What difficulty should I play on?

[uncleseano]

I hear lots of things about difficulty. Some say it was made harder after a Christmas update, some say it's still easy, some say the hardest setting makes the puzzle insanely hard.

1. Anywhos what would the recommend? I played Gwent in W3 and mastered it (well spys & decoys FTW) so how does it fare here?

2. Does the hardest difficulty make the puzzle stupidly hard? 3. Is there a jump from normal to the highest? 4. Does the end of the game get too hard on the highest difficulty etc?

Lots of questions there. Thanks

[CursedPanther]

It's quite alright for a card game, and you've played Witcher 3 before so you more or less know what to expect.

This is essentially Gwent 2.0 which the devs have invented a few new rules you'll need to learn and understand. Apart from the classic best-of-three mode, the devs have designed a series of unique puzzles along the way of your adventure. Most of these puzzles have a specific solution and all of them are already solved by people and have the answers uploaded to Youtube in case you're stuck.

The thing about difficulty is that becuz this game also happens to be an RPG-lite with choices and consequences, it will definitely affect your deck building throughout the game. One thing for sure, the fool-proof strategy of spy spam + decoy swap of the Northern Realms/Nilfgaard decks in Gwent 1.0 does not work here.

[uncleseano]

Nice write up thanks. So even if the puzzles are affected by difficulty (are they?) I can still YouTube it if I get stuck.

What about generally difficulty though. Is the highest one more of a New Game + where you min/max your deck/choices to have the best possible outcome always or can you enjoy it on a first playthrough?

[CursedPanther]

The difficulty setting primarily adjust your cards' power level IIRC. The higher the setting the lower power your card will start out on. I forgot whether it also affected your in-game resource income or not. I played on the 'medium' setting, enough of a challenge overall but wouldn't turn the game into a complete anger management session. The puzzles are unique scenarios not affected by difficulty.

Referring to the game being an RPG-lite once again, it isn't as easy to discuss the perfect build like it is in Gwent 1.0. A lot of variations can happen along the journey as you may or may not run into certain card types. New cards must be 'crafted' with in-game resources so you can't actually spam the ones you own either. Worth mentioning that there is only one save slot per playthrough, thus unless you manually backup the save file every time you do something which will be extremely tedious(and kinda breaks the purpose), your choices will be permanent for the rest of the game

[uncleseano]

Alright. I think I'll just leave it on medium and enjoy it without min/maxing on hard. Means I can make mistakes and eff around.

Thanks for the write up

[Encomium]

The game is stupidly easy, even on the highest difficulty.

[Hasefrexx]

Yes, the game is easy enough. PLayed it blind on hard roleplaying,... and it was relatively easy. I barely lost a handful times, even without recruiting the best combos on purpose.

The puzzles are a bit hit and miss, some are really tough, some are trivial. I personally enjoyed them more than regular battles which are too easy and repetitive. From the top of my head puzzles should be all optional anyway, though you probably want to get them done as they will often unlock new cards for your deck.

[Lokiator]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Hasefrexx:

From the top of my head puzzles should be all optional anyway, though you probably want to get them done as they will often unlock new cards for your deck.

More importantly, the puzzles are often just tutorials in disguise. The solutions often involve learning new strategies and card synergies that will prove useful in story related battles.