Equipment scaling is bothering me a bit.

+
Equipment scaling is bothering me a bit.

I'm enjoying playing the Witcher 3, and apart from a few minor graphical glitches have had no serious bugs affecting gameplay.

I do however have a difficulty with the equipment balancing. (Not that between Geralt and the world at level appropriate quests ~ that seems to be working more or less as intended, but rather that between level 14 'just some random bandits' and level 4 'regular army units'... or Geralt's starting gear which is described as "superior" quality in several dialogues by virtue of being "witcher blades".

I'm throwing away (or selling for about the price of 2 apples) swords, hatchets and maces that are 4 times as good as my starting equipment... and the stuff I'm keeping is at least 5 times as good with bonuses. Where is the feeling of the difference between a drilled, efficient regular army and the dregs of a shattered one, those disaffected opportunists? Or the comment actually made in game by Geralt, that it isn't about the steel, but the man who weilds it?
In this game it is *all* about the steel. (Ok... hyperbole. Not all about the steel... but an order of magnitude difference in numbers is the lions share of the damage increase/protection from damage.)

I can't help thinking that the difference between equipment between regular soldiers and bandits should be more about the condition and completeness of their equipment rather than it's intrinsic quality... and that the difference between a level 14 warrior and a level 4 one should be almost all about 'skill' not the piece of metal...

While this can be argued to "work", and work reasonably well in a linear game such as W1 and W2, I frequently find myself noticing this issue when moving around the W3's map. To my mind it is screaming out for a re-work along the lines of FCR1 and FCR2...to bring the emphasis back to story and character (and some significant, but relatively small) improvements in equipment beyond the 'norm'. (I also thought these mods improved the first games noticeably, and Witcher 3 so far seems to "work" better in vanilla game, but the structure more obviously doesn't make sense to me because of the "random access" nature of gameplay progression, which emphasises the differences, much more frequently).
 
the difference between a level 14 warrior and a level 4 one should be almost all about 'skill' not the piece of metal
The difference between a level 4 bandit and a level 14 bandit is essentially nothing other than their damage and defensive stats - you're right. All of the generic bandits regardless of their level have the same move set. However, there are some enemy NPC humans in the game that have unique move sets apart from the generic bandits. Enemies like commanders, mini-bosses, and group leaders, will often have slightly varied move sets (ex: the Witch Hunters). What you're saying is still true though; even though a Witch hunter may have a move set that's different than a bandit, the difference between a level 4 Witch hunter and level 14 Witch hunter is still nothing, in terms of skill. I totally agree - there should be more variance in the human NPC combat. I think it's safe to say that humans are the most boring characters in the game to fight. I'd much rather face off against a group of Nekkers or a Leshen. Regardless, it would be nice to see some improvement in the human combat abilities.
 
Not talking about "movesets" as such. No real complaint there either... but more that the damage difference (both attack and defense) between a level 1 and level 30 human should be almost entirely due to the character, whether 'faster moves' or 'higher crit %' or 'stronger attacks'. It shouldn't IMO be about the piece of metal (to the degree it is).

Your "superb" Witcher's steel sword does 22-26 damage... this is compared to "junk" that is dropped from level 7-14 bandits at 80-120...

I do also object a little to the steepness of the damage scaling, both for player and NPC characters. It means the level 3 Griffon from the prologue is arguably less dangerous than a level 14 bandit (if met with identical skill set and equipment, and apart from the "flying attack", which has both advantages and additional vulnerabilities).
 
Top Bottom