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Arc Hammer posted:That and it's out of respect for new players. Well that’s a given, but I’m talking specifically about how all of us Witcher vets love hearing feedback from newer players. It never gets old for me.
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# ? Sep 3, 2022 06:52 |
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# ? Jun 4, 2024 08:30 |
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I like the ending where the Bloody Baron and his wife aren't dead or worse than dead so I'm inclined in that direction, though the 'ideal' ending of also loving over the Crones while avoiding that definitely feels a little too 'outsider knowledge' imo
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# ? Sep 3, 2022 07:02 |
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Wolfsheim posted:I like the ending where the Bloody Baron and his wife aren't dead or worse than dead so I'm inclined in that direction, though the 'ideal' ending of also loving over the Crones while avoiding that definitely feels a little too 'outsider knowledge' imo Without outside information, there is no way to deduce that a trick ending is even possible. I don't even think it was meant to be possible, just a coding oversight.
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# ? Sep 3, 2022 07:05 |
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Skippy McPants posted:As last bit of post-Witcher 3 context, the Gwent card for She Who Knows paints a pretty clear picture of a non-friendly entity. I feel like that may just be part of being some kind of primordial eldritch entity beyond mortal men. It ain't sunshine and roses, but it's already a given in the Witcher world that you can have a nasty past but still manage to have a positive effect on the future. I think especially before Ciri shows that she can kill some of the Crones, it certainly seems like unleashing the Mother to fight her children is the best shot at getting rid of them. Something that's neat to me about the background of the Witcher is how deep things go. You've got your ordinary human politics that going back there's a whole history of kingdoms rising and falling, and if you go back far enough there's human migrations populating the world and before that there's Elves and their former empire and migrations, and constantly underpinning that are the various supernatural elements that often Gerault is specialized in stabbing to death with a sword, but there's a number of times when just it's too tough and too old and too powerful for Gerault to even try taking on, and those are just something he would do best to try avoiding when he can. And going back before and underpinning all of that is the weird transdimensional element where at various points in the world's history and prehistory the infinite multiverse just opened up and pooped out a bunch of stuff onto the world. Sometimes it's monsters and magic, going back far enough it was humans at some point, vampires, and presumably most of the weirder creatures, but you can only really guess at what got pooped out long ago and what could've possibly been there before everything else. The Crones are an active mythology that Gerault wanders up to and interacts with, but not an unchanging immortal force. Maybe they're just a particularly powerful unknown kind of creature, maybe they're something more, but Gerault's not being paid to figure it out, and knows better than to investigate too closely on his own.
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# ? Sep 3, 2022 08:12 |
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MikeC posted:Many word. I agree with posits one through three, but I think four reaches a bit too far into the realm of assumption. While the crones are unquestionably malign, I don't see any reason to think the spirit is less so. Yes, she keeps her word to Geralt just as the Crones keep their word and tell him about Ciri. They also bargain in good faith. As the spirit indeed said, "A word once given must be honored." Pacts mythological creatures are not optional; they're binding. Again, I'm not arguing that killing the spirit is the morally superior option, only that freeing her isn't, because there is no clear moral high ground. Geralt is stuck in a literal quagmire, and no matter what he does, an evil party murders a bunch of innocents.
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# ? Sep 3, 2022 11:05 |
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chaosapiant posted:The game is over 7 years old and we’re still spoiler blocking it. That’s how you know a game is drat good. The whole story with the Crones has a neat little echo/foreshadowing in the minor side quest A Greedy God, where a bunch of peasants are being duped by the "Allgod" and Geralt has to choose between keeping their faith intact and giving them a reason to keep going despite the hardship, starvation, and sacrifice such faith requires, or exposing the lie for what it is and possibly killing the parasitical sylvan. In the original Polish, this mission was titled (rough translation) "Opium for the Masses". The main difference being that the Allgod is a fraud who Geralt could dispatch without too much trouble, while the Crones are powerful supernatural entities that could destroy the entire surrounding ecosystem and aren't intimidated by the idea of a Witcher
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# ? Sep 3, 2022 16:18 |
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ngl I’m pretty hype to play through this again when the PS5 version finally drops even though I’ve played through it like three times
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# ? Sep 4, 2022 00:46 |
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man nurse posted:ngl I’m pretty hype to play through this again when the PS5 version finally drops even though I’ve played through it like three times absolutely
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# ? Sep 4, 2022 23:19 |
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Still going through my 9th replay and I still chuckle whenever the drunk barber in Novigrad gives me the wrong haircut. Man I love this game.
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# ? Sep 5, 2022 01:05 |
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I didn't know anything about the Witcher coming into this game and I just figured Geralt was like this world's Judge Dredd, or at least that's how I play him.
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# ? Sep 5, 2022 03:15 |
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I'm only about 50% through the main questline, and I've officially run out of non-DLC Gwent players. Game sucks.
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# ? Sep 8, 2022 09:14 |
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You're just having your priorities straight.
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# ? Sep 8, 2022 09:17 |
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On the plus side, you aren't saddled with the lovely deck from the Toussaint tournament
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# ? Sep 9, 2022 05:07 |
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Unless you draw Cerys. That is that decks big ‘I win’ card. But without it you’re screwed.
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# ? Sep 9, 2022 12:26 |
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MikeC posted:Since the game never fully addresses or presents an undeniable true version of the events, there will always be ambiguity. The fact remains though we know for certain several things. trying to draw out any meaningful distinction between the rule of the Crones and the Lady of the Wood is missing the point. They're just magical royalty, same as the mundane royalty you deal with, whose relationship to the peasantry is straightforwardly parasitic rule by fear. It's a pretty universal trait of despotism for the commoners to overlook their basically unchanged material circumstances to weave grandiose tales of the mad old king deposed by the good new king, or the wise old king deposed by a degenerate ingrate heir, but the power struggles of child-eating fairies are not inherently of merit or significance to anyone but the monsters squabbling over who gets to eat all the kids. The "good old days" of Velen that story depicts before the Lady "went mad" are still Velen as a muddy shithole ruled by terror and human sacrifice, it's just asserting that the vibes were like, totally different man, in a way the rationalizes feeding your kids to a bog hag as a grand blessing. Both sets of fairies are a dubious improvement on their human counterparts in that they will reliably honor the letter of any bargain you can force them into, while brutally violating the spirit, but any deal with them still inevitably entails the bargainer, and certainly the people of Velen, coming out worse off than they went in. There is no space between them. Skippy McPants posted:One thing I don't like about this game is how quests sometimes trap you in contrived choices to force a "morally grey" outcome. I don't expect every quest to have a happy ending. The Whispering Hillock, for example, corners you very convincingly in a situation where no matter what you do, children die, even if you do nothing. Then, on the other hand, you have a quest like The Nithing, where there exists a glaring omission of the option to say, "I can reverse the curse lady. Cut it out, or I'll kill you." Even if that didn't change your ultimate choices in the quest, the lack of that option shifts the moral burden onto the player in a manner that feels extremely cheap. Really? I distinctly recall you being able to say that, or something to that effect, and she basically shrugs and dares you to try. She's not really interested in bargaining, someone's gotta bleed A Wizard of Goatse fucked around with this message at 13:46 on Sep 9, 2022 |
# ? Sep 9, 2022 13:32 |
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I now have 75+ hours in this game. Level 19 and just rescued Dandelion and I have like 20 pending quests going down to level 11. Not been to Skellige yet. I have been prioritizing non-main quests to an extent but mostly prioritizing by doing the lower level ones first while I can still get exp. Basically I wander around instead of using fast travel if there are still ? items in my path and do whatever I run into unless it is too high level. I think I might be avoiding the main quest too much, though. Getting too OP.
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# ? Sep 14, 2022 16:33 |
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You can get levels off doing a lot of side quests but if you end up OP it’s probably cause you explored enough to start making Witcher school armor sets which will make you pretty OP even against overleveled enemies.
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# ? Sep 14, 2022 16:37 |
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It’s worth noting that even when you can get XP from low level side quests you still get almost none compared to the main quest. I wouldn’t stress on XP from side quests.
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# ? Sep 14, 2022 16:38 |
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Mulaney Power Move posted:I now have 75+ hours in this game. Level 19 and just rescued Dandelion and I have like 20 pending quests going down to level 11. Not been to Skellige yet. I have been prioritizing non-main quests to an extent but mostly prioritizing by doing the lower level ones first while I can still get exp. Basically I wander around instead of using fast travel if there are still ? items in my path and do whatever I run into unless it is too high level. I think I might be avoiding the main quest too much, though. Getting too OP. Game just isn't that difficult combat-wise. I'm playing on hard, and after about level 15'ish, nothing was really all that challenging. That's not a knock, though. The combat isn't bad, but nor is it terribly engaging. Happy to breeze past it so I can enjoy more of the story. I just finished up Hearts of Stone, and that had some of the best quest design I've ever seen in an RPG.
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# ? Sep 14, 2022 18:34 |
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Also, having just praised this game's storytelling, I gotta say—I loving hated how Reason of State ended. Dijkstra coming down with the worst case of plot-induced idiocy in history was awful, just loving terrible. Maybe try to arrange a better deal before backstabbing your allies? No, well, maybe wait for them to get drunk and shoot them all from the shadows rather than announcing your treachery on a literal stage while all your targets are still juiced to the tits from killing a king? No, okay, then maybe at the very least wait until the murder hobo you've personally seen blender dozens of people is out of the room. Jesus. For a game that goes so far out of its way to tell organic stories, that was the most contrived poo poo.
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# ? Sep 14, 2022 18:56 |
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Skippy McPants posted:Also, having just praised this game's storytelling, I gotta say—I loving hated how Reason of State ended. Yeah, the ending of that was poo poo. I liked it a lot until the end.
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# ? Sep 14, 2022 19:05 |
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Skippy McPants posted:Also, having just praised this game's storytelling, I gotta say—I loving hated how Reason of State ended. Geralt would never make the decision to walk away from that (and Djikstra would never handle it so clumsily) but frankly I feel like he earns the win so I'm inclined to let him get away with it
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# ? Sep 14, 2022 19:06 |
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It is, and it's not like it couldn't be salvaged with a bit of good old thriller writing. Roche betrayed the whole plan and made a deal with the invading enemy weeks or months ago. Dijkstra is blatantly opportunistic about sacrificing anyone if it's convenient to Redania. Just drop the Shakespeare grandstanding and have two old spies who'd rather kill each other than find a compromise.
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# ? Sep 14, 2022 19:11 |
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Skippy McPants posted:Also, having just praised this game's storytelling, I gotta say—I loving hated how Reason of State ended. And it would have only taken a few tweaks to make it much more consistent with the characters. My suggestion: Before the assassination, Djikstra pulls Geralt aside after one of the meets and issues him a stern warning: once this assassination business is over, steer well clear of Roche and Thaler lest he get involved in business that is beyond him. Djikstra says he has major political disagreements with Thaler's plan for Temeria, and the two of them are going to work it out. It's just vague enough to be deniable, but just threatening enough to be concerning. Geralt monologues to himself afterwards, wondering if he should give Roche and Thaler a heads up. If Geralt does, then Thaler explains his political goals for Temeria and invites Geralt to stay with them after the assassination in case Djikstra tries something. Geralt can choose to stay neutral or agree to help them preserve Temeria. During the battle, Djikstra is not part of the ambush and is nowhere to be found. Roche and Geralt track him down to the bathhouse (or wherever the writers would like) and Roche is about to kill him. Geralt is given the option to allow Roche to kill him or intervene and spare him a la Witcher 2 with Henselt. If Geralt doesn't warn Roche and Thaler, or warns them but refuses to take part in their defense, then Djikstra's ending occurs. If Geralt warns Roche and Thaler and helps them fend off Djikstra's ambush, then Ehmyr's + Temeria's ending occurs. Both Djikstra's and Geralt's behavior would be more consistent with their book characters. Djikstra was never planning to directly confront Geralt at Geralt's full strength. Geralt is never asked in extremis to choose to allow his friends to die. Geralt's choice would be presented more as one of getting involved with politics (on one side or the other) or neutrality, the same kind of choice he has been having to make in every book and every game. Edit: It would also make the choice more tolerable for me as a player, especially since I went Iorveth in Witcher 2. I can much more easily write off the whole thing as "spy business, not going to get involved" and justify in my head how I could let Djikstra win. Much more easy to justify than "I'm going to walk away and allow my friends to be murdered in cold blood right in front of me." Frankly, I really would like an ending where the North wins, Emyhr eats poo poo, Ciri gets to stay a witcher, and Geralt doesn't allow his friends to be murdered in front of him. But as the game stands currently, I always wind up with the Emyhr ending +/- Empress Ciri because I feel that 1) allowing Radovid to live is deeply wrong, 2) allowing Roche and Thaler to be murdered is wrong, and 3) telling Ciri that her biological father wants to see her is a reasonable thing to do. Cantorsdust fucked around with this message at 19:42 on Sep 14, 2022 |
# ? Sep 14, 2022 19:35 |
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The game is kind of an essay on the idea that neutrality is not actually neutral, which is why so many peasants must die. By steel or by bog curse. I probably shouldn't have murdered the Nietzescheans, though, but I thought it was only a brawl until I punched both of them to death. Mulaney Power Move fucked around with this message at 21:52 on Sep 14, 2022 |
# ? Sep 14, 2022 21:49 |
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It was extremely weird to me that the game doesn't have Geralt just slap them around.
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# ? Sep 14, 2022 22:08 |
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Geralt Shepard: The Wild Hunt is coming and we don't have time for the two of you to screw around. Report to Skellige immediately!
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# ? Sep 14, 2022 22:18 |
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Halloween Jack posted:It was extremely weird to me that the game doesn't have Geralt just slap them around. Ditto.
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# ? Sep 14, 2022 22:22 |
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Sometimes it is easy to know when Geralt will have a choice to murder, but other times you just go with "Well, huh" and an entire village dies.
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# ? Sep 15, 2022 03:41 |
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Roche is literally head of a genocidal death squad. Let Dijkstra kill him. Nothing of value is lost. Oh you got the equivalent of a sweet SS tattoo after a night out with the guy once? You make me sick.
WhiskeyWhiskers fucked around with this message at 06:15 on Sep 15, 2022 |
# ? Sep 15, 2022 06:13 |
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He's a bro
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# ? Sep 15, 2022 06:14 |
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He's no bro, but Dijkstra is just as bad and it's kinda hard to stand aside while someone is backstabbing me right in the face. Really a shame Iorveth didn't make it into the game. The ending to the main quest of Witcher 3 was pretty fragmented. Lots of jumping around and tying up threads in the blink of an eye. Still has a decent overall ending, though. On to B&W.
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# ? Sep 15, 2022 10:36 |
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Man, and here I thought the main game had already cranked the color saturation to 11. Toussaint looks like a painting come to life.
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# ? Sep 15, 2022 12:06 |
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It fits pretty well narratively, idk if you’ve read the books but Toussaint was this little pocket of the world completely unperturbed by and oblivious to the shitshow going on during the Witcher Saga since it was too valuable financially/politically to gently caress with so it makes sense that it would look literally picturesque compared to Velen having mobs of ghouls.
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# ? Sep 15, 2022 12:57 |
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Last Celebration posted:It fits pretty well narratively, idk if you’ve read the books but Toussaint was this little pocket of the world completely unperturbed by and oblivious to the shitshow going on during the Witcher Saga since it was too valuable financially/politically to gently caress with so it makes sense that it would look literally picturesque compared to Velen having mobs of ghouls. I like the game's implied reason for this if you dig deep - because of the secret cadre of higher vampires shaping Toussaint's politics to keep them neutral so that they could be kept fat and happy and tasty.
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# ? Sep 15, 2022 13:18 |
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Well gently caress, shouldn’t have moused over that if I hadn’t finished Blood and Wine I guess!
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# ? Sep 15, 2022 13:40 |
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Gaius Marius posted:He's a bro He was always nice to me Well, starting after the prologue at least Last Celebration posted:Well gently caress, shouldn’t have moused over that if I hadn’t finished Blood and Wine I guess! Don’t sweat it too much, it’s less important to the plot of the DLC than you’d expect
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# ? Sep 15, 2022 13:58 |
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Last Celebration posted:Well gently caress, shouldn’t have moused over that if I hadn’t finished Blood and Wine I guess! in terms of the main story that's only a partial spoiler, it explains why vampires are there more than in other places is all.
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# ? Sep 15, 2022 14:43 |
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It's almost Q4 2022 and still no set date for the next-gen upgrade
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# ? Sep 15, 2022 18:43 |
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# ? Jun 4, 2024 08:30 |
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Last Celebration posted:It fits pretty well narratively, idk if you’ve read the books but Toussaint was this little pocket of the world completely unperturbed by and oblivious to the shitshow going on during the Witcher Saga since it was too valuable financially/politically to gently caress with so it makes sense that it would look literally picturesque compared to Velen having mobs of ghouls. Oh, I ain't dissin' the choice. Much as I gave people poo poo for all those Skyrim beautification mods, it is a fine style to use, provided the choice is deliberate, and it fits with the game.
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# ? Sep 15, 2022 19:33 |