Mod or Vanilla experience first?

[pixel_rice_bowl]

I'm curious what you'd recommend for a first playthrough: mod the game or enjoy it vanilla? If with mods, then what in particular do you recommend? (E.g., Any community patches worth mentioning?)

For example, I love Skyrim--and currently mod it to the hilt--but I would have actually enjoyed playing it with mods first, and would only rate the vanilla experience a 7/10 (versus with mods as a 10/10). What do you say for The Witcher 3?

Thanks for any advice here.

[Crimsomrider]

As much as I love Skyrim ( over 1500 hours on it ), this isn't Skyrim which requires unofficial patches to be a pleasant experience, therefore toss the Skyrim mindset out of the window.

Witcher 3 is a very high quality game which of course, comes with bugs ( not every game is perfect ), but they're nothing gamebreaking. The only bug you'll notice from the start is that NPCs don't have sword sheaths (courtesy of the latest patch, but the devs are aware of it).

Witcher 3 modding is not as strong as Bethesda games because there is no official modding kit released, therefore there are not any mods out there to make you go WOW or AMAZING. They're mostly just ENBs, Camera mods or stat mods (changing difficulty, levels, health, armor stats, armor apperarances and so on). There's certainly a variety of mods, but nothing important.

I can 110% recommend playing without mods and only install mods if there's something you don't like. For example, I like over-the-shoulder camera so I downloaded a mod just for that.

Have fun.

[cowinspace]

Hmm, Mods aren't as critical to the experience, I use a few but generally to change visuals I dislike. The only ones I consider critical are:

No Dirty Lens effect - self explanatory, I HATE effects like this in games.
Buffs in radial menu - No buff timers on the main UI, you have to go to the quick menu (I use a controller).
Gear Improvements Last Longer - Improving weapons and armour at a smith lasts for a full in game day (96 minutes).

There are UI mods for keyboard and mouse players that drastically changes the UI experience and give much more options to you.

[Beau Forest]

I highly suggest to use (just four) mods:
Immersive HUD
Increased LOD
Super Turbo Lightning Mod
HD Reworked Project

They all improve visuals. :)

[Dreadnoughtus]

There are a few quality of life mods that are absolutely vital IMO. Specifially ones that streamline the mechanical aspects of the game without breaking immersion. The game is long (I've spent 200 hours on it so far and haven't finished), and there WILL be things that'll start grinding your gears right away that you wished were fixed. Here's my personal list..

The vital mods (in no particular order) -

1. GAMEPAD PLUS - Insta-Signs Quicksave Menus and More

If you're playing with a controller this completely fixes every thing wrong with the vanilla controller layout, and IMO elevates the controller experience above mouse and keyboard by a long shot.

2. Minimap ZoomOut - when you're on a horse it'll zoom out a bit more. Really useful in helping you not miss nearby points of interest when you're on your way to a quest. Greatly reduces the need to pull up the main map every 30 seconds.

3. All Quest Objectives on Map - indicates all quests in your quest log as an "!" on the main map. Just scroll over the "!" and select it, and it'll become your active quest.

4. Action Log - makes the action log that pops up for .5 seconds on screen (making it completely useless) last a little longer, so you can actually read it before it vanishes. One of my favorite mods.

5. Jump in Shallow Water - in vanilla, if you're standing in a puddle you can't jump. Really wierd. This fixes that.

6. Better Than Icons - Changes icons for potions, oils, and decoctions in the inventory so they're immediately recongizable without looking at the item description. There are LOTS of potions/oils/decoctions in the game, and you'll be using them EVERY time you get into a battle, so it gets really old really quick trying to find the right ones.



Still vital (IMO), but slightly change the designers vision (if that bugs you)

7. Sprinting Tweaks - allows you to sprint indoors. Can only run otherwise.

8. Galloping in Cities - allows you sprint in cities while on horse

9. AutoLoot - when you activate a container everything goes into your inventory immediately. In Vanilla a menu opens and lets you select things one by one. There are A LOT of containers in this game, and 9 times out of 10 you'll want everything in them, so this is handy.

10. Fast Travel from anywhere - instead of just signposts. So nice.

11. Nonintrusive compass directions - adds a compass to your hud to help you keep your bearing. Minimap rotates with your camera so it's completely useless in that regard.



Some other miscellaneous mods I find improve the game:

Meditation UI Change
Colored Map Markers
Alternate Lightsources Interaction
Weather Enhanced
Relic Weapons Redone
No More Rolling Down Stairs
Enhanced Quen

People saying this game doesn't need mods are a bit delusional, I think. There's some cool stuff out there.

[Dreadnoughtus]

Forgot to mention, the difficulty is messed up in Vanilla. Starts really hard, than after about level 10 becomes really easy and stays that way for the remainder of the game. There are a few difficulty mods that attempt to improve this. I personally use Better Combat Enhanced Update. Makes Death March actually live up to being the hardest difficulty and tweaks a few things here and there.

[jss1138]

I think the overall game plays extremely well on it's own, but there are some "auto" behaviors that are really poor game design and make the experience very frustrating. You will have a better experience with these issues fixed.

1. Geralt will stop running when near an enemy and creep-walk. This makes running away from more powerful enemies difficult, if not impossible, before being killed by said enemy.

2. Geralt will face the nearest enemy, even if you want to turn him another way.

3. Geralt will often sheathe his sword, even though combat isn't fully over. The enemies are far enough away that you have time to take the sword back out again, but...we just shouldn't have to do that.

Thankfully, the last one can be fixed.

http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/319/?

Unfortunately, it's the only one of these frustrating game behaviors that can be fixed.

So my recommendation is to get that one, and play it through. Add any others on consecutive plays.

[Dreadnoughtus]

I mean, if the option is wading through ♥♥♥♥ to get to where I wanna go versus driving a car there, I'm always going to drive the car. Call it what you want.

[Ñ]

1) Absolute Camera (RGT Camera or whatever it called now) to be able to set camera as you like. Really usefull mod.

2) Any reshade or sweetfx mod you like. Even though it's very very imho, but game looks way too cartoonish and bright. Not really what i expected after witcher books. After about 10 minutes i gave up on vanilla colours and used various of reshade presets through the game before i configured one by myself.

3) And don't install any "fixes" for money, xp and that stuff. I myself used XP fix before i realised that i became OP af in the middle of the game. Low lvl quests just not meant to give you any xp, that's the balance of the game and it works just as it should be.

Have fun. :)

[Ñ]

Messaggio originale di Dreadnoughtus:

without breaking immersion.

Messaggio originale di Dreadnoughtus:

10. Fast Travel from anywhere - instead of just signposts. So nice.

No.

[Dreadnoughtus]

Messaggio originale di Ray76:

Messaggio originale di Dreadnoughtus:

without breaking immersion.

Messaggio originale di Dreadnoughtus:

10. Fast Travel from anywhere - instead of just signposts. So nice.

No.

Really? So teleporting between signposts doesn't break immersion for you, but teleporting from anywhere to a signpost does?

[Ñ]

I personally don't fast travel unless it's Skellige to Velen and vice-versa. To each his own. :P

There are many quests and places you may miss by not travelling by your feet. Even the places you visited before may have new quests.

What's the point of open world if you're just teleporting to some particular points on map instead of travelling?

[pixel_rice_bowl]

Thanks for all the information!

[Baron01]

Messaggio originale di Dreadnoughtus:

...
The vital mods (in no particular order) -

1. GAMEPAD PLUS - Insta-Signs Quicksave Menus and More

2. Minimap ZoomOut -

3. All Quest Objectives on Map -
...

No More Rolling Down Stairs

...

Wow, those 4 mods will address most of my gripes with the game.

I hope #1 allows me to select signs from quick menu just by selecting it and pressing RB (it irritates me so much to press "action" button to confirm my selection).

#3 is also my huge gripe with vanilla questing system. It happens so often you are in general area where you can do another quest but you fail to realize it because quest tracking system and marking on map is lacking to say the least.



I'm playing the game totally unmodded with no experience with mods in TW3.

Are there any differences on how to instal or use mods between Steam and GOG versions of the game? Where do you look for mods, is it Nexus?

[ΜΣ†ΛĿ]

Maybe some people don't want to add 100s of extra hours of playtime by walking everywhere, you do pleny of exploring by doing all the ?. The areas between locations are just empty, Maybe if the game offered hordes of monsters to slay along the way but it's just empty wilderness with nothing to do in it except walking thru it, what for it's just mind numbing boredom and waste of time....

[Baron01]

Messaggio originale di ṂΣ†ДḶ:

Maybe some people don't want to add 100s of extra hours of playtime by walking everywhere, you do pleny of exploring by doing all the ?. The areas between locations are just empty, Maybe if the game offered hordes of monsters to slay along the way but it's just empty wilderness with nothing to do in it except walking thru it, what for it's just mind numbing boredom and waste of time....

I disagree with this statement. World of Witcher 3 feels much more realistic as is. You can't have monsters every few meters because you will not be able to live there. The world is also well crafted in a way that it could almost exists in a real world. Traversing from one place to another on a horse is beautiful experience--you can use roads for fast travel or go to wilds and explore freely.
Witcher 3 is one of very few games that actually can be navigated without minimap at all. If you have good-enough computer you can set visibility to navigate to distant destination just from visual clues. You can follow mountain ridges or rivers, roads, etc.

I dislike the way end of world map is done but it is small issue in such a huge game such as Witcher 3.