The Witcher 3

[pcslookout]

I am still not sure if I like the game. No offense. I just can't stand all the dialog. Do I have to read it all to get through the game?
Does Witcher 1 or 2 have less dialog ?

Is it worth it?

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

I am still not sure if I like the game. No offense. I just can't stand all the dialog. Do I have to read it all to get through the game?
Does Witcher 1 or 2 have less dialog ?

Is it worth it?

If you don't like dialogue, I recommend staying away from RPGs in general. If you think you like dialogue but you don't like Witcher 3, you probably don't like dialogue (it's one of the better-written PC games in recent memory). W1/2 don't really have less I don't think. W1 probably had less but had gameplay issues. W2 honestly was a slog of conversation with the occasional fight, though I may be in a minority on that one.

 

[zinfamous]

These games are story-driven, so yes there is lots of dialogue throughout. If you don't like making decisions based on dialogue paths, then this probably isn't for you.

Witcher 1 is also...a bit dated and always had pretty terrible combat mechanics. You may not like it so much. Witcher 2 is quite a bit better, but is also heavily-railed (like a CoD-type game). Dialogue is much more involved in that one than the other two.

 

[EXCellR8]

These games are story-driven, so yes there is lots of dialogue throughout. If you don't like making decisions based on dialogue paths, then this probably isn't for you.

+1. I don't remember there being that much dialogue, however it is an action RPG so some is to be expected--as others have previously pointed out.

 

[zinfamous]

W2 honestly was a slog of conversation with the occasional fight, though I may be in a minority on that one.

No, I think you're very accurate here. W2 was mostly designed around the dialogue, as much of it was running back and forth to gain information about what to get and how to fight the main big monster of the area. All between that, a substantial peppering of what I call nonsense political bollocks in a fantasy setting. It gets pretty ruthless in the late game, and I found my eyes rolling for most of those sequences...I just didn't care anymore at some point.

I guess for me, what differentiates Witcher 2 from being one of the more forgettable/frustrating games of the time period and Witcher 3 one of, if not the best of the same era, both being dialoguey and political, is that on top of being on rails, Witcher 2 is heavily plot-driven. All the eyes-glazing nonsense and detail is really just meaningless. Witcher 3 is heavily character-driven. The expanded side-quests are incredibly well-done.

 

[Stuka87]

RPG's as a whole (with the exception of some Action RPGs) have lots of dialog. Be it the Witcher Series, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Pillars of Eternity, etc etc. If you don't like dialog, avoid these games. They cater to people that like an expansive story and character development.

Witcher 1's combat is certainly different. When I went back to replay it earlier this year, it took some getting used to. But once I did, it flowed pretty nicely. But then I started Witcher 2 immediately after it and found myself trying to play it like Witcher 1, which did NOT work. Also, Witcher 1 is almost twice as long as Witcher 2. And Witcher 3 is four times as long as Witcher 2.

 

[nakedfrog]

You can press buttons to skip the dialogue. I do that just to get through it faster, once I've finished reading it. Enjoying the game, don't really care about the characters or plot.

 

[sze5003]

I didn't think i would like it. But I like games with a good story. Once I started playing I couldn't stop. I've yet to reinstall it and finish the game. I'm playing greedfall right now and I think that game feels like it has more dialogue.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Necromancing this thread so I can kill it with my silver sword doused in enhanced necrophage oil.

This game's 8th birthday is in 8 days, and man has this game held up spectacularly well!

I am the opposite of a speed runner. This playthrough is going to take 100s of hours. Not playing with any mods, but it is the game of the year edition with all of the DLC.

It looks and plays perfect on a CoolerMaster nr200p ITX build with a 5700G + GTX 1080 on a1080p HDTV. Everything maxed including hair works. Playing on win11 pro, and running through the city in the middle of the day, with thick NPC crowds down near the docks, I have CPU usage spikes as high as 77%. And over 50% are common. I will have to try it on my Ryzen 3200G to see what happens to frame times with a quad core in those circumstances. Ram usage is insane for a game this old too. between 7.5GB and 10.5GB. I am not certain if it is win11 or the game deciding to reserve that much, but the CPU and ram usage, is impressively high for an 8yr old game.

And I am forced to conclude OP suffers from ADHD. The dialogue is brilliant, and I have LOL'd several times already, at the humor and sarcasm.

It didn't hit me until playing it now, how much AC: Odyssey wholesale copied from it.

Game of the year? Nay! For the genre, it is the game of the century IMHO.





.

 

[Stuka87]

Witcher 3 is a game that I have had installed continuously since launch day. I have two 100% play throughs (every single ? gone), and a 3rd full playthrough that I still hop on and do some ? when I feel like it. And yeah, it still plays great, it still looks good. Very few 8 year old games still look modern.

The game will use more memory if you have it, but its not required. Though I think this is the game that made me upgrade from 4GB to 8GB back when it came out.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I am simply curious if the game or win11 is the reason for reserving over 10GB. I will try it on win10 pro with both dual channel 16GB and 8GB of DDR3@2133 and 32GB of 1600MHz on my FX system and see how much ram it reserves. And if 8GB has any performance differences. I am running it from a WD Black HDD via USB 5gbps so if the extra ram is helping it out, I will know for certain.

And about the only mod I'd be interested in, is one that would improve some of the creature animations. The drowners are probably the worst offenders.

 

[Muadib]

I bought this, played about 15-20 hours, and never went back. Maybe I need to try it again.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I bought this, played about 15-20 hours, and never went back. Maybe I need to try it again.

Seriously, try it again. I had a hard time getting into it at first, but a few things livened it up for me.

The biggest one is making my own fun. I will go into the expansion pack areas and fight guards and creatures more than double my level. If you use the right sign for every foe, have the right buffs fully ramped and active, use the right oils and potions, and your timing is impeccable, you can wear down and beat most of them anyways. I was level 18 fighting 6-8 level 37 henchmen, and took them all out. Not part of any quest or such. They were the typical NPCs that spit on you, threaten you, and call you names because you are different. I can only take so much of that before I have to cleave them in two, or decapitate them.

Having the buff where food heals you for 20 minutes is a must. Then you dodge and roll while you recover. The one foe I couldn't beat was the level ?? wizard on the beach with the guards where you wash up after a cutscene having to do with the frog prince. He could kill me with a one or two magic attacks. I could get in close after he became a whirlwind and hit him but it was never enough damage. Used him against his own guards effectively, but had to run away to keep him from killing me too.

I have encountered a few issues, but nothing a quitting and restarting the game doesn't resolve. One of the switches to Ciri, found me fighting with my sword, only the sword wasn't there, and hence did not do any damage. That was the worst. Most are things like a dragon clipping into the mountain after I kill it, but its loot is always there to take so meh.

I should mention those issues only show up after I have had the gaming running for a good number of hours. I will pause, take care of whatever, and come back. So the game may be running for 8hrs that day.

 

[Muadib]

Just installed it, now I need to get motivated to play it.

 

[CP5670]

I played this for the first time a few months ago, the main campaign but not the DLCs yet. Great game with many interesting and intricate side quests, and the combat is fun and feels less grindy than other RPGs of that time. My favorite part was the whole Baron questline, he is a very complex character and I kept changing my views towards him as the quest unfolded. The rest of the game is a little overrated though, not the greatest RPG ever as some people say. The ending is short and unsatisfying given how much stuff you do to get to that point, and I liked Cyberpunk better overall. Still, I put in close to 100 hours over 2-3 months into it. As said earlier, the gourmet perk is a must have, and I settled on the Ursine armor/weapons with a fast/strong combat build.

I went through the first two games last year. The first one sucks and is forgettable, but the second one was quite good. I actually liked the main quest better than Witcher 3, but it had random difficulty spikes and frustrating boss fights.

 

[Stuka87]

I played this for the first time a few months ago, the main campaign but not the DLCs yet. Great game with many interesting and intricate side quests, and the combat is fun and feels less grindy than other RPGs of that time. My favorite part was the whole Baron questline, he is a very complex character and I kept changing my views towards him as the quest unfolded. The rest of the game is a little overrated though, not the greatest RPG ever as some people say. The ending is short and unsatisfying given how much stuff you do to get to that point, and I liked Cyberpunk better overall. Still, I put in close to 100 hours over 2-3 months into it. As said earlier, the gourmet perk is a must have, and I settled on the Ursine armor/weapons with a fast/strong combat build.

I went through the first two games last year. The first one sucks and is forgettable, but the second one was quite good. I actually liked the main quest better than Witcher 3, but it had random difficulty spikes and frustrating boss fights.

The end of the main game isn't actually the end of the story. The Blood and Wine expansion is the true ending. And is personally one of my favorite expansions for any game. You can put another 40 hours just into the expansion if you like doing the side quests. Heart of Stone is also a solid expansion, though certainly shorter than Blood and Wine.

I actually like the first game. It has a lot of quests that are lifted straight from the books. And I quickly got used to the combat, which a lot of people complain about. During my last playthrough, I went straight from Witcher 1 to Witcher 2 to Witcher 3, and when I first went to two, it took a lot to adapt to its combat as I kept trying to attack as I did in the first game.

I have encountered a few issues, but nothing a quitting and restarting the game doesn't resolve. One of the switches to Ciri, found me fighting with my sword, only the sword wasn't there, and hence did not do any damage. That was the worst. Most are things like a dragon clipping into the mountain after I kill it, but its loot is always there to take so meh.

I wonder if those issues are Windows 11 related. I am running 10. My memory usage seems to certainly be lower than yours (Though I only have 16GB total, if you have 32, its quite likely it will use more). Some things do clip into the group occasionally. I have not seen the vanishing sword though, that's a new one to me.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

@Stuka87

Thanks for the info, particularly concerning the expansions. I have the GOG version, since GOG is the only way to go, if a game is available through them. I made the mistake of letting Epic launcher suck me into buying 2077 because I had a code that made it like $25 at the time. But I will end up buying it again, from GOG, when the price is right. I don't want to install Epic's launcher on every system I would like to test 2077 on. Wanted to try it on a FX 8350 for science, but now I will wait until I have the GOG version. Back to Witcher 3: Game of the Century.

On hardware usage, bugs, and glitches: I am leaning towards win11 being responsible too. All my temps are great, and nothing in this mini-ITX build is beyond factory overclock. Drivers are all current, latest bios for the board. I have 32GB in a couple of builds, but they are all 4x8GB. Since this board has 2 slots, it is 16GB, as I have yet to buy 16GB sticks for a build. That's why its grabbing over 10GB was surprising. Hasn't done it while I am in the Islands, maxes at 8GB or so, only around Novigrad have I seen 10+. Also where the highest CPU usage spikes happen; it is the densest crowds I have seen in the game.

Some of the voice acting in this game is excellent. I have not read the books, but it makes me want to. I also have the other 2 games and have yet to play them. Always read very mixed opinions about them. I think I started 2 but didn't make it very far before SQUIRELL!

This system handles hairworks fine. Don't need more than a locked 60fps for a game like this. I was looking at some of the mods for it, and will probably install some after a vanilla playthrough. Better fur would be cool. hairworks has to be active, and it hits performance, so I will switch to my 5800X - 3060ti - 4x8GB 3600MHz if the 1080 struggles. Though it is newer than the game, and should be able to do 1080/60 even with some mods, I'm thinking.

Anyways: My advice to all - with the 8th anniversary next week, no better time to enjoy it again, finish a playthrough you abandoned, or pick up for the first time. I started it many times since grabbing a hot deal on the GotY edition in 2017? Never made it past killing the Griffon before squirreling on it too. This time though, the bug bit me, and I have been playing it exclusively. I appear to be fully retired at 55, so I have time to play.

 

[Artorias]

Fantastic games. I've put 340 hours into Witcher 3 according to Steam.

The expansions themselves can easily give you 50-100 hours worth of content. Blood and Wine by itself could be its own standalone AAA game.

 

[CP5670]

The end of the main game isn't actually the end of the story. The Blood and Wine expansion is the true ending. And is personally one of my favorite expansions for any game. You can put another 40 hours just into the expansion if you like doing the side quests. Heart of Stone is also a solid expansion, though certainly shorter than Blood and Wine.

That would be interesting to see. I plan to do both DLCs at some point and have them installed.

There is also an HD texture mod for it that looks very good. I played the game with it.

 

[Stg-Flame]

I remember my first play-through hit 140 hours before I even reached Skellige because I was too busy trying to complete everything before leaving. Steam says I've clocked in a little over 600 hours in Witcher 3 and I can only recall completing it three times.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

There is also an HD texture mod for it that looks very good. I played the game with it.

That was the other thing, besides the fur and some animations, that I have noticed could benefit the game most. Overall, it looks so good for its age, it is hard to complain though.

 

[rstrohkirch]

I never did play the expansions for this. I think after I'm done with this PoE league I'll buy the expansions and do another play through. I'll probably look into a few mods as well strictly for GFX improvements.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Still have the OG edition of Witcher 3 sitting untouched in my library. Really hoping the "enhanced edition" that is slated for release later this year upgrades everyone to the GOTY edition.

I know I'm only going to manage one monster playthrough of the W3, so I want to make sure its the "complete" experience.

Gets at my goat a bit that the GOTY edition on Steam is usually $9.99 (sale), while the season pass is $7.99 (sale). I know I spend more money on gas when go out to get milk, but it just rubs me wrong for whatever reason. Give me the Season Pass for $1.99 (given I already own the base game) and I'd be playing this thing yesterday!

 

[Stg-Flame]

I never did play the expansions for this. I think after I'm done with this PoE league I'll buy the expansions and do another play through. I'll probably look into a few mods as well strictly for GFX improvements.

The expansions already have massive graphics overhauls so I'm curious if they'll see an update. The game is still visually stunning to this day so I'll be interested to see what they can do.

I know I'm only going to manage one monster playthrough of the W3, so I want to make sure its the "complete" experience.

I said the same thing, but once I learned that some major quests can be completed in different ways which drastically affect the ending, I had to play it more than once. If you played the second game, there will be some choices that involve familiar faces. However, for the complete experience, I suggest looking up the current quest you're on to see if it will alter any quests down the line. Some people really only cared about the romantic options (Triss vs Yennifer) while others really only cared about the outcome of the war between the Redanians and Nilfgaard. If you don't care about any of that, then just go along with whatever choices you want, but I promise you (just like with Hollow Knight), if you love the lore and setting as much as I do, you likely won't want to just turn in a single play-through and call it a day. Just like Hollow Knight, Witcher 3 earned every single accolade it received.

 

[zinfamous]

Necromancing this thread so I can kill it with my silver sword doused in enhanced necrophage oil.

This game's 8th birthday is in 8 days, and man has this game held up spectacularly well!

I am the opposite of a speed runner. This playthrough is going to take 100s of hours. Not playing with any mods, but it is the game of the year edition with all of the DLC.

It looks and plays perfect on a CoolerMaster nr200p ITX build with a 5700G + GTX 1080 on a1080p HDTV. Everything maxed including hair works. Playing on win11 pro, and running through the city in the middle of the day, with thick NPC crowds down near the docks, I have CPU usage spikes as high as 77%. And over 50% are common. I will have to try it on my Ryzen 3200G to see what happens to frame times with a quad core in those circumstances. Ram usage is insane for a game this old too. between 7.5GB and 10.5GB. I am not certain if it is win11 or the game deciding to reserve that much, but the CPU and ram usage, is impressively high for an 8yr old game.

And I am forced to conclude OP suffers from ADHD. The dialogue is brilliant, and I have LOL'd several times already, at the humor and sarcasm.

It didn't hit me until playing it now, how much AC: Odyssey wholesale copied from it.

Game of the year? Nay! For the genre, it is the game of the century IMHO.





.

It's probably my favorite game ever. with humble apologies to the SNES gems like Super Metroid and Final Fantasy II and such.