So.. when does hearts of stone actually take place? strangeness with prologue setting/time frame

[Night]

I'm kind of interested in figuring out when hearts of stone actually takes place and it's relationship with the somewhat strange duality nature of the world during the prologue.

From a pure immersion/insolated perspective hearts of stone can be done at any time, all of the dialogue that touches on the main story is altered depending on where you're at in the main quest.

That being said unlike blood and wine there are no references to you actually beating the wild hunt or ending the game.

So the question becomes, even if you do hearts of stone after the main story, the prologue technically plops you to some time just before the final battle.

Does this mean that no matter when you perform the hearts of stone expansion technically you are always doing it before the ending?


It's a strange question because clearly at some point along your toussant adventure 3 years pass and they openly refer to the ending of the main quest quite regularly. This is clearly intended to be post main quest (even though the prologue message might state you are prior to the end of the game chronologically).

The ultimate purpose of this question is from a leveling perspective I'd like to do HoS after the main quest.

However if the DLC shows any indication of respecting the supposed time frame of the prologue game world (some arbitrary point before the final battle) then I'd rather complete it at that actual time rather than completing the main quest and going back in time to do it during the prologue... if that makes sense

[=GG= Mr Moe]

I believe it can happen during the main story and/or after, with most of it happening after just because of the difficulty level of most of the quests. I believe that some of the dialogue, especially with GOD, reflects whether you are doing HOS during or after the main story.

You can also do B&W during the main story, but with it using an entirely different map than Velen (unlike HOS) and the difficulty levels being much higher, its best to probably do that after you are mostly done with everything on the Velen map.

[Night]

Originally posted by =GG= Mr Moe:

I believe it can happen during the main story and/or after, with most of it happening after just because of the difficulty level of most of the quests. I believe that some of the dialogue, especially with GOD, reflects whether you are doing HOS during or after the main story.

You can also do B&W during the main story, but with it using an entirely different map than Velen (unlike HOS) and the difficulty levels being much higher, its best to probably do that after you are mostly done with everything on the Velen map.

Well there's certainly a difference in these cases between 'can' and 'should'

B&W directly references the end of the main story and even specifically talks about you defeating the wild hunt and the war ending. These dialogue scripts do not change even if you manage to do blood and wine during the main story.

Additionally blood and wine takes place 3 years after the main story. So while you technically 'can' complete it during the MQ you are, chronologically, way beyond the main story at that point and the expansion doesn't even attempt to accomidate your current game state if you do it before finishing the MQ.



Hearts of stone on the other hand is a bit more ambiguous.

You can do it after the main quest but the question at hand is even if you do it post main quest the actual state of the post main quest world is actually right before finishing the main quest....


So even if you start the DLC in the prologue, technically the prologe takes place before the end of the main quest.


Thus my question--even if you wait until after the MQ to do hearts of stone are you, actually, still doing it pre-MQ?

[=GG= Mr Moe]

Originally posted by Night:

Thus my question--even if you wait until after the MQ to do hearts of stone are you, actually, still doing it pre-MQ?

I've played the game 1 1/2 times. From what I remember doing HOS, and from YouTube videos (mainly from xLetalis) most of HOS is happening AFTER the Main Story Quests.

However CDPR put in different dialogue for different situations in case you decide to do and/or start HOS before completing the Main Story Quests.

That's about the best I can sum up, in my opinion of course.