First Playthrough dilemma

[ghitzabomba12]

First Playthrough dilemma

Hello Guys! I am a novice Witcher (barely survived the Trials ). Thing is, I have just bought this game and it already feels amazing! I love it. I haven't advanced too much in in, only about when I meet Zoltan the Dwarf for the first time (Talking about TW 1 here). Although I would love to continue, I have recently discovered the FCR mod for the game.

My question to you, dear experienced community, is whether it would be good or not for me to start again with that mod installed while I have not gone too deep into the storyline, or should I play the vanilla game for the first playthrough?

Thank you for your help, and happy hunting!

 

[GuyNwah]

I'd suggest sticking to the vanilla game at least through Act I (the Outskirts). You can add FCR when you no longer find the game challenging on Hard. But unless you're well into Act I, you have fought only one weak boss in the Prologue, and it's probably a little early to say that the game's not challenging enough for you.

 

[FoggyFishburne]

Hey there man! Welcome to the forums fellow Witcher! Glad you're enjoying the game so far

I'm gonna suggest you stick to vanilla like a boss. That's what I usually do. The first run of any game is always the clean one. The pure one. The one that the developers intended. I want to experience everything THEY wanted me to experience. They've crafted a game, toiled over it for months and months. It seems kinda silly to just ignore their vision. So yeah, go vanilla first. Ignore the mods. If you're interested in doing a second run, then install that mod and play the shit out of the game.

Much love and enjoy the forums. Just watch out for that guy. Yeah you know, HIM!

 

[ghitzabomba12]

I'd suggest sticking to the vanilla game at least through Act I (the Outskirts). You can add FCR when you no longer find the game challenging on Hard. But unless you're well into Act I, you have fought only one weak boss in the Prologue, and it's probably a little early to say that the game's not challenging enough for you.

I do play the game on hard, and so far it felt ok, but I have never really experienced a real battle with any monster so I don't know. It is way better than intermediate though, as I do have to endure some hits. I surely have rushed my conclusions, I will play the vanilla game first. FoggyFishbourne, you are totally right about that, never really thought of it this way. Thank you both for your replies! I will keep you posted about this if you'd like.

Oh, and one more thing. I seem to experience a crash when I save or, more precisely, when the game enters a loading screen. Not often, from time to time, probably every hour or so, but it's enough to bother me. Do you know any possibilities of fixing this CTD? The game just closes, no crash report, no error message, no nothing. If it would crash during the game it would be more OK, but it crashes also on saves and that might mean I will have to play a section all over again, which is not nice, especially when you want to advance into the story.

 

[Corylea.723]

Oh, and one more thing. I seem to experience a crash when I save or, more precisely, when the game enters a loading screen. Not often, from time to time, probably every hour or so, but it's enough to bother me. Do you know any possibilities of fixing this CTD? The game just closes, no crash report, no error message, no nothing. If it would crash during the game it would be more OK, but it crashes also on saves and that might mean I will have to play a section all over again, which is not nice, especially when you want to advance into the story.

Having autosave turned on makes the game unstable for some people, so you can try turning it off. And our great techies may have some other ideas for you. But the most important thing you can do is SAVE OFTEN. Really. If you aren't used to these kinds of games, you may not be aware of it, but you should save after every important battle, before and after every important conversation, just save really frequently. Every 10 minutes is not too often! And since Witcher saved games sometimes become glitched for no apparent reason, don't save over top of your old saved games; make a new save.

The game will load more slowly once your saves folder becomes bloated, but you can move saved games that you aren't currently using out of there and into another folder for safekeeping until you finish the game.

Since the game is especially likely to crash when entering a new area, save before you go to a new area. Experienced RPG players save obsessively.

 

[ghitzabomba12]

Alright, I have played RPG's and I usually forget to save though I always bear in mind that I need to save. I will try turning off the autosave though I haven't noticed the game had one Nevertheless, I am greatly moved by this nice community I never thought could have existed. I'd like to be a part of it and help as much as I can.

 

[tommy5761]

Alright, I have played RPG's and I usually forget to save though I always bear in mind that I need to save. I will try turning off the autosave though I haven't noticed the game had one /> Nevertheless, I am greatly moved by this nice community I never thought could have existed. I'd like to be a part of it and help as much as I can.

New witchers are always welcome
There are two ways to save if autosave is disabled. F5 (quicksave) or hit Esc sand save then click on am empty area and save again (manual save). I do probably 3 to 4 manual saves per act. Do note that quicksaves do not overwrite one another but instead will make a new save each time . At roughly 15-20 MB per save it doesn`t take long to accumulate a massive save directory of about 1 GB per act. So I encourage you to periodically clean them out from time to time.

 

[ghitzabomba12]

I will eventually get used to saving a lot. One more question though, I would like to increase item stack sizes. I have read that I have to extract the .bif files and modify some of the .2da files inside them, and for that I downloaded the unBIF tool by Csimbi. I select the main.key file, which governates the baseitems.2da and I choose to extract that file. But no matter where I chose to extract it, and yet no matter the .bif file I want to extract, nothing happens. I have this issue in every RPG game where I don't know much, I just collect everything and I usually keep it until I can figure out what is worth keeping and what is not. I am ok with the actual sizes, but since I like to explore a lot and gather tons of stuff I'd like some more space at least until I can figure it out myself.
Do you have any idea on what could be going wrong about this?

 

[tommy5761]

Cory is the best one to explain about unbiffing . If the items you`re referring to are books, rings, and those kinds of items then you`re out of luck on that front. There are mods however that will increase the stacking on your ingredients though. Books once read can be sold to vendors. There are several vendors in each act and they have routines so you won`t be able to find them 24/7. One thing not to collect is water , absolutely no one will buy them. Also all vendors will not purchase just anything. The items they will buy will be highlighted.

 

[Corylea.723]

One more question though, I would like to increase item stack sizes. I have read that I have to extract the .bif files and modify some of the .2da files inside them, and for that I downloaded the unBIF tool by Csimbi. I select the main.key file, which governates the baseitems.2da and I choose to extract that file. But no matter where I chose to extract it, and yet no matter the .bif file I want to extract, nothing happens. I have this issue in every RPG game where I don't know much, I just collect everything and I usually keep it until I can figure out what is worth keeping and what is not. I am ok with the actual sizes, but since I like to explore a lot and gather tons of stuff I'd like some more space at least until I can figure it out myself.
Do you have any idea on what could be going wrong about this?

I could go through how to use UnBiff, or I could just give you the already-modded baseitems.2da that I've been using for years; you should find it attached here.

If you're worried about storage, you might want to check out J_Slash's wonderful Stuff That Makes Geralt's Life Easier mod, usually referred to as the "Stuff" mod.

 

[ghitzabomba12]

Thank you very much for the file! And thank you for telling me about the mod, though I found it right before I read your message, it's very good. The file works fine, I modified the amounts as 999 seems a little bit to much Thank you for your help!