do choices really matter in TW3? [Spoilers]

[kJustK]

No the consequences of your decisions in this game are very minor and have no real appreciable effect on your playthrough. For example, Kiera not being at Kaer Morhen makes the Battle of Kaer Morhen no less easy than it already is. Sure she saves Lambert but since Lambert and Kiera are both written out after the battle, it doesn't make the slightest difference in the long run. In short, most of the 'decisions' in the game are purely cosmetic.

ya thts d kinda of thing i'm talking about; it feels like tokenism
another real bad experience i had yesterday was when i went to rescue Margarita and saw Sile
that was bad, why have me save Sile in TW2 if she was gonna b here for just 1 dialogue?

i definitely didn't mind saving her in TW2 but if you include that as one of d choices to carry over to TW3 then that choice has been made a joke of here
very lazy writing - or perhaps they cut her out as the game was already too big?

but even in that case, i would have loved if they had e.g. included Keira instead of Sile in TW2 and only those who saved her in TW2 should have got her quests
as it stands here, both Sile and Keira seem to b inconsequential in d scheme of things
Sile/Keira should have been present at least till they speak of the lodge with Ciri

---------- Updated at 02:29 PM ----------

Yeah the choices matter. But mostly not that much or the way I hoped.
Your choices don't influence the story much.
...

The battle of Kaer Morhen is a good example I think. You can bring a lot of characters to help you. For some you have to do their quests before. But in the end the only Keira makes a difference (and you can always save Lambert by yourself)

And for your question about not killing Radovid. The Consequence is another ending screen.

thts d kinda thing that upset me; the choices seemed pretty cursory, and even with widely different playing styles my friend and I are both staring at d same screens
for something which CDPR invested so many years in, and we waited at least a couple years for, it seems insufficient and leaves a void in what is undoubtedly one of d best games in almost every other sense

and this is where Assassins of Kings really rocked - in making you believe your decisions swayed things and really and truly saved the ones you love!

in TW3 one starts to get a feeling that things will sort themselves out without your real participation
(of course things can go very bad with Ciri/Triss/Yen but of course that's a real important set of decisions)

 

[Lytha]

It is of course only another dialogue outcome of a decision - but when I spoke with Lambert after the Battle of Kaer Morhen (without Keira), I was shocked by his tone of voice. Sure, we do not get to see how Lambert is going to fare; but I had the distinct impression that he would not live much longer without the bonding with Keira.

Just a dialogue line of course, and just for the player's imagination.

 

[saladin1701]

ya thts d kinda of thing i'm talking about; it feels like tokenism
another real bad experience i had yesterday was when i went to rescue Margarita and saw Sile
that was bad, why have me save Sile in TW2 if she was gonna b here for just 1 dialogue?

i definitely didn't mind saving her in TW2 but if you include that as one of d choices to carry over to TW3 then that choice has been made a joke of here
very lazy writing - or perhaps they cut her out as the game was already too big?

but even in that case, i would have loved if they had e.g. included Keira instead of Sile in TW2 and only those who saved her in TW2 should have got her quests
as it stands here, both Sile and Keira seem to b inconsequential in d scheme of things
Sile/Keira should have been present at least till they speak of the lodge with Ciri

That is a very large bone of contention within the community. If you haven't already, I suggest you check out the following two threads:

http://forums.cdprojektred.com/thre...a-bad-hot-mess-major-spoilers!!!?goto=newpost

http://forums.cdprojektred.com/thre...cher-2-decisions-and-content-in-The-Witcher-3

The discontent has been raging for months.

 

[Krull32]

In short, most of the 'decisions' in the game are purely cosmetic.

Sadly , yes.

 

[cyberpunkforever]

yes, you can change the outcome of most of the main quests, and those are very different outcoms from each other and a lot of the side quests can also be influenced by your dialog options you choose, or who you choose to believe, and if you do only your witcher contract and kill the monster ad take the reward or if you go on further investigaton and find out the truth, the vhoice is yours always, it is also important how the quest is designed, if there is to e more than one outcome/ending,

 

[sv3672]

Regarding Radovid's fate, there are actually some community dialogues (between generic NPCs) depending on whether he is dead. It may be unused content, though.

These are for the case when Radovid is alive:

Spoiler

Eternal Fire Priest 02: Blessed be our good King Radovid!
Chorus Novigrad: Eternal Fire protect and keep him!
Eternal Fire Priest 02: Blessed be his legions of men!
Chorus Novigrad: Eternal Fire protect and keep them!

Eternal Fire Priest 02: Holy Flame, Sacred, Immortal! You gave us strength to drive the foe from our gates!
Chorus Novigrad: Thanks be to the Eternal Fire!
Eternal Fire Priest 02: Holy Flame, Sacred, Immortal! You gave us strength to drive the foe far south!
Chorus Novigrad: Thanks be to the Eternal Fire!


Novigrad Drunk 11: To the king!
Novigrad Drunk 13: To King Radovid, the Red Flame Dancin' on the Graves of Nilfgaard!
Novigrad Drunk 11: And on the pyres of witches!
Novigrad Drunk 13: Fool's talk, that! He'd burn his feet if he danced on pyres.
Novigrad Drunk 11: No flames can 'arm our gracious king! His heart's tempered in th' Eternal Fire!


Redanian Soldier 01: So? You interested? They're givin' away parcels near Cleves, Maribor, Carreras, even…
Redanian Soldier 01: Soil's deep dark there, fertile… I'm ready, ready to hang my sword over the mantle, take to workin' the land.
Redanian Soldier 04: What of the Temerians who live there?
Redanian Soldier 01: What of them? They'll have to resettle elsewhere. Folk of Temeria've got a debt to pay - we brought them fraternal assistance.


Redanian Soldier 02: You might let up on the young ones. War's over. No reason to work them hard.
Redanian Soldier 03: Don't teach your gran to suck eggs. Can't know what the king'll decide.
Redanian Soldier 03: We drove the Black Ones south of the Yaruga. What next? Will we drive them south of the Alba?
Redanian Soldier 03: My lads'll be ready, whatever comes.


Redanian Soldier 01: These whores communed with the Black Ones!
Redanian Soldier 01: Brought shame, dishonor on us all!
Redanian Soldier 01: They let Nilfgaard plough them, ploughed Nilfgaard back…
Redanian Soldier 01: So we bring them to you ploughed anew, their heads shorn!
Redanian Soldier 01: Let it be known they're not decent women, but Nilfgaard's whores!

And these when he is dead:

Spoiler

Verden Boy 01: King Radovid upon his throne, fought the Black Ones all alone.
Verden Boy 01: Six feet under now he sleeps, dreams of naked witches' teets.
Verden Boy 01: Dreams of naked witches' teets!


Redanian Soldier 02: Why the despair, mate?! War's over, we're finally goin' home!
Redanian Soldier 03: I've nothin' to go back to.
Redanian Soldier 03: Enlisted right off the street…
Redanian Soldier 03: I'd been sleepin' beneath bridges, beggin' to eat.
Redanian Soldier 03: The army's my hearth, my home. In Novigrad, I'll land in the gutter again.


Novigrad Rich Man 01: Radovid was mad, true. But to have a Novigrad bandit as our ruler…?
Novigrad Rich Man 03: He'll continue robbing us. It will just be the law now!
Redanian Officer 01: Wrong, gentlemen merchants, wrong. Dijkstra's a whoreson, that's clear, but a decent and orderly whoreson.
Redanian Officer 01: Never been known to serve himself, never stolen even half a crown from the state coffers.
Redanian Officer 01: Not half a crown.

 

[Lytha]

I've just checked the church. Nothing, No skeletons. Could you post a picture please?

Just arrived at that point and just got the dagger again and went ahead to do what I do everywhere (take everything that's not nailed to the floor). I still do not know how to take screenshots in the Gog version of the game, so no pictures.

In the church's tapestry room, there is a bunch of random junk containers and sacks and a hatch down into the basement. Hop down there and look around with your witcher senses.

There are 7 small humanoid skeletons in the basement glowing if looking around with witcher senses (before stealing their florens, that is). Left of the altar where later the dolls can be found. One pile of 3, another pile of 4 skeletons.

That's not the kids who we interact with. Evidence against that:

- uhm well, the kids are upstairs and are playing.
- the number of tiny skeletons does not match the number of kids (kids: 3 girls, 2 boys, (1 Johnny));
- the skeletons have florens so they're probably older than those kids, or from Nilfgard or something.
- I find 8 florens in the pile of 4, and 6 in the pile of 3; at a florens:crowns exchange rate of 1:3, they're totally too filthy rich for peasant orphan louts, too (let's keep in mind how auntie of the girl in Beast of Honorton got all excited about "WOW, SO MUCH MONEY" when we give her just 40 crowns, or that the elf woman who was almost burned down with her hut thought that 20 crowns was "too much money to have these days".
- it is hard to tell the size, what with the skeletons being partially torn apart and lying on the ground, but I think they're the same model as normal skeletons lying around in the landscape, and I always presumed that these are just normal peasant / soldier remains. Maybe of kids, too, but not only children bones everywhere. Even if they should be smaller than bones from a human adult, they could be dwarf or halfling bones as well.
- there's yet another skeleton without florens, so the numbers are even more off
- they have, aside from the "meat of questionable origin" on hooks, a relatively fresh corpse lying next to the pile of 4 skeletons. That is an adult. Looks like the ones we can find for instance near the bandit camp north of marker Road to Bald Mountain, at the beach.




... ugh, that was icky to look so closely at this stuff.


I took a save from just before hopping down the hatch. I do not think it's necessary, but if anyone wants it and tells me where to upload it, I might do that. Unless I accidentally overwrite it now.

 

[kJustK]

That is a very large bone of contention within the community. If you haven't already, I suggest you check out the following two threads:

http://forums.cdprojektred.com/thre...a-bad-hot-mess-major-spoilers!!!?goto=newpost

http://forums.cdprojektred.com/thre...cher-2-decisions-and-content-in-The-Witcher-3

The discontent has been raging for months.

thanks, i did read through that and similar posts and in particular liked @Scholdarr.452's elaborate analysis in this (http://forums.cdprojektred.com/thre...-of-the-game-is-a-bad-hot-mess-major-spoilers!!!) and related threads

thankfully my friend is out of town now and i had the opportunity to finish my game in peace and at my own pace - first things first,
- loved my ending (the good one where Ciri becomes a witcher)
- despite appearances, my friend did get some different outcomes

having said that, i'm not too keen to do a playthrough; the only strong reasons for me to play the game again are as follows, in more or less the same order:
1) i did not do the Radovid/Emhyr quests and it sucks that Radovid rules the North
2) as some of you might know, i ran all the way from Velen to Novigrad just to meet Triss.
this time i would like to spend some time with Yen and try to understand her POV
3) would like to check what kind of king Svanrige would make
4) want to save the tree spirit

do add any more pressing reasons you think i might have missed

but all in all, though i liked the game and my ending made sense with my actions, i still feel my choices were not as well-handled as in TW2
and there weren't enough choices at the intermediate level where they would matter to my Geralt; as @Scholdarr.452 put it, the "sense of agency" is skewed, i wouldn't say it's missing

and finally, wishful thinking but, it would b really great if CDPR could come up with an Enhanced Edition or something where my TW2 choices would make sense
e.g. since I went along the Iorveth->Triss path, it would b great if my game began with Triss accompanying Geralt instead of Vesemir

EDIT:
Triss accompanying Geralt in her TW2 travelling clothes
she looked awesome in those!

 

[sv3672]

but even in that case, i would have loved if they had e.g. included Keira instead of Sile in TW2 and only those who saved her in TW2 should have got her quests

As far as I know, both were planned to appear at the final battle with Eredin, but were cut during the development of the game. If you talk to Keira during Acr 3 or after the ending (she is in the "unreachable" area where Vesemir's funeral is after the battle, these pictures show how to get there), she has some previously unavailable dialogue about Lambert - I guess it would originally have been on the boat in Battle Preparations.

 

[saladin1701]

thanks, i did read through that and similar posts and in particular liked @Scholdarr.452's elaborate analysis in this (http://forums.cdprojektred.com/thre...-of-the-game-is-a-bad-hot-mess-major-spoilers!!!) and related threads

thankfully my friend is out of town now and i had the opportunity to finish my game in peace and at my own pace - first things first,
- loved my ending (the good one where Ciri becomes a witcher)
- despite appearances, my friend did get some different outcomes

having said that, i'm not too keen to do a playthrough; the only strong reasons for me to play the game again are as follows, in more or less the same order:
1) i did not do the Radovid/Emhyr quests and it sucks that Radovid rules the North
2) as some of you might know, i ran all the way from Velen to Novigrad just to meet Triss.
this time i would like to spend some time with Yen and try to understand her POV
3) would like to check what kind of king Svanrige would make
4) want to save the tree spirit

do add any more pressing reasons you think i might have missed

but all in all, though i liked the game and my ending made sense with my actions, i still feel my choices were not as well-handled as in TW2
and there weren't enough choices at the intermediate level where they would matter to my Geralt; as @Scholdarr.452 put it, the "sense of agency" is skewed, i wouldn't say it's missing

and finally, wishful thinking but, it would b really great if CDPR could come up with an Enhanced Edition or something where my TW2 choices would make sense
e.g. since I went along the Iorveth->Triss path, it would b great if my game began with Triss accompanying Geralt instead of Vesemir

EDIT:
Triss accompanying Geralt in her TW2 travelling clothes
she looked awesome in those!

I doubt very much they'll put a save import in but there are rumours (PC Gamer) of an 'Enhanced Edition' (using that as a generalised term, not a name) that bundles in all the DLC and both expansions. If that ever comes to pass then we hopefully will see some changes but we should be realistic and realise that not everything that's wrong with the game is going to be fixed.

As for another playthrough, you list your own reasons to try it in your own post

 

[sv3672]

I doubt very much they'll put a save import in but there are rumours (PC Gamer) of an 'Enhanced Edition' (using that as a generalised term, not a name) that bundles in all the DLC and both expansions.

That sounds interesting, is there a link to that article ? So far, the only recent one I found on PC Gamer is where the 5th February "EE" was denied by CDPR. Anyway, I agree that they would probably not put much effort into improving the save import, maybe some additional information in the journal and tweaked dialogues, but no substantial new content.

 

[saladin1701]

That sounds interesting, is there a link to that article ? So far, the only recent one I found on PC Gamer is where the 5th February "EE" was denied by CDPR. Anyway, I agree that they would probably not put much effort into improving the save import, maybe some additional information in the journal and tweaked dialogues, but no substantial new content.

It's in 'The Spy' section of the UK magazine which deals with industry rumours. I took a quick look at their website but it doesn't appear it has an online version of that segment. Here's what it says. The context is in relation to the pulled Enhanced Edition from Amazon France:

Despite the inaccuracies, Bruza [CDPR Pawel Bruza] didn't discount the possibility of an Enhanced Edition in the future. Likely it would come in the form of apackage bundling The Witcher 3's two expansions. If The Witcher 2 Enhanced Edition is anything to go by, there may be some extras too.

Like I said, it's just a rumour. No idea on the accuracy.

 

[agitatedzone]

Well this post reminds me of something recent. . .

 

[Guest 3847602]

Well this post reminds me of something recent. . .

Here's another deja vu:
https://forums.cdprojektred.com/ind...ve-been-about-geralt-not-ciri-spoilers.46894/

 

[ZmijaKilerson]

i think no