after you finish on normal...

[kelticpete]

after you finish on normal...

I just finished on normal.

I knew you could start game with a witcher 1 save, which I played but don't have savefile for,

but I thought that if you finished it on normal you could load that save and start out with some sort of bump up either in level or whatever.

I am thinking about doing a dark play.

I know the levels are easy, normal, hard, dark, and insane....what are the actual mathematical differences in them all? does anyone know?

 

[GuyNwah]

No such provision. I believe there was originally a requirement that you had to finish a game on Hard to unlock Insane. I don't know whether that still obtains. But finishing a game on Normal just gives you a personal sense of accomplishment and does not change the conditions of subsequent games.

The differences are not merely quantitative. The AI gets smarter as you go up the scale.

 

[kelticpete]

guy noir from garrison k?

good to know about the AI.

I did not find act 2 or act 3 very hard on normal. but act 1 was a PAIN. I don't think I could face dmitri, letho, or the respawning wraiths on dark and succeed. hmm.

if you DO load a witcher 1 save, do you have what you had at end of game? I may buy it again. it is only 10 bucks on steam now.

 

[dragonbird]

guy noir from garrison k?

good to know about the AI.

I did not find act 2 or act 3 very hard on normal. but act 1 was a PAIN. I don't think I could face dmitri, letho, or the respawning wraiths on dark and succeed. hmm.

if you DO load a witcher 1 save, do you have what you had at end of game? I may buy it again. it is only 10 bucks on steam now.

Yes, your weapons and armor come across, but they're not the same stats. The Witcher wiki gives details.
http://witcher.wikia.com/wiki/Portal:The_Witcher_2

 

[GuyNwah]

guy noir from garrison k?

By way of Morrowind, where everybody seemed to know his name Yeah, you have to be very careful (or overwhelmingly aggressive) with wraiths in Act I on Dark; they can one-hit you.

 

[kelticpete]

Wow. That settles it. No way I am playIng on dark.

 

[phamvan94]

Wow. That settles it. No way I am playIng on dark.

Come on, at least give it a try Its fun.

 

[Sandis]

How simple is that, to get best experience from TW2 you HAVE to play insane difficult and that it!!!...

 

[kelticpete]

the hardest battles for me on normal: dmitri, kayran, letho, wraiths. how quick can I get the dark armor thing going on? i mean, if on normal I have armor of 10 and the bad guy hits for 20, what if he hits for 30 on dark but my new armor is only 15?

I wish I could actual stat changes for the various levels. are those anywhere?


is dark harder than hard? I assume it is...

 

[DelighfulMcCoy]

if you DO load a witcher 1 save, do you have what you had at end of game? I may buy it again. it is only 10 bucks on steam now.

And even without the crazy DRM on Gog.

And here are TW-savegames of all flavors to download, if you don't want to replay it before your next TW2 run.

 

[GuyNwah]

Wow. That settles it. No way I am playIng on dark.

But where's the fun in that?

Seriously, if you stay on Normal for your first one or three or several playthroughs, that's fine. But do try Hard, Dark, or Insane once you have some confidence with the game. It does play very differently.

 

[nmargot]

Guy N'wah said: But do try Hard, Dark, or Insane once you have some confidence with the game. It does play very differently.


Thereby creating yet another dimension to this multi-layered, multi-faceted game!

 

[kelticpete]

I decided to try dark. when on normal, I died like 4 times in the ballista fight. I am much much better at dodge now, at using quen, at avoiding getting backstabbed.

I have died like 10 times. 1 hit by 1 knight, all quen gone. they do seem to fight smarter, but that may just be me watching them better.

a small part of me wants to keep trying, I would like to try the dark item stuff!

but the part of me that EFFING hates reloads, and dislikes dying over and over, says screw it.

and the reloads taking so long makes it worse. the fact that this is not even a boss makes me think I am out of my ken.


the last time I died, I had just killed baddie, and had almost no health. IF I had noticed I had vigor again (I did) then I might have lasted longer....I still had BOTH armored guys to kill.

gonna try one more reload...

Edit: I not only got past the ballista on dark, I have almost finished prologue!

 

[ryan_steelheart]

It's just like any other play through (although enemies do get tougher)... Difficult at first but once you get the new dark sets, (I'm currently on Chapter 2 and I have a complete dark set for that chapter) you get to kill enemies easier and faster because the bonus stats these sets give you are ridiculous!!!

Dark mode is there for you to try, finishing normal should have already given you a good grasp on the mechanics of the game... Have fun and enjoy Dark mode!

 

[steelbom]

It's a lot more fun in Dark Mode in my opinion, this is my second play through on dark, and I find it quite easy although still easier than the first play through. I'd recommend playing some Arena on Dark Mode to sharpen your Dodge/Parry/Roll/Quen skills, etc.

 

[kelticpete]

dark in chapter 1 is pretty hard for me. I got gacked by nekkers with the malena quest, and I sliced them like butter in normal. on normal I would just quen up and wade in.

I am trying to figure out the least deadly stuff to do before i get better armor. sigh. if only I could convince the wife that witcher 1 was a steal at 10 bucks I would play that for awhile.

 

[GuyNwah]

Yeah, on Dark, just wading into a crowd will get your arse handed to you, and base-level Quen is not much help anymore. The cave nekkers on the "Malena" and "Ostmurk" quests are good practice, though.

You have to be more patient and pay more attention to defense. Let them come to you. Lay down defensive lines of Snares. If they form a crowd, throw a bomb into it. (Dancing Star is brilliant against nekkers.) If they surround you, get away.

 

[kelticpete]

1) I am positive there are more nekker warriors on dark than normal.
2) I don't have quen 2 yet. quen is sucking for me with these guys.
3) when a nekker warrior jumps back when I am targeted, and I swing again, it pulls me towards him meaning others surround me.
4) this F#$KI%G sucks. the only reason I am playing dark is that I LOVE LOVE LOVE armor sets. gotta have them.

I read that the sets are expensive as a las vegas whore to buy, and so you end up farming. that annoys.



my number one problem with the witcher...combat is more complicated than most RPGs. I don't play FPS. I don't play action games. I heard all these people bitching about how hard the game was on normal. I was one of them. I literally ripped the power strip out of the wall once during letho I was so tired of dying.

but I beat it on normal, and I killed that bastard letho in the end. So I think I have earned the right to say that the game is too hard on normal. because it is hard on normal. WAY WAY WAY harder than witcher 1. ACT 1 was the hardest on normal.


I hate parrying/blocking (it uses VIGOR!) I got used to the level of tactics needed for normal. it was more tactical that I wanted, but I DID IT. I really love armor sets so I have been trying dark. not enjoying it! not at all. I effing powered through the prologue and though I was GLAD I beat it....I was not having fun. I wish I could get a less powerful set of dark armor on hard or normal. and seriously, no back story for all that armor. that sucks.

that could have been a bad a## quest line/backstory.

GRRR. arggh!



edit: I ran in, to cave, killed one warrior, hit quen, ran into a corner, and threw 6 dancing stars into the now huge crowd surrounding me. killed 10 out of 14.

wiped up the rest. sigh.

 

[dragonbird]

Dancing Star is a wonderful, wonderful bomb.

There's a background story in your journal on the DM items, by the way. Not much, but it explains them. I don't know if you noticed - I missed it at first.

 

[GuyNwah]

1) I am positive there are more nekker warriors on dark than normal.
2) I don't have quen 2 yet. quen is sucking for me with these guys.
3) when a nekker warrior jumps back when I am targeted, and I swing again, it pulls me towards him meaning others surround me.

...my number one problem with the witcher...combat is more complicated than most RPGs. I don't play FPS. I don't play action games. I heard all these people bitching about how hard the game was on normal. I was one of them. I literally ripped the power strip out of the wall once during letho I was so tired of dying.

Combat in this game is, well, unusual, but I mean that in a good way. It is fast-paced but demands patience. This is especially true on harder levels, where you cannot simply charge in and overcome by hitting first and hardest. You have to think of your safety at all times -- even when mopping up a mob of nekkers, one you didn't see might get in behind you. And unless you've taken talents in Position, the one you didn't see will kill you.

This adds a frightening degree of immersion to the game. At moments, it rivals the sheer terror of playing Bloodmoon as a werewolf.