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The Witcher 3: What Geralt Wants

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True, just think what you could do with that trophy...

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One of my favourite things to do and what I do all the time is check to see what trophies my friends got compared to what I got.

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I do enjoy getting trophies, it's not like it's the reason I buy games, but it's a nice incentive for me to do things I wouldn't normally bother to do. It also massively extends the life span of games I buy. I would never have finished DA:I if it wasn't for my platinum thirst.

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Sure, but it seems a bit daft to lessen your enjoyment of much of the game in the name of getting a trophy. Unless you plan to play it again, in which case I guess the harder difficulty is something to look forward to.

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The combat isn't really what I enjoy from the Witcher anyway. It's janky at best, down right bad at worst. 

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I've been on the whole disappointed with how choices are handled.  Has anyone successfully played as neutral and had an enjoyable time?  It seems like if you were to stick to the Witcher ideals you'd miss out on a ton of quests.  Likewise, for a game that's supposedly all about grey choices, it's annoyingly opinionated about "correct" choices at times, though not always.  I also find it difficult to determine what I'm actually picking based on the brief dialog synopsizes that are marginally related to what Geralt says.  Last complaint, I really dislike how much the game pushes me to romance every woman.  I'm not interested in having sex with any of the sorceresses.  Why are you making me feel bad for this choice?  Why don't I get an equally rewarding subplot?  I guess, I'm just assuming that I don't, but I think it's a pretty safe bet.

 

I'm not going to try to justify whether the game is right to push those plots, or if you find them good or rewarding, but Geralt is an established character with a history and a backstory as opposed to your own formless Shepard. The reason some of those romantical subplots are there is because he had existing romantic relationships with some of those sorceresses. Where you try to steer them is your choice, but they are in-universe established fact.

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I'm not going to try to justify whether the game is right to push those plots, or if you find them good or rewarding, but Geralt is an established character with a history and a backstory as opposed to your own formless Shepard. The reason some of those romantical subplots are there is because he had existing romantic relationships with some of those sorceresses. Where you try to steer them is your choice, but they are in-universe established fact.

 

I don't disagree with that, and I have no problem with them existing.  I just don't like all of the faces the characters make and verbal chastising I get for not pursuing someone.  Geralt looking befudled and making a pouty face every time I avoid an encounter is unnecessary, and makes it feel less like I've made a choice and more like I've forced Geralt to do something he doesn't want to do.

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I don't disagree with that, and I have no problem with them existing.  I just don't like all of the faces the characters make and verbal chastising I get for not pursuing someone.  Geralt looking befudled and making a pouty face every time I avoid an encounter is unnecessary, and makes it feel less like I've made a choice and more like I've forced Geralt to do something he doesn't want to do.

 

The title is The Witcher 3: What Geralt Wants

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But then I won't get the trophy.  :getmecoat

 

Look at it this way: you'll probably be finished the game long before the DLC comes out, so just play it again on the higher difficulty when it's out!

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I've been on the whole disappointed with how choices are handled.  Has anyone successfully played as neutral and had an enjoyable time?  It seems like if you were to stick to the Witcher ideals you'd miss out on a ton of quests.  Likewise, for a game that's supposedly all about grey choices, it's annoyingly opinionated about "correct" choices at times, though not always.  I also find it difficult to determine what I'm actually picking based on the brief dialog synopsizes that are marginally related to what Geralt says.

 

To be fair, the first game also suffered badly from the problem of recommending neutrality as the proper policy for a Witcher, but not really enabling it in the dialogue choices. The plot was humans vs. elves and dwarves, but very few quests had choices that did not explicitly favor one side or the other, and once a certain number were accumulated, you'd just be informed by random NPCs that you were a partisan of one side and that was that, even if you were trying to be just and to keep your decisions balanced. That led me to go over to the humans pretty quickly, but a friend who also played the game kept it neutral the whole time and was simply met in the third act with a "pro- or anti-elves" question that summarily wiped away his previous quest history. It seems like a long-term design problem, almost, that CD Projekt Red expects the player to pick a side, whichever one it is, and doesn't really support a middle ground, even if they talk about it in the game's dialogue.

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To be fair, the first game also suffered badly from the problem of recommending neutrality as the proper policy for a Witcher, but not really enabling it in the dialogue choices. The plot was humans vs. elves and dwarves, but very few quests had choices that did not explicitly favor one side or the other, and once a certain number were accumulated, you'd just be informed by random NPCs that you were a partisan of one side and that was that, even if you were trying to be just and to keep your decisions balanced. That led me to go over to the humans pretty quickly, but a friend who also played the game kept it neutral the whole time and was simply met in the third act with a "pro- or anti-elves" question that summarily wiped away his previous quest history. It seems like a long-term design problem, almost, that CD Projekt Red expects the player to pick a side, whichever one it is, and doesn't really support a middle ground, even if they talk about it in the game's dialogue.

 

I remember the first game doing at least two choices where you had to pick a side, which caused some vendors to open to you/close and then at the village in act 4(?) you could just walk away leaving both factions to kill each other. Then the next act had both of them attacking you.

 

And the second game has the end of act 1 choice that bifurcates the game into two separate act 2s. Then in act 3 you can choose to stay with your act 2 allies and their goals or tell them they're on their own and do your own thing, leaving them to fail.

 

The pattern seems to be, force player to choose a side, have them be praised by someone. Afterwards, let them choose to be neutral, pissing off everyone except Geralt's closest friends.

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To be fair, the first game also suffered badly from the problem of recommending neutrality as the proper policy for a Witcher, but not really enabling it in the dialogue choices. The plot was humans vs. elves and dwarves, but very few quests had choices that did not explicitly favor one side or the other, and once a certain number were accumulated, you'd just be informed by random NPCs that you were a partisan of one side and that was that, even if you were trying to be just and to keep your decisions balanced. That led me to go over to the humans pretty quickly, but a friend who also played the game kept it neutral the whole time and was simply met in the third act with a "pro- or anti-elves" question that summarily wiped away his previous quest history. It seems like a long-term design problem, almost, that CD Projekt Red expects the player to pick a side, whichever one it is, and doesn't really support a middle ground, even if they talk about it in the game's dialogue.

 

I managed (accidentally) to end up neutral in the first game and man that ending was depressing.

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I managed (accidentally) to end up neutral in the first game and man that ending was depressing.

 

Well, that doesn't bode well. I tried hard to stay neutral for the first two acts and the game tried both through content and through mechanics to kick me in the balls repeatedly for that choice. It worked, I gave up and took a side, then got shit upon repeatedly for not staying neutral. I don't know if it's because neutrality is the "true" ending and that has to be hard or something, but it was not a fulfilling experience to try for it, so I'm not optimistic for Moosferatu's concerns about this game, either.

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Really, the Witcher series is all about every decision you make being shitty. I doubt any of the routes you could take in the first game ending with anything but a repeated kick in the balls. I just remember having wedged myself into a corner during the climactic fight that goes down in the village of either siding with the humans or just peacing out. By that point I wanted to side with the elves, but I guess it was too late so I pieced out and then the rest of the game tumbled downhill.

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That particular quest can still be done 

by talking to Yennefer instead.

 

I heard that, but it never actually worked for me. *shrug*

 

As for neutrality; this isn't necessarily a defence of the game, but it does once again fit into Geralt the character. Pretty much all of the books at some point or another have Geralt try to be neutral, fail due to conscience, and piss off a whole bunch of people.

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What Gwardinen said. However, in the third game I do feel that the choices are more about picking sides or that not picking a side often feels off. And some of the choices seem to be pretty black and white (or good vs evil) more than the shades of grey that the previous ones had. And this also means Geralt can feel more evil than ever before.

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Ps you can also talk to Triss later about the statue

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While exploring on the big island in Skellige, I found a cave full of 

farting and giggling rock trolls. They aggroed as soon as I walked in, which bummed me out. Was that for a quest or was it just a random fart cave?

It's located here.

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While exploring on the big island in Skellige, I found a cave full of 

farting and giggling rock trolls. They aggroed as soon as I walked in, which bummed me out. Was that for a quest or was it just a random fart cave?

It's located here.

 

I found it too.

 

It's not for a quest. It's a little cameo of 3 well known video game youtubers whom were invited to playtest the game a while back; Angry Joe, Dodger and Jesse Cox

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Finished the game. Ending and epilogue had good and bad parts. I disliked the narrator from the start and the voice volume was always too low as well, that kind of made the ending seem a bit sucky.

But going back to white orchard was nice. I should have realized the sword was for Ciri when I bought it, wouldn't have named it Zirael then.

 

I did all the side content I had left to do as well, now wondering whether to also try to do everything, like get all the Gwent cards or not. I already have all the witcher gear diagrams, but crafting them is a bit of a drudgery (have the swords left to craft) because I want to make the components from my inventory instead of buying them and then probably to sell everything I have left.

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Finally finished! Did almost every quest I could find. A nice, tight 90 hours.

 

I think I got a "good" ending. I might go back and find the Wolf armor, because it's a bit better than the Griffin stuff. Definitely don't care about Gwent in the slightest. I will probably be completely in for the expansion stuff when it comes out in the fall. Some of the conversation flow got repetitive, and it started bugging me that whoever the writer was hated definite and indefinite articles, but all in all a wonderful game.

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Yeah, I honestly done give a shit about Gwent. I tried it once and it just bored me when I wanted to be hunting down monsters.

I just made it to Skellige. It's real pretty.

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Also just made it to skellige. Reeally pretty.

A thing that's quietly annoying me is how many characters I can have meaningful interactions defaulting to a dumb set of npc says while you're out of the quest.

Idk it feels weird within the context of the game sometimes.

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