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Fuzz posted:There are, unless they've patched it in the last 6 months. I'm fairly certain you can't get Thaler's Geralt card or Lambert's special card if either of them are already gone in your playthrough. Not sure about Thaler's, but Lambert's card can be found at the Nowhere Inn if you've finished Following the Thread without beating him.
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# ? Nov 7, 2017 16:15 |
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# ? Jun 1, 2024 03:19 |
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I think Dandelion's card is also missable.
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# ? Nov 7, 2017 19:31 |
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There are a lot of tiny missable things, quest-wise. In my brother's playthrough this Saturday, he didn't get to the lynch mob quickly enough, and the guy had already been hanged by the time we got there; all we could do was loot his corpse for the note.
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# ? Nov 7, 2017 20:07 |
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Invincible Spleen posted:Not sure about Thaler's, but Lambert's card can be found at the Nowhere Inn if you've finished Following the Thread without beating him. Thaler's is probably at the Seven Cats then.
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# ? Nov 8, 2017 00:56 |
WhiskeyWhiskers posted:Thaler's is probably at the Seven Cats then. Thaler is at the seven cats
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# ? Nov 8, 2017 02:01 |
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How do I craft the first version of the Griffin Armor? I have completed the quest to collect all the diagrams and I've visited the journeyman armorsmith in Crow's Perch and Oxenfurt and neither of them can craft the armor. By can't craft them I mean the armor pieces are not in the list of gear I can craft at the blacksmith or in my journal. Journeyman blacksmiths can all craft the steel and silver griffin swords. I'm very confused. Wildtortilla fucked around with this message at 03:43 on Nov 9, 2017 |
# ? Nov 9, 2017 03:40 |
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my first guess is you might have a filter on to hide things you don't have all the ingredients for?
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# ? Nov 9, 2017 03:47 |
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Cowcaster posted:my first guess is you might have a filter on to hide things you don't have all the ingredients for? You are a smart person. I thought I had everything displaying! Well there goes 25 minutes wasted! Thanks.
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# ? Nov 9, 2017 03:49 |
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Wildtortilla posted:You are a smart person. I thought I had everything displaying! Well there goes 25 minutes wasted! Thanks. Haha. It's a really, really easy mistake to make. I did in the late game with some of the upgrade potions. I kept thinking "When the hell am I going to get the recipe fr this?" and it turned out I had it, I just had to buy some drat cordial.
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# ? Nov 9, 2017 04:27 |
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I've been spending my skill points in magic and attack skills. In the red tree I have 5 points in light attack and 3 in heavy to increase damage. In magic I've maxed the first tier Quen, Axii, and Yrden. In combat I shield up and then slow/stun my enemies and slice them up. It's been working quite well. I'm struggling to decide what magic to invest in. The secondary spells don't sound too helpful with the exception of alt-Yrdeb spell because it changes from slow to slow + damage. The only other one I'm considering is the alternate Axii because having an ally in group fights could be really helpful. My buddy recommended going with Griffin armor for the sign intensity bonuses, but now I'm leaning toward the feline set for the increased stamina regeneration. I think being able to cast spells more frequently will be more handy than stronger spells. I can always bump up sign intensity with mutagen and skill placement in my skill tree. Is my thinking flawed? I'm playing on the second highest difficulty and am thinking about going up to Death March. Is a build focused on disabling enemies and then cutting them apart a functional build? It seems like anything can work and that min maxing isn't essential to the game. (I also think the feline set looks way cooler than the Griffin set.) Wildtortilla fucked around with this message at 15:30 on Nov 9, 2017 |
# ? Nov 9, 2017 12:19 |
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Wildtortilla posted:I've been spending my skill points in magic and attack skills. In the red tree I have 5 points in light attack and 3 in heavy to increase damage. In magic I've maxed the first tier Quen, Axii, and Yrden. In combat I shield up and then slow/stun my enemies and slice them up. It's been working quite well. You might want to get acquired tolerance even if you do not use Alchemy much. Being able to use more decotions and stuff is fairly nice. If you want to use Alchemy a bunch then it is the obvious starting point. Alt-Quen is pretty decent if I remember correctly and Alt-Aard becomes interesting a good way into the second DLC as an option so don't bother too much about it at this point in my opinion. CVE fucked around with this message at 16:04 on Nov 9, 2017 |
# ? Nov 9, 2017 16:02 |
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Wildtortilla posted:(I also think the feline set looks way cooler than the Griffin set.) How dare you. Dad bod Geralt with mutton chops and slicked back hair is the only correct Geralt. Also Yrden and its alt really are the best signs and there's no real reason to invest in signs once you get the alt. WhiskeyWhiskers fucked around with this message at 16:12 on Nov 9, 2017 |
# ? Nov 9, 2017 16:10 |
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WhiskeyWhiskers posted:How dare you. Dad bod Geralt with mutton chops and slicked back hair is the only correct Geralt. So you're saying the higher tier sign abilities aren't worth much?
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# ? Nov 9, 2017 16:29 |
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Wildtortilla posted:So you're saying the higher tier sign abilities aren't worth much? the sign intensity ones are useless because you can boost your general sign intensity way past the soft cap just by equipping stuff and maybe chugging a potion if you need to. most of the skills on the tier above that are even more useless in comparison.
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# ? Nov 9, 2017 16:38 |
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Wildtortilla posted:So you're saying the higher tier sign abilities aren't worth much?
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# ? Nov 9, 2017 16:48 |
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Ok great. I wasn't impressed with many of the high tier sign abilities and thought maybe it was me not understanding something. I ought to listen to my 31-year old gaming gut instincts more often. I have a half day at work today and it's killing me. I just want to go home and sit in front of this video game. Also as an aside, I've been flirting with the idea that want to buy a switch for Mario. Twice this week I've sat down with a Mario game (3D World and then Galaxy 2) and both times I only spent an hour playing it and grumbling about how awful I am at 3D Mario games and thinking I'd rather play this game. I think I like the idea of Mario and the music and colors far more than actually playing Mario. Thanks Witcher 3 for convincing me not to spend hundreds of dollars on not video games!
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# ? Nov 9, 2017 16:56 |
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Wildtortilla posted:I've been spending my skill points in magic and attack skills. In the red tree I have 5 points in light attack and 3 in heavy to increase damage. In magic I've maxed the first tier Quen, Axii, and Yrden. In combat I shield up and then slow/stun my enemies and slice them up. It's been working quite well. Wildtortilla posted:So you're saying the higher tier sign abilities aren't worth much? Correct, there isn't much point in going beyond the first two tiers of the Signs tree. The third tier gets you +25% Intensity for only one Sign which is a really bad investment, and the top tier stuff is pretty weak. Signs don't tend to scale all that well with points spent and Sign Intensity, especially in terms of damage. Igni and alt-Yrden will do good damage earlier on but in the mid and late game, Signs are mostly for their utility (with the exception of one bonkers powerful Mutation you can unlock in the B&W expansion). Igni sets things on fire which causes them to panic, dance around, and take % max HP burning damage. Aard staggers or knocks down humanoids (instakill with your sword any knocked down dudes) and knocks fliers out of the sky. Quen will absorb one or two hits and is your insurance policy if you get hit (don't get hit). Yrden slows and makes wraith-types corporeal. Axii stuns, honestly not that useful except against a few specific enemy types. My general advice would be to pick the alternate modes for a couple Signs and then focus on your swords and alchemy, which is basically what you're doing. You've also picked imo the best signs to spec into, alt-Quen gives you a channeled shield that can heal you, alt-Yrden is a lightning turret that does good damage (at lower levels, it doesn't scale well later in the game but that's fine) and more importantly staggers/interrupts with each hit and knocks down flyers and projectiles. Alternate-mode Yrden is probably my favorite because it's always useful. Alt-Axii works well against humanoids but those shouldn't be your biggest threats anyway imo. If you want more stamina, get the Griffin School Techniques generic ability. It gives you a massive +20/s stamina regeneration bonus with medium armor (Griffin and later Wolven). If you want to wear Feline or Ursine gear, I recommend taking the Rage Management generic ability instead, it lets you cast Signs with Adrenaline instead of stamina. Really, you can do whatever and still do fine on even the highest difficulties. But, if you asked me for recommendations on a few core things that are really fun/powerful, I'd say build like this: Pick an armor type (light/medium/heavy). If medium, take Griffin School Techniques for massive stamina regen and a little Sign Intensity. If light or heavy, take Rage Management to cast Signs with Adrenaline (you can take it with medium too but you probably don't have the slots to spare earlier on). Signs tree: invest 10-12 or so points to unlock your favorite alternate modes in the second tier. I recommend alt-Yrden for the interrupt and general utility, alt-Quen if you want another source of healing in combat. Going deeper in Signs is a bad return on your investment, you just want to get some more utility. Buying three Signs abilities will allow you to slap a blue mutagen in and get a nice chunk of Sign Intensity. Combat/Swords tree: go down the light or heavy attack lines and get a special attack, Whirl or Rend. You can take whatever you like, just avoid the crossbow abilities. Light attacks are easier to use generally, and Whirl is very fun and strong. You'd think Whirl is meant for groups of enemies which it does work against, but it's also very strong against single targets because it hits so fast it more or less stunlocks them with interrupts from the fast sword strikes. Heavy attacks are a bit tricker but Rend is fun too. Alchemy tree: Acquired Tolerance is a must-have for anyone once you start making decoctions. It allows you to run around as drugged-out Geralt with 2-3 decoctions on simultaneously plus room for potions. The two low-tier Oils talents are very strong and I'd particularly recommend them for higher difficulties. Poisoned Blades gives you poison on-hit, which is % max HP damage so always good. Protective Coating gives you % damage reduction against the oil's enemy type which is really nice for letting you take an extra hit on higher difficulties, or combined with heavy armor makes you quite tanky. There's a lot of other cool stuff in Alchemy but if you're just going to invest a few points I'd recommend Acquired Tolerance and the blade oil abilities. Basically you're on the right track toward a very solid build. For a regular (not NG+) game, you won't have points to go deep into two trees and I would recommend going deep in Swords with a small investment in Signs and Alchemy. Swords are going to be your biggest source of damage and Whirl/Rend are cool and fun. For you, I'd suggest trying the alternate Quen and Yrden (hold down the cast button to activate the alternate mode), though alt-Quen doesn't really shine until you invest all three points in it. You can always respec later if you decide one of them isn't what you like. Craft the Griffin set, it's super cheap, the lowest level Witcher set available, and you can always switch to something else later. Griffin set + Griffin School Techniques + three blue abilities with a mutagen is all the Sign Intensity and stamina you'll need, Intensity is soft capped around +120% and more than that is mehh. Craft feline too, why not, the basic sets are cheap, it's only the end-game versions that are expensive. Pellisworth fucked around with this message at 17:05 on Nov 9, 2017 |
# ? Nov 9, 2017 17:02 |
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What a great post! I installed a mod to reduce the cost ofbrespec potions so I can play around more. I like everything you posted. I am going to reread it when I sit down at home later this afternoon.
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# ? Nov 9, 2017 17:19 |
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Also you are not married to Witcher gear. You can afford to craft the first 3 levels of all the gear sets. Once you get to mastercrafted it's another story.
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# ? Nov 9, 2017 17:27 |
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There's absolutely no reason to spread your points across multiple trees to make a king of utility build that can do everything. Except for always getting Acquired Tolerance for the decoctions of course. In the DLC I just kept a cat armor and a griffin armor around and respecced between fast attack and full signs whenever I felt like it, but you can do that in the main game as well, especially with your respec potion mod.
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# ? Nov 9, 2017 17:38 |
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The most useful part of alt-Yrden is that it shoots all projectiles out of the sky too. No loving spiders trapping you or archers loving you up from offscreen.
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# ? Nov 9, 2017 17:45 |
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GrossMurpel posted:There's absolutely no reason to spread your points across multiple trees to make a king of utility build that can do everything. Except for always getting Acquired Tolerance for the decoctions of course. In the DLC I just kept a cat armor and a griffin armor around and respecced between fast attack and full signs whenever I felt like it, but you can do that in the main game as well, especially with your respec potion mod. Yeah you absolutely can do whatever you want and have it work just fine, I'm not trying to say "a hybrid/utility build is the best" but rather "these are the things I personally would recommend." I like having a lot of tools, abilities, and flexibility to play with. Acquired Tolerance lets you mess around with different decoction combos. Whirl, Rend, and alternate signs are all extra abilities. My personal favorite setup is Wolven gear with a swords-heavy hybrid build like I described. It's kind of jack-of-all-trades, I get bleed and poison from Wolven swords + oil abilities, plenty of Sign Intensity, Whirl, multiple decoctions at once, and tons of stamina from Griffin School Techniques to cast Signs and Whirl. Do whatever is fun and appealing to you, those are just the standout abilities imo. edit: things change a lot in the expansions because mutations, set bonuses, and enchantments open up even more cool options. Signs and bomb-focused Alchemy builds really get a boost in B&W. It's a 120-150+ hour game, you can always completely switch your gear and ability setup several times. Do what's fun! WhiskeyWhiskers posted:The most useful part of alt-Yrden is that it shoots all projectiles out of the sky too. No loving spiders trapping you or archers loving you up from offscreen. Yeah, it's pretty good damage in the early-mid game, each lightning bolt will stagger enemies so it's good CC, it makes wraiths corporeal when it zaps them, and it knocks fliers and projectiles out of the air. Lil' Yrden turret buddy is cool and my friend. Pellisworth fucked around with this message at 18:06 on Nov 9, 2017 |
# ? Nov 9, 2017 18:03 |
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Ursine gear with medium armor runes and the skill that uses adrenaline in the place of stamina is hilarious. Whirl nonstop for a good ten seconds.
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# ? Nov 9, 2017 18:27 |
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Oh yeah I forgot to mention in my post: Obviously you can do whatever you want and have it work fine. What I meant to point out is that IMO it's more important to try out abilities and different ways to approach the combat by respeccing instead of spreading your points thin, especially given that Wildtortilla might not be far enough in the game to just drop points into whatever he wants. He might be leaving his red tree underdeveloped to try out some alchemy skills and therefore never get the feel for, say, a pure strong attack build. Basically, it's the difference between waiting 5+ levels to sink some points into crossbow skills instead of just respeccing into a crossbow-focused build to quickly find out that it's poo poo. When I played the game, I sometimes made a save, respecced into a different build just to try it out, and reloaded my save if the build turned out to be bad. Arcsquad12 posted:Ursine gear with medium armor runes and the skill that uses adrenaline in the place of stamina is hilarious. Whirl nonstop for a good ten seconds. Pretty sure "nonstop for ten seconds" is an oxymoron
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# ? Nov 9, 2017 18:32 |
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I just crafted my Griffin set and I feel like such a badass.
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# ? Nov 9, 2017 22:32 |
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I always just wore what I thought looked the coolest and didn't worry about the stats too much. So Wolf or Cat. Or Ursine when Geralt's in Skellige and wants to keep warm.
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# ? Nov 10, 2017 00:06 |
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There's a PC mod that colours the non-Mastercrafted Griffin armor to be a bit darker which is really nice. Or you can just get the mod that puts dyes everywhere in the base game. The main mods I rolled with were jumping in shallow water, one of the retexturing mods, and All Quest Objectives On Map, that last one is really something that just improves the base game so much you can't believe it didn't ship that way. Removing Durability is also probably a fine mod, it's not really an exciting mechanic.
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# ? Nov 10, 2017 00:21 |
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There has never been a game that used a durability variable to improve the experience.
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# ? Nov 10, 2017 00:24 |
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While we're on the subject of mods, if you're planning to replay W3 again this winter (which is long and cold where I am), I highly recommend Ghost Mode mod. It overhauls the combat but not hugely, it still works 90% the same but with a few good tweaks. The best part, though, is the level scaling and difficulty options. Specifically, the main features of Ghost Mode: -Via the Ghost Mode menu, you can fine-tune level scaling. For example, set all monster and quest levels to be equal to your level plus up to 5, meaning you can go anywhere and do anything regardless of your level and it will still be a decent challenge. You can also set animals (wolves and rats) to max out at level 5 so you don't get absurdly scaling critters. You can also tweak monster and quest XP gain. -Also via the menu, you can fine-tune enemy damage and HP to tweak the difficulty to exactly your preference. Also can remove carry weight, ship damage, etc. -Some abilities are rebalanced so their tooltip matches their effect better and some high-level abilities are now actually useful. Such as the fourth-tier Signs abilities and the light attack fourth-tier bleed which used to be a pitiful flat 50 damage but now is a % max HP. Generally makes all abilities worthwhile rather than some being pretty bad. -Light/Heavy attacks rebalanced so that light is worse against armor and heavy much stronger at penetrating armor, making heavy attacks more useful. -Stamina regen is penalized more when rolling and dodging so you can't just spam roll/dodge. -Gear stats rebalanced some, non-Witcher gear crafted items are more useful. -Economy rebalanced so it's a little tougher to get gold. Not hugely noticeable. Mostly I like the level and difficulty scaling options, it's great to be able to just go do anything you want without worrying about high-level monsters blocking your progression. The other rebalancing stuff is nice but really they are fairly small tweaks to vanilla.
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# ? Nov 10, 2017 01:15 |
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Hi, I am about a third of the way through TW3 and playing this fuckin' game after Mass Effect: The Worst One earlier this year, I gotta say, it's a hell of a thing
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# ? Nov 10, 2017 06:04 |
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Not sure I like the way the Blood and Wine main quest plays out in the end. The 3 days skip was kinda garbage to start with and it made Detlaff too obviously evil to be spared, especially when you have to go to prison for that ending. Sorry dude, but ravaging an entire loving city is not at all justifiable because you got mad at your ex for using you. The happily ever after ending was a little too convenient as well where Geralt spends 5 minutes talking to the sister and everything works out, she drops her plans and they live happily ever after! What? No way to convince the Duchess that her sister was a danger, just either you convert her to a good person with the power of your rhetoric or you don't and everyone dies. I felt like it violated the shades of grey the rest of the game worked under. In the end I decided I liked the ending where my bro Regis doesn't get exiled by his kin and gently caress if I care what happens to the rest since they stopped being real characters at that point. Oh well, fun expansion nonetheless. Oh, only other decision tree I didn't really like was to do with Dijkstra. Why can't we be bros Sigi? I would love to murder that rear end in a top hat king with you and gently caress with Nilfgaard until they lose. Why we gotta be so standoffish? Why we gotta pretend we don't want the same things? Futuresight fucked around with this message at 06:17 on Nov 10, 2017 |
# ? Nov 10, 2017 06:14 |
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steinrokkan posted:There has never been a game that used a durability variable to improve the experience. At least when New Vegas did durability it was less about making your guns work better and more about inventory management and breaking the economy by selling max condition weaponry. Detlaff and Syanna are rather disappointing characters because they really don't feature much in the main quest despite being the two major antagonists. Anna gets a pair of really fun quests that get you up to speed with how she rolls, but Detlaff really only has Regis's word on his character. I was a bit let down by how little you get to interact with him during Orianna's after party drink though seeing him and Regis go full vampire on the garrison was impressive. They lack the presence in the story that Olgierd and Gaunter have in Hearts of Stone, where they were present the entire way through, and the DLC continued to feed you information about both throughout. Regis does the same in BaW but he's a biased source, so it rings hollow how he talks about how Detlaff is a nice dude, despite setting a goddamn city on fire. Olgierd's story is told objectively, and while Gaunter definitely wants you to see him as a monster deserving his fate, nobody in the game is insisting or forcing their view of Olgierd onto Geralt and the player. It's the entire crux of the finale that you have to choose whether or not the evidence against Olgierd is enough to condemn him, or if you choose the lesser evil in the face of the literal Devil. Arc Hammer fucked around with this message at 06:26 on Nov 10, 2017 |
# ? Nov 10, 2017 06:15 |
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Arcsquad12 posted:At least when New Vegas did durability it was less about making your guns work better and more about inventory management and breaking the economy by selling max condition weaponry. Personally I didn't mind the durability mechanic in new vegas at all, if anything I thought it was fairly accurate if simplified. The round counts you can put through an old rust bucket gun before a serious malfunction requiring a tear down are probably on the generous side compared to real firearms.
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# ? Nov 10, 2017 06:36 |
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There is no ambiguity, he's just a shithead who can't think of anyone but himself and deserves to be killed despite the protestations of Regis. That's honestly fine. You're in a fairytale kingdom.
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# ? Nov 10, 2017 06:38 |
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I'm no saying there needs to be ambiguity, I'm saying that it's a letdown that we don't get to interact with him more often. Him being an out and out bad guy is fine, but the best Witcher villains are the ones we see in depth, and Detlaff is only slightly better than Eredin because Regis advocates for his softer side. Radovid is a mentally ill psychopath with no redeeming qualities beyond his clever military strategies, and he's one of the best characters in the game because he's such a bastard whenever he shows up.
Arc Hammer fucked around with this message at 07:08 on Nov 10, 2017 |
# ? Nov 10, 2017 06:42 |
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The main quest of B&W is pretty weak imo. Autistic vampire (Detlaff) gets manipulated by the main villain you don't meet until the very end (Syanna). It says something that your main ally and mega-bro is 10x more interesting than the villains. Somehow B&W totally drops the ball on building a compelling villain which is something it does fantastically in parts of the base game (Bloody Baron) and HoS.Arcsquad12 posted:I'm no saying there needs to be ambiguity, I'm saying that it's a letdown that we don't get to interact with him more often. Him being an out and out bad guy is fine, but the best Witcher villains are the ones we see in depth, and Detlaff is only slightly better than Eredin because Regis advocates for his softer side. yeah basically W3 builds some fantastic villains when they are given screen time to develop as characters. The main villains in B&W get very little screentime and it ends up being... ok whatever. They're the baddies I guess. Toussaint sure is pretty!
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# ? Nov 10, 2017 06:57 |
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The underlying theme of how at odds with reality Touissant is really shines through in the sidequests, which are some of the best in the whole game. You've got the magical fairy tale land, somehow untouched by war and full of gallant knights and lovely ladies, and it's a massive hypocrisy. Tradition is sacred in Touissant, and it makes everyone act like complete idiots where a reasonable mind could resolve the issue in an instant. Guillaume is a loving moron who doesn't realize what a pushy jerk he's being, and yet Vivienne is unable to reject his advances until finally pushed into a corner. Because TRADITION! And yet, the peasants still suffer, do the backbreaking work, and are harassed by the hanses, but even they buy into Touissant's idle beauty and trade the North's cockney idiot peasants for delusional french dandies. Nobody is willing to admit that the system they reside in is broken, because TRADITION!, so they are all happy and lackadaisical despite the lovely things that keep happening to them just like the rest of the damned world.
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# ? Nov 10, 2017 07:06 |
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Arcsquad12 posted:The underlying theme of how at odds with reality Touissant is really shines through in the sidequests, which are some of the best in the whole game. You've got the magical fairy tale land, somehow untouched by war and full of gallant knights and lovely ladies, and it's a massive hypocrisy. Tradition is sacred in Touissant, and it makes everyone act like complete idiots where a reasonable mind could resolve the issue in an instant. Guillaume is a loving moron who doesn't realize what a pushy jerk he's being, and yet Vivienne is unable to reject his advances until finally pushed into a corner. Because TRADITION! Totally agreed, the overall setting, atmosphere, and side quests in Toussaint are fantastic. The main quest is pretty good in a vacuum, but compared to how well the game does characterization otherwise it's kind of a let down. The B&W main villains aren't remotely as compelling as Philip Strenger or Gaunter O'Dimm. edit: like, it's just hard for me to get emotionally involved at all in the B&W main quest. It's very good compared to any other RPG, but it lacks the brutal, realistic humanity of Bloody Baron or the pure evil of O'Dimm. Pellisworth fucked around with this message at 07:15 on Nov 10, 2017 |
# ? Nov 10, 2017 07:12 |
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O'Dimm worked especially well because it was a choice in the end. Like, it was an easy choice to fight against pure evil, but I was still like damnit I wanted to give that other guy his just desserts but now I gotta save him. It made it feel like I was making a meaningful choice, even if I was always going to make the choice I did. In B&W there's really no good reason to go to the hidden one, the difference between the 2 outcomes at the ruin are based on some deus ex machina, and the result at the palace come from some dialog choices that don't feel like they earn the different endings.
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# ? Nov 10, 2017 08:18 |
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# ? Jun 1, 2024 03:19 |
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The best ending to Blood and Wine is where Detlaff and Syanna both die because it involves the least bullshit. The best ending would havs been the one where Anna and Syanna die but it relies on everyone, Geralt included, being utterly retarded.
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# ? Nov 10, 2017 08:51 |