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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! It's barely a thing in the games. As you play the DLC you get more interesting backstory and lore about the vampire race as a whole but a lot of it is made up fresh for the game so its mostly rumor and speculation then anything else. I don't think Witcher 1/2 went too deep into it, but Vampires are a tiered race, where you have the borderline feral ones at the bottom and the no-poo poo Ancient God King equivalents at the top. The Witcher codex for strategy and technique for fighting Higher Vampires is "loving run" although it varies a bit throughout the games. pentyne fucked around with this message at 20:21 on Sep 15, 2022 |
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Sep 15, 2022 20:19
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pentyne posted:It's barely a thing in the games. As you play the DLC you get more interesting backstory and lore about the vampire race as a whole but a lot of it is made up fresh for the game so its mostly rumor and speculation then anything else. The game also makes no attempt to be subtle with its hints that certain powerful characters are vampires, to the extent that it's literally a joke at one point
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Sep 15, 2022 20:37
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Ainsley McTree posted:The game also makes no attempt to be subtle with its hints that certain powerful characters are vampires, to the extent that it's literally a joke at one point Who exactly? Because aside from the explicit vampires, I didn't really pick up on any hints. I guess it'd make sense from the ancient vampire lore texts you find, I just didn't see anything that would directly imply much. And to be honest, while I really love Blood and Wine, I'm not very into The Witcher's version of higher vampires who are just fundamentally immortal and just beyond humans in every way. Doesn't seem like it gels with The Witcher's normal approach to the supernatural. At the end of the DLC, I was disappointed with the choice fork where you can choose to go see the Elder vampire to summon Detlaff, because I expected like some kind of mob boss head honcho guy with actual social influence, but then it turns out that he's just a slightly weirder kind of vampire with just another weird vampire ability. Just an inhuman hermit in a cave wishing for some glimpse of the old world vampire dimension. Kinda lame. Especially disappointing since the other side of the fork is such a detailed area with multiple subquests. The vampire cave tries to mix it up with some weird geometry, but it's just nowhere close.
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Sep 15, 2022 22:59
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It's no walking on air with a mirror merchant that's for sure.
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Sep 15, 2022 23:00
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SlothfulCobra posted:Who exactly? Because aside from the explicit vampires, I didn't really pick up on any hints. I guess it'd make sense from the ancient vampire lore texts you find, I just didn't see anything that would directly imply much. its been long enough that I can’t remember her name or exactly what the hints were, but iirc it’s some noblewoman that keeps sharing winks and nods with Regis about her age or whatever, and towards the end, regis tries to say, by the way, she’s a vampire, and Geralt cuts him off like “thanks, figured that out already I suppose if you also figured it out immediately, you’re probably considering her to be one of the explicit ones Ainsley McTree fucked around with this message at 02:29 on Sep 16, 2022 |
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Sep 15, 2022 23:22
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It's the redhead. Although going by the Night To Remember trailer, she's a Bruxa. Edit: Regarding the Elder, I think it's neat. You expect a Dracula-like machiavellian villain, but he's just a sad relic pining for his home dimension/planet. He doesn't care what happens outside of his bubble so long as it doesn't interfere with his dream of getting back there. itry fucked around with this message at 23:27 on Sep 15, 2022 |
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Sep 15, 2022 23:23
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It's a trick question, all noble are vampires.
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Sep 16, 2022 14:37
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Halloween Jack posted:It's a trick question, all noble are vampires. 
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Sep 16, 2022 19:04
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I was also disappointed by higher vampires. They used the standard vampire tropes (blending in with the aristocracy, human cattle, etc.), but without the standard vampire weaknesses I don’t see any reason why they’d need to. If higher vampires wanted to openly rule the world nothing could stop them, but they stick to the shadows because…reasons?
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Sep 16, 2022 19:20
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Jimmy Noskill posted:I was also disappointed by higher vampires. They used the standard vampire tropes (blending in with the aristocracy, human cattle, etc.), but without the standard vampire weaknesses I don’t see any reason why they’d need to. If higher vampires wanted to openly rule the world nothing could stop them, but they stick to the shadows because…reasons? There aren't that many of them. And most of them are like Regis, who was taken out of comission by a single (albeit a very powerful) mage. Geralt put it to the Elder succinctly - if humanity took it as a priority, they'd collapse his cave and everything in it.
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Sep 16, 2022 19:38
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It's the same with Witchers, Geralt might be a genetically enhanced superman, but all it takes is him getting unlucky once and he's done for. There's a whole lot more humans than their are Vamps.
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Sep 16, 2022 19:41
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Gaius Marius posted:It's the same with Witchers, Geralt might be a genetically enhanced superman, but all it takes is him getting unlucky once and he's done for. There's a whole lot more humans than their are Vamps. That explanation works for vampires in most settings, but in Witcher they made it explicit that higher vampires are literally unkillable except by other vampires. Regis came back after only a decade or so. Much less powerful monsters live openly—why should the most ludicrously overpowered creatures in the setting slink around?
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Sep 16, 2022 20:14
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Regis only came back because no one dusted him and put him in multiple boxes or w/e.
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Sep 16, 2022 20:18
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Jimmy Noskill posted:That explanation works for vampires in most settings, but in Witcher they made it explicit that higher vampires are literally unkillable except by other vampires. Regis came back after only a decade or so. Much less powerful monsters live openly—why should the most ludicrously overpowered creatures in the setting slink around? Pretty sure every aristocrat, nobleperson etc thought along these lines right up until they saw the mob outside their window. Humans are adaptable and tenacious, I'm sure they'd find a way to make their endless unlife miserable.
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Sep 16, 2022 20:41
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Jimmy Noskill posted:That explanation works for vampires in most settings, but in Witcher they made it explicit that higher vampires are literally unkillable except by other vampires. Regis came back after only a decade or so. Much less powerful monsters live openly—why should the most ludicrously overpowered creatures in the setting slink around? From the Gwent lore blurbs: quote:Scroll 2: The Unseen Elder craves not power, wealth nor even blood. His sole desire is to return to the world from which he has long been exile. For centuries he has watched the gate between worlds that now stands closed to him. There's also the distinction between higher vampires(genus) that also includes basically everything that can talk like alps, bruxae and katakans and higher vampires(species) which are the immortal aliens. Regis, Detlaff and the Unseen elder are the only known examples of their species and there's a reasonable chance that that's a significant fraction of their total population in the Continent.
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Sep 16, 2022 22:39
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Asehujiko posted:In the Unseen Elder's case, it's pretty much exactly what Geralt says; the Elder could plausibly take on the entire duchy by himself if it came to it but the fighting would most likely destroy the portal cave, which is something he values a lot more than having a couple thousand perpetually unruly and chaotic mortal servants. Also there is nothing about them that makes them so powerful they could defeat large numbers of mages and what would certainly be a legion of witchers. If they actually tried to take things over, they would be overwhelmed and at least temporarily defeated, and forced to then try and do it all over again. Contrast that to simply blending in, going to parties, moving every 50 years, and having plenty of people around to drink blood from.
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Sep 16, 2022 22:48
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Tokubetsu posted:Pretty sure every aristocrat, nobleperson etc thought along these lines right up until they saw the mob outside their window. Humans are adaptable and tenacious, I'm sure they'd find a way to make their endless unlife miserable. Yeah, "can only be truly killed by another higher vampire" isn't going to stop a sufficiently motivated mob from encasing individual chunks of your torch-and-pitchforked carcass into blocks of concrete, encasing those blocks in lead, and dumping them into the bottom of the ocean for a few millennia.
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Sep 17, 2022 04:16
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WoodrowSkillson posted:Also there is nothing about them that makes them so powerful they could defeat large numbers of mages and what would certainly be a legion of witchers. If they actually tried to take things over, they would be overwhelmed and at least temporarily defeated, and forced to then try and do it all over again. Contrast that to simply blending in, going to parties, moving every 50 years, and having plenty of people around to drink blood from. There aren't anywhere near a legion of witchers left. Actually I doubt there ever were that many at the same time. And mages seem to be quite rare too—Nilfgaard doesn't seem to have a huge advantage from having mages in the war. (Of course Radovid can have some mages depending on how Loc Muinne went in W2, but even if he doesn't have any he's still winning). I'd say the surface reading is correct—there is absolutely nothing any non-vampire on the Continent can do to actually hurt the Elder. Tokubetsu posted:Pretty sure every aristocrat, nobleperson etc thought along these lines right up until they saw the mob outside their window. Humans are adaptable and tenacious, I'm sure they'd find a way to make their endless unlife miserable. That's assuming they even know to do it, and that the other vampires don't revive them. itry posted:Regis only came back because no one dusted him and put him in multiple boxes or w/e. Pretty sure they did bury Regis in pieces. It just made it take longer for him to regenerate.
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Sep 18, 2022 00:27
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The “an angry mob or army can take them down” argument could theoretically apply to everything, yet the world is still a shithole awash with monsters and ruled by petty tyrants. You don’t see people throwing themselves on Whoreson Jr.‘s blade, but they would totally sacrifice themselves to take on an unkillable, super powered immortal?
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Sep 18, 2022 04:34
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Staltran posted:There aren't anywhere near a legion of witchers left. Actually I doubt there ever were that many at the same time. And mages seem to be quite rare too—Nilfgaard doesn't seem to have a huge advantage from having mages in the war. (Of course Radovid can have some mages depending on how Loc Muinne went in W2, but even if he doesn't have any he's still winning). I'd say the surface reading is correct—there is absolutely nothing any non-vampire on the Continent can do to actually hurt the Elder. if vampires started taking over governments, witchers would be a dime a dozen
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Sep 18, 2022 04:41
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Idk, most Witchers like living enough to not square up with a greater vampire for any sum of gold
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Sep 18, 2022 04:59
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WoodrowSkillson posted:if vampires started taking over governments, witchers would be a dime a dozen How? Everyone who knew how to make them is dead.
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Sep 18, 2022 05:02
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Staltran posted:How? Everyone who knew how to make them is dead. Presumably a group of mages would reconstruct the process with a bunch of trial and error and dead children; they know Witchers can be made, which is more than the mages who made the first Witchers knew. Restarting the Witcher schools isn't a priority for anyone both powerful and ruthless enough to restart the process; but that could change if Vampires began to be a real problem.
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Sep 18, 2022 23:59
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What even precipitated the downfall of vampire rule in Toussaint anyways? When you're exploring the area with Regis, he kind of shamefully admits that in the past they got out of hand with it and it all fell apart.
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Sep 19, 2022 00:07
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Staltran posted:How? Everyone who knew how to make them is dead. they created it once, why can't they do it again? especially given that hey know its possible and the general methods
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Sep 19, 2022 04:15
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WoodrowSkillson posted:they created it once, why can't they do it again? especially given that hey know its possible and the general methods Servetus posted:Presumably a group of mages would reconstruct the process with a bunch of trial and error and dead children; they know Witchers can be made, which is more than the mages who made the first Witchers knew. Restarting the Witcher schools isn't a priority for anyone both powerful and ruthless enough to restart the process; but that could change if Vampires began to be a real problem. What timeframe are we talking here? That could easily take a decade (or multiple decades, even), plus you need to do it to children so you'll still have to wait a few years for them to grow up.
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Sep 19, 2022 04:34
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I think an implication of Witcher 3 is that even though the original witcher secrets are mostly dead, there's a lot that the remaining Wolf witchers do know, but they're just not willing to try starting a new generation of proper witchers because it involves a lot of abuse, and there's not that much urgent need and definitely no funding. Also with all the other witcher schools, there's got to be some sources of the knowledge somewhere. I haven't gotten around to playing the first two games, but I know one of them involves a guy who was trying to make a witcher army, so I assume he had an angle.
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Sep 19, 2022 04:41
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WoodrowSkillson posted:they created it once, why can't they do it again? especially given that hey know its possible and the general methods I don’t think there’s an inclination to reopen that process though, it’s clearly treated with disgust and disdain by the current generation because it’s pretty hosed up to do that kind of thing to kids even ignoring the high mortality rate.
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Sep 19, 2022 04:43
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The Witcher survival rate just to get to the point you get pumped full of chemicals was already low, then the mutagens killed at least half of those. I can't find numbers but the quote on the wiki page mentions Queen Calanthe saying the success rate was like 1/10 or 1/20. Besides, by far the greatest power of the Witchers was knowledge. They knew all the tricks and traps that give you every advantage possible. Had that information been freely shared you could easily have squads of a couple of well trained military, like special forces level, take down most monsters.
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Sep 19, 2022 05:07
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There are 8 Witchers mentioned in all of Sapkowski's books. 4 of them didn't survive until end of the book cycle.. Apparently there are additional 25 Witchers mentioned in the games, with 15 mentioned dead. That 15 doesn't include Witchers that can die according to player's choices. Pretty deadly profession..
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Sep 19, 2022 08:28
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Last Celebration posted:I don’t think there’s an inclination to reopen that process though, it’s clearly treated with disgust and disdain by the current generation because it’s pretty hosed up to do that kind of thing to kids even ignoring the high mortality rate. Correct, however in the face of immortal vampires taking out governments that would cease being a good reason not to have supersoldiers. in the real world we put up with all kinds of abusive, terrible, high death rate poo poo for convenience, let alone actually addressing a threat. Orphanages would be emptied out, kids conscripted, etc.
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Sep 19, 2022 14:43
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alex314 posted:There are 8 Witchers mentioned in all of Sapkowski's books. 4 of them didn't survive until end of the book cycle.. If a Witcher falls out of bed it's instant death
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Sep 19, 2022 18:09
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A lot of Witchers die when they're going to fight some level 8 ghouls but a recent update added a quest with level 38 ghouls one village over
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Sep 20, 2022 01:57
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Oh my lord, there is a flash mob outside the Gwent tournament protesting the addition of a new faction. Beautiful.
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Sep 20, 2022 23:17
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Last Celebration posted:I don’t think there’s an inclination to reopen that process though, it’s clearly treated with disgust and disdain by the current generation because it’s pretty hosed up to do that kind of thing to kids even ignoring the high mortality rate. I mean they're out there introducing the new Witcher game with what looks every bit like the medallion of a new school, who knows?
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Sep 20, 2022 23:46
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WoodrowSkillson posted:Correct, however in the face of immortal vampires taking out governments that would cease being a good reason not to have supersoldiers. This exact reasoning is why nothing would be done to stop aristocratic vampires extracting the life force of workers.
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Sep 21, 2022 08:55
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Staltran posted:There aren't anywhere near a legion of witchers left. Actually I doubt there ever were that many at the same time. And mages seem to be quite rare too—Nilfgaard doesn't seem to have a huge advantage from having mages in the war. (Of course Radovid can have some mages depending on how Loc Muinne went in W2, but even if he doesn't have any he's still winning). I'd say the surface reading is correct—there is absolutely nothing any non-vampire on the Continent can do to actually hurt the Elder. WhiskeyWhiskers posted:This exact reasoning is why nothing would be done to stop aristocratic vampires extracting the life force of workers. There's probably a difference between a kingdom of human livestock, and let's say... a meatsack orphanage. The higher vampire (species) just isn't interested in ruling what they see as pets. Certainly not The Elder. He doesn't care or need anything from the outside world. He isn't a threat. That's just the setting. Not every Vampire automatically wants to rule the world 
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Sep 21, 2022 09:54
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I've got like 100 hours in right now and I finally got into gwent. I've barely been to skellige. I sailed around a bit and came back for gwent. Still playing through Velen but I think I have gotten through just about everyone here. I forget what the ultimate goal is here. Something about a wild hunt? Level 21 now.
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Sep 23, 2022 14:42
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Mulaney Power Move posted:I've got like 100 hours in right now and I finally got into gwent. I've barely been to skellige. I sailed around a bit and came back for gwent. Still playing through Velen but I think I have gotten through just about everyone here. I forget what the ultimate goal is here. Something about a wild hunt? Oh neat, a little fairytale kingdom full of s—did that little girl just say Gwent?! Edit: it is kind of a shame that the first Gwent deck you receive, Northern Realms, is easily the most powerful. Only reason to touch the others is for a challenge or if a quest requires it.
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Sep 23, 2022 16:18
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The nilfgaard deck gets pretty nuts once you get all the spies going
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Sep 23, 2022 16:50
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