESOME one!!! There's just nothing that is hugely satisfactory after completing a quest, apart maybe from how the story story/quest concludes.

I mean, when you play Dark Souls, DMC, Bloodborne...heck, 90% of games, when you come to an end of an area/story/quest, there's always some bad ass boss to defeat. Something to go "Damn, I did it!!!" Whereas in TW3, when you get to the end of a quest/contract, it's just a mediocre fight against some, less than memorable, Bandit/s, Werewolf, Vampire etc.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still loving the game and can't stop playing! I mean, my wife has organised movies for us and the kids to watch this afternoon, and I'm like "Ugh...ooooooooookaaaaaaay!!!" But yeah, normally one would come to the forum and Brag that you defeated some or other boss and it took "x" amount of time, you died "x" amount of times, but sheesh, finally you did it!!! And that's what's missing in this game, the satisfaction of killing something amazing!!!

This is the 1st Witcher game I have spent real time with, maybe that's how these games are...however, I do remember fighting an Octopus like creature in TW2, that beast alone was more memorable than anything I have encountered in TW3.

Anyway, rant over...I will still do another play through of this game, it's that good to me, I will however play it on it's hardest difficulty, I'm sure that'll bring the much needed frustrations and satisfaction for completing/defeating enemies/quests etc back to the game

I still give this game a solid 9.5/10

Almost done. I've probably played like a 100hrs so far. I'll replay it again and again and bought the expansion pass also.

9.5/10 for me. Games like this don't come round often

Morschee said ...

@ DP - It all depends on the lvl you were when you took him on...as with every other fight.

I was lvl 8 it was lvl 14 have had harder fights against normal level 10 soldiers. Was a bit of a let down when I saw it flying around it looked awesome get there and it's an overgrown chicken lol.

Enjoyed exploring last night some some pretty awesome gear, weapons with 3 rune slots and 50-60% critical damage.

DarkPrince said ...

Morschee said ...

@ DP - It all depends on the lvl you were when you took him on...as with every other fight.

I was lvl 8 it was lvl 14 have had harder fights against normal level 10 soldiers. Was a bit of a let down when I saw it flying around it looked awesome get there and it's an overgrown chicken lol.

Enjoyed exploring last night some some pretty awesome gear, weapons with 3 rune slots and 50-60% critical damage.

When it comes to gear, I'd strongly suggest buying the trader maps and trying to craft the witcher gear - Feline (light), Griffin (medium) and Ursine (heavy). The Feline swords in particular come with high bleeding chance and the Ursine armour just looks fantastic (but slows stamina regen).

The armour sets tend to vary by level with each upgrade (griffin -> feline -> ursine) with all witcher weapons usable at 1 level lower than the armour requirements. In the end, all master-crafted weapons require level 30 and armour level 31 and offer similar damage/armour values but varying additional effects focussing on defense, signs or attack power/crit chance.

@ Lurch - Did you do all the:

Gwent Matches
Fist Fight Matches
Horse Races

I'm trying on my 1st play through to do all the quests, treasure hunts, contracts, undiscovered locations etc. I just need to complete the Gwent Tournament, Skellige Fist Fights and 2 or 3 races and I'm done with those ones.

The Undiscovered locations is taking up quite a bit of my time though...and I need to lvl up quite a bit as some of those locations require lvl 27 +

Morschee said ...

@ Lurch - Did you do all the:

Gwent Matches
Fist Fight Matches
Horse Races

I'm trying on my 1st play through to do all the quests, treasure hunts, contracts, undiscovered locations etc. I just need to complete the Gwent Tournament, Skellige Fist Fights and 2 or 3 races and I'm done with those ones.

The Undiscovered locations is taking up quite a bit of my time though...and I need to lvl up quite a bit as some of those locations require lvl 27 +

Yip, all of the above except the final horse race in Skellige which bugged on me and the NPC permanently disappeared.

If the trophies are anything to go by, I must have missed some basic cards from traders but got every "hero" and special ability card as I played normally. Also won the big Gwent competition on Novigrad legitimately.

The last two fist fighting champions in Skellige are tough to say the least.

EDIT - Once you're in Skellige, the undiscovered locations become quite crap as most are "smugglers caches" out at sea. So you end up sailing, triggering enemies, diving, shooting them with crossbow and repeating if you want them all.

Also, if you happen to fire the crossbow from the boat while tapping the button to disembark, you get stuck in an animation for a while and have the mash buttons to get out of it.

Some screenshots from my playthrough (PS4) - no simple HUD toggle so afraid you'll see HUD elements in some of the shots.

Batch 1:

Batch 2:

Batch 3:

I think it's time that CD Projects gives the job of patches to someone else…these patches have only added issues into the game instead of removing issues. I have now (after the latest patch) experienced the following:

1.) On 2 occasions I meditated for 1 hour to regain my health after a battle. Both times it was night time, after the hour meditation, there was sunlight, yet the time was (1st time) 10pm and (2nd time) 11 pm. I tried meditating for24 hours to see if that will fix it, but it didn’t. No matter what time I meditate to, it will always be daytime. I had to save, close application and restart for the day/night to work again.

2.) I now sometimes have to meditate in front of an Merchant/Quest giver etc before I can talk to them as there is no Talk option when I stand next to them, only after I meditate for an hour does the “Talk” option appear above the NPC.

3.) When I came out of Eilhart’s cave, I decided I didn’t like the attitudes of the guards and it would be best to leave them sliced in half. Once the fight between me and them started, their weapons disappeared, I could hear them, but not see them. This happened again when I did a mission that involved Ciri.

4.) After climbing off roach and walking away from him, Geralt will say “Slow Down Roach”, or “Faster Roach”…

To me the game had less issues at launch, every time I download a patch, new bugs show their heads and old ones still exist…they seriously need to fix[censored] and not add problems to the game!

@Morschee - you're not wrong. I think the bigger issue is some of those glitches I encountered after the Day-One patch so they probably haven't been resolved yet. I think they need to step back for a bit and just compile one major patch rather than trying to shove out a new one every week.

Morschee said ...To me the game had less issues at launch, every time I download a patch, new bugs show their heads and old ones still exist…they seriously need to fix[censored] and not add problems to the game!

I have heard a lot of people say this, by the time I got the game 3 patches where out, although I haven't experienced any bugs until this latest patch.

I can no longer interact with one of the blacksmiths anymore, there is a X option to talk but nothing happens.

I lost about 2 hours of progress because the game would no longer save, manual save would just say this cannot be done now and the autosave was not working but gave no error. Had to restart the game before it allowed manual saving again, 2 hours wasted. This has happened twice now, 2nd time was only about 10 minutes lost.

This is why I now just chill in the brothel running out of money now though so will have to venture out sooner or later.

Holy crap the stuff you guys are reporting is worrying. I haven't started the game yet and won't for quite some time while I kill off 1 & 2, so hopefully this is all sorted by then. However given that the game was delayed at least twice IIRC, this stuff really should not be happening.

Lurch said ...

I think they need to step back for a bit and just compile one major patch rather than trying to shove out a new one every week.

I full agree with this

@ Magius - It's such a damn amazing game...but they killing it with their "patches" They really need to do something soon, before ppl start putting this game down, if any more crap comes into the game after a patch, I doubt I'll do another replay till things are sorted. I'm still loving the game, but after every patch the game just seems to head towards the "broken" department

Has anyone noticed that after you shave Geralt's beard, it actually grows back after a while. I know this might be stupid for some, but I thought it was a nice little touch

I also noticed that vendors closer to the lakes sell fish cheaper than vendors that are further away from lakes...these little touches are actually quite nice! To me at least Still need to find other little things like this, I'm sure there's more

@Morschee the beard thing was a favourite topic of jokes in the couple of months leading up to the game's release

@ Magius - Really? Why is that?

The more I play the more I realize how awful Geralt controls, especially in towns and closed spaces, pretty much just mashing on jump now to get around obstacles because he seems to get stuck on everything with very floaty controls.

Did a couple missions last night which pretty much lead to nothing lol you can play the game for 2 hours and do nothing but listen to dialogue with an occasional fight between 2 thugs. Got to see Triss take out some frustration at least.

Looking forward to getting some new scenery now though a bit tired of Novigrad, plus I need to try find some new blacksmiths as it now seems the only person that can repair my weapons is the armorer at the Bloody Barons place, every other blacksmith cannot be interacted with, hopefully a patch fixes that.

DarkPrince said ...

The more I play the more I realize how awful Geralt controls, especially in towns and closed spaces, pretty much just mashing on jump now to get around obstacles because he seems to get stuck on everything with very floaty controls.

I hear you...I jumped and held circle in Novigrad as I got stuck, Geral lept and held onto a Barrel that is smalle than him loL!!!! But yeah...there's a delay in his movements and sometime he moves further than what I want him to move.