Difficulty Levels Explained?

[DinoBot420]

Does anyone know where i can find or have the Detailed differences of difficulty levels? i just finnished the last wish quest on death march and got 2 experience, i only recently changed it higher, and i thought that quest was closer to my level, however i could be wrong on that part. still would like to know what the actually differences are as far as percentages and such. i am level 22 almost 23.

[KoalafiedKiller]

On Just the Story and Sword and Story you get 100% experience. On Blood and Broken Bones you get 90%. On Death March you get 80%.

On Just the Story enemies have -50% health and do normal damage.

On Sword and Story enemies have 10% more health and do 40% more damage

On Blood and Broken Bones enemies have 20% more health and do 130% more damage.

On Death March enemies have 80% more health and do 230% more damage.

And just for reference as to what "normal" health and damage are. Group type monsters gain 80-90 essence (health) per level and 5 attack power per level. Solo monsters gain 240-260 essence and 40-42 attack power per level. Humans gain 55 vitality and 20 attack power per level.

The Last Wish is a very low level quest for where it is in the story. I believe it's level 14 which is strange since the quest to even get to Skellige is level 16, and The Last Wish is one of the last quests you do on Skellige in that chapter so you outleveled it by a good amount.

[Kazmor]

if it isnt in the wiki or in this forum u probably wont find it.

EXP for quests is still strange - theres a mod for it wich gives u full exp for all quests.
There is an option in the game menu for scaling enemys.

The difference betweeen the two highest difficutlys... meh I woud say it doubles the damage u get - the last boss for example needs 2 1/2 combos to finish me of - one difficutly lowers it was like it takes forever - 5 combos or even more. Hp pool of enemys isnt doubled but still higher I think. Boss was also more aggresive on Deathmarch than before - but that coud have been random aswell. Hope that helps.

[Kazmor]

Originally posted by KoalafiedKiller:

On Just the Story and Sword and Story you get 100% experience. On Blood and Broken Bones you get 90%. On Death March you get 80%.

On Just the Story enemies have -50% health and do normal damage.

On Sword and Story enemies have 10% more health and do 40% more damage

On Blood and Broken Bones enemies have 20% more health and do 130% more damage.

On Death March enemies have 80% more health and do 230% more damage.

And just for reference as to what "normal" health and damage are. Group type monsters gain 80-90 essence (health) per level and 5 attack power per level. Solo monsters gain 240-260 essence and 40-42 attack power per level. Humans gain 55 vitality and 20 attack power per level.

The Last Wish is a very low level quest for where it is in the story. I believe it's level 14 which is strange since the quest to even get to Skellige is level 16, and The Last Wish is one of the last quests you do on Skellige in that chapter so you outleveled it by a good amount.

Wow. Pretty close to what I assumed.
Wheres the information from?

[KoalafiedKiller]

Originally posted by Kazmor:

Originally posted by KoalafiedKiller:

On Just the Story and Sword and Story you get 100% experience. On Blood and Broken Bones you get 90%. On Death March you get 80%.

On Just the Story enemies have -50% health and do normal damage.

On Sword and Story enemies have 10% more health and do 40% more damage

On Blood and Broken Bones enemies have 20% more health and do 130% more damage.

On Death March enemies have 80% more health and do 230% more damage.

And just for reference as to what "normal" health and damage are. Group type monsters gain 80-90 essence (health) per level and 5 attack power per level. Solo monsters gain 240-260 essence and 40-42 attack power per level. Humans gain 55 vitality and 20 attack power per level.

The Last Wish is a very low level quest for where it is in the story. I believe it's level 14 which is strange since the quest to even get to Skellige is level 16, and The Last Wish is one of the last quests you do on Skellige in that chapter so you outleveled it by a good amount.

Wow. Pretty close to what I assumed.
Wheres the information from?

Unpacking the game files and reading them. I read the experience modifiers from the scripts and the enemy statistics are from the XML files.

[Kazmor]

Originally posted by KoalafiedKiller:

Originally posted by Kazmor:

Wow. Pretty close to what I assumed.
Wheres the information from?

Unpacking the game files and reading them. I read the experience modifiers from the scripts and the enemy statistics are from the XML files.

thanks

[DinoBot420]

oh cool thanks, nothing about experience gain on higher difficulties tho hey ?

[KoalafiedKiller]

Originally posted by LightStrider:

oh cool thanks, nothing about experience gain on higher difficulties tho hey ?

It's in the first sentence on my first post. 80% experience on Death March, 90% on Blood and Broken Bones, and 100% on Just the Story and Sword and Story.

But again, like I said, The Last Wish is a level 14 quest (I believe) so if you were 22-23 you weren't going to get the full XP from it.

[DinoBot420]

oh ♥♥♥♥ my bad missed that part. thx again man. Games intense. So far im mostly just turned off by the fact i have a buncha stuff in my bags and im not sure what to do with it, some labeled as quest item, but im positive i finnished the quest, but on some things im not 100% sure, kinda annoyed like to get rid of it, and that its not really explained in the game how to find witcher gear and enhanced gear, and like normally when i get into a fight its so sudden i dont have time to set up my potions and decoctions and oils and such, plus i cant seem to figure out how this alchemy stuff works, and there are herbs everywhere! could spend all day just herb farming, and like the character tab and putting skills in slots, like what id i dont have a skill in a slot? does that mean its useless? blah, sooooo much, and some of the story drags and the dialogue choices can be annoying like, i think "♥♥♥♥ i wouldent say either of those" or the way the choice is chosen but phrased differently. also geralts vocals like ...his tone never changes, like once...agh yenn annoys me, but im not sure what im should be doing i never read the books or played the first two, and it seems alot of the story has to do with the first two, and ya....im a sucker for triss...but shes never around >.< and i gotta spend all this time being a ♥♥♥♥ to yenn but shes actually there....hahaha ahhh man this game gets me, >.<

[BachHoangSon2591]

Even in Death March, the game is still too easy for me.
The first time I played, I was a Mage - Witcher, only Imlerith and Calanthir take me down. (HoS and BnW haven't released yet)

My 2nd playthorugh is a NG+ run, I'm invincible, not die even one, both main game and those 2 expansions !!!

[KoalafiedKiller]

To answer some of the questions I saw in that wall of text...

Skills only work if they are slotted. So if you have an empty skill slot it is definitely better to have a skill, any skill really, in there rather than none at all. Make sure to group skills of the same color together and put a mutagen of the same color in the mutagen slot. This will give you a larger bonus than if you had skills from different trees in the same group.

You only need to craft alchemy items once. After you craft them they are yours forever. They do have a certain number of charges before they need to be replenished however, you can replenish them by meditating and as long as you have some type of strong alcohol (alcohest, dwarven spirit, cherry cordial, etc etc) you will restock all of your items. You don't need to feverishly pick herbs. Most of the time you can just buy what you need to craft an item cheaply enough from an herbalist.

Every time you speak with an armorer or blacksmith make sure you check his inventory for maps, buy them if he has them. Once you buy them go into your inventory and read them. By reading them you activate the enhanced, superior, and master crafted witcher gear quests. Also keep in mind if you just explore all the ? on your own you will probably end up finding all of the upgrade diagrams.

Some quest items are bugged (or perhaps the developers just didn't care) and remain in your inventory after the quest is completed. As for other items in your inventory, always break down and/or sell junk items. Make sure you aren't weighing yourself down with dozens of skulls, ash piles, and rakes. Also keep an eye on the number of repair kits you have, those things actually weigh quite a bit, especially the master crafted variants. Saddles also weigh a lot so make sure you don't have too many of those just sitting in your inventory.

For me personally I find it somewhat immersion breaking to enter my inventory and use oils and such in the middle of the fight. So I usually try to figure out what I'm fighting before I actually engage in the battle. Assuming you are playing with mouse and keyboard, you have 4 potion slots to use. That should be more than enough for regular use. For me I keep thunderbolt, tawny owl, swallow, and blizzard on my hot keys. I rarely use other potions so that's what works for me.

[Sh1Zuk0]

do the stats of the witcher gears differ from each difficulty?

[Kazmor]

Originally posted by Sh1Zuk0:

do the stats of the witcher gears differ from each difficulty?

pretty sure NO, but since u can swtich anytime u can test yourself pretty simple.

[v0]

Originally posted by KoalafiedKiller:

Originally posted by Kazmor:

Wow. Pretty close to what I assumed.
Wheres the information from?

Unpacking the game files and reading them. I read the experience modifiers from the scripts and the enemy statistics are from the XML files.

Can you extract XP nerf formula from there? Say how XP for monster kills and quests scaled down according to how many levels above you are? Thx.

[MacedonianMafia]

Must say that once you play a long time on death march, u get used to it. The beginning is really frustrating and lots of raging, but now i think i’m going to play my second playtrough also in deathmarch, just so there still will be a challenge.

[Tommy]

Originally posted by v0:

Originally posted by KoalafiedKiller:

Unpacking the game files and reading them. I read the experience modifiers from the scripts and the enemy statistics are from the XML files.

Can you extract XP nerf formula from there? Say how XP for monster kills and quests scaled down according to how many levels above you are? Thx.

The xp formula for enemies is a bit more complex and hard to read. Pretty much written in C# or some such. The way the Devs made the game is that you gain XP by doing quests. Killing monsters will make almost no difference for your levels.