Hardcore Mode
Note: I will no longer be updating this thread or replying to posts for a variety of reasons.
I am posting this as a new thread since it spans several of the pinned topics above, and hence it seems appropriate to make an independent thread.
I am aware that there already are several mods which attempts to change the difficulty of the game, but every mod I have tried so far fails miserably at accomplishing this. Meanwhile making certain parts more difficult, these mods also make the game easier by allowing you to have several abilities like whirl, rend and alternate signs from the start, meaning that you can use several other abilities to further increase your power. The bottom line is that these mods make the game easier, not more difficult.
Note that I realize that CDPR probably won't implement something like this so late in development. I am posting here anyways because if CDPR don't do it, then perhaps someone will create a mod which makes these changes, I might even do it when the time is right.
One of the biggest complaints I have with The Witcher 3 is that it isn't difficult enough. I have spent several hundreds of hours playing the game at this point and I have spent a lot of that time considering why the game isn't challenging enough and I have come up with a few conclusions. Upon making appropriate changes to these aspects of the game; difficulty would increase and become challenging even for those who have mastered the mechanics of the game.
Some of the main issues with the difficulty include crowd control effects which last for too long, the ability to refill your potions at any moment and overpowered witcher gear.
Why a hardcore mode, why not just implement these changes to the game? Because a lot of people prefer to experience the game in a simpler manner, allowing the player to choose their level of difficulty is more desirable since each player will get what they are looking for.
Regardless of how you do a difficulty mode like this there will be someone who complains about some feature. It is thus desirable to have an in game options menu which allow you to turn certain features on and off.
Here follows a few ideas which could be implemented in a possible hardcore mode.
Signs:
Igni:
Crowd controls are one of the most powerful things in the game and they reduce the difficulty of it severely. One of the biggest problems is Igni and its burning effect, with high enough stamina regeneration and sign intensity you can simply walk around in a circle and apply burning over and over until your enemy has been killed.
In the above video the absurdity of Igni is demonnstrated, the build is not focused on sign intensity, it is a hybrid build which has a piece of everything. With a fully sign intensity focused build the power goes far beyond what is seen here.
Solution: Remove the burning effect applied by Igni completely, this would essentially make Igni work the way it did in The Witcher 2 (which I found much more enjoyable), there should perhaps be a slight buff to the damage of scaling to compensate a little bit for the damage lost by burning, but not by much. Note that because of this burning effect the alternate Igni, firestream, is completely useless. Implementing these changes to Igni would make firestream useful again.
Aard:
Being able to send enemies to the ground with Aard needs to be a lot more difficult, Aard should be a short stun which allows you to get a strong attack in, similar to how it worked in The Witcher 2.
Yrden:
Some complain about the nerf to Yrden as if it was a bad thing, but it was in fact completely necessary. The bottom line is that Yrden is still too powerful because of the Entanglement enchantment introduced in HoS.
Solution: The alternate Yrden sign needs to have its turret frequency reduced, meaning that traps will not be created as frequently, and thus reducing the crowd control effect of the sign, without completely removing it.
Quen:
Quen in The Witcher 2 was in some ways more balanced because having it active reduced stamina regeneration to zero. This made you think twice before applying it since you couldn't use your other signs meanwhile having it up.
Solution: Reduce stamina regeneration when Quen is active, perhaps not to zero, but reduce it severely so that there is a trade off to keeping it up all the time.
Sign progression:
Currently the signs progress, or develop, as you advance in character development by adding to the chance of burning for Igni as well as the damage Igni applies, Aard increases the time and chance for the knockdown effect and Yrden gets an increase in slowdown effect.
Yrden is fine the way it is now, given the the turret frequency gets a decrease.
Quen does not need to be altered as it simply increases the damage shield as sign intensity increases.
If the burning effect of Igni is removed completely, and applied only to the alternate version of Igni the way it is now. Then Igni will still cause more damage as sign intensity increases, and the alternate Igni, firestream, will be useful again as it applies a well balanced version of burning which doesn't last for too long.
Removing the knockdown effect of Aard is problematic because it would mean that there is no progression as your sign intensity increases. I propose that Aard gets a small damage by default, which is much lower than Igni, and that this damage increases as sign intensity increases. This way the last ability in the Aard tree, Shock Wave, would be changed to increase the damage that Aard does for each point taken, and an otherwise completely useless ability could become useful.
Bombs:
Most of the bombs are alright but there are some which simply stun for too long of a period of time, especially dancing star, samum and northern wind, the stun effect for these bombs should be reduced severely.
Alchemy:
One of the most interesting things I found in The Witcher 2 was that a lot of the potions had traits, that is to say, there were trade offs to using them which could be eliminated through progression in the alchemy tree. With two points in catalysis potions like White Raffard's decoction could help you out tremendously without lowering your damage output etc.
Trade offs for potions make for more interesting customization, you may choose to use heavy gear which allow you to take more damage and consequently there is room for a potion like Thunderbolt, which could have a vitality penalty, to be used, etc.
Trade offs to potions increases the difficulty further, since you will have to consider which potions to take and to not take.
The superior version of each potion has extremely powerful effects, some which break the balance of the game. Petri's philter in example allows you to apply special effects of signs every single time you cast them, this means that Ignis burning is applied every single time. Tawny oil lasts forever during nights, in combination with Petri's philter this combines into a game breaking experience, where the game simply ceases to be fun any more because it becomes so easy. Consequently some of these effects need to either be toned down or removed.
In The Witcher 3 White Raffard's decoction gives you full health instantly and it comes with three dozes. What exactly happened in between the second and the third game here? One of the more enjoyable aspects of The Witcher 2 was the fact that you couldn't heal yourself instantaneously, this made you think about your moves and forced you to do everything to avoid taking damage. White Raffard's decoction needs to be changed in one way or the other, exactly how I am not sure as of now.
Several of the decoctions in the game are too powerful, so powerful in fact that it is most beneficial to use them in every situation. These include decoctions such as Ekhidna and Archgriffin. The Ekhidna decoction needs to give less health as a consequence of stamina regeneration to persuade players to look for alternative strategies as well. The Archgriffin needs to deal less damage than it does now, you need only take the toad prince as an example to understand how overpowered the Archgriffin decoction is, and this applies for every boss and npc in the game which has a lot of health. The Archgriffin decoction does not encourage strategy, it encourages player to use nothing but the strong attack, which has to be against the very fundamental principles on which the game is built.
Finally, something needs to be done about the refilling of potions, as it is now you can refill your potions after every fight and you do not have to worry about how you use your potions. Meditation only in villages or certain safe places would solve this issue.
Witcher gear:
It seems to me that one of the bigger problem with the difficulty curve of the game is that as soon as you have acquired your first set of witcher gear the difficulty of the game decreases by a lot, furthermore relic weapons and so forth become useless to you since the witcher gear is so powerful. Something should be done about this, witcher gear should offer less bonuses and resistances. This could be fixed by simply reducing the advantages each set offers.
Rolling and dodging:
As a witcher, Geralt dances around a lot in battle, this is a cool thing and I enjoy the mechanics behind it, but the problem is that there is nothing to prevent Geralt from dodging all the time, meaning that he can mitigate most attacks simply by pressing the dodge button.
Solution: Reduce the stamina recovery upon dodging so that the player needs to think twice before dodging.
Edit history:
Last edited by Oinabilac; 17-03-2016 at 04:50 AM. Reason: Expanded the alchemy section, White Raffard's decoction and special effects of the superior potions.
Last edited by Oinabilac; Today at 10:01 AM. Reason: Added a video demonstrating how Igni is overpowered.
Last edited by Oinabilac; Today at 11:05 AM. Reason: Added a video demonstrating how Yrden is overpowered.
Last edited by Oinabilac; Today at 11:37 AM. Reason: Added a video demonstrating how Aard is overpowered.
Last edited by Oinabilac; Today at 02:26 AM. Reason: Added a discussion on how to add progression to the various signs
Last edited by Oinabilac; Today at 02:31 AM. Reason: Added a discussion on decoctions such as Ekhidna and Archgriffin under the alchemy section
Note: I will no longer be updating this thread or replying to posts for a variety of reasons.
I am posting this as a new thread since it spans several of the pinned topics above, and hence it seems appropriate to make an independent thread.
I am aware that there already are several mods which attempts to change the difficulty of the game, but every mod I have tried so far fails miserably at accomplishing this. Meanwhile making certain parts more difficult, these mods also make the game easier by allowing you to have several abilities like whirl, rend and alternate signs from the start, meaning that you can use several other abilities to further increase your power. The bottom line is that these mods make the game easier, not more difficult.
Note that I realize that CDPR probably won't implement something like this so late in development. I am posting here anyways because if CDPR don't do it, then perhaps someone will create a mod which makes these changes, I might even do it when the time is right.
One of the biggest complaints I have with The Witcher 3 is that it isn't difficult enough. I have spent several hundreds of hours playing the game at this point and I have spent a lot of that time considering why the game isn't challenging enough and I have come up with a few conclusions. Upon making appropriate changes to these aspects of the game; difficulty would increase and become challenging even for those who have mastered the mechanics of the game.
Some of the main issues with the difficulty include crowd control effects which last for too long, the ability to refill your potions at any moment and overpowered witcher gear.
Why a hardcore mode, why not just implement these changes to the game? Because a lot of people prefer to experience the game in a simpler manner, allowing the player to choose their level of difficulty is more desirable since each player will get what they are looking for.
Regardless of how you do a difficulty mode like this there will be someone who complains about some feature. It is thus desirable to have an in game options menu which allow you to turn certain features on and off.
Here follows a few ideas which could be implemented in a possible hardcore mode.
Signs:
Igni:
Crowd controls are one of the most powerful things in the game and they reduce the difficulty of it severely. One of the biggest problems is Igni and its burning effect, with high enough stamina regeneration and sign intensity you can simply walk around in a circle and apply burning over and over until your enemy has been killed.
In the above video the absurdity of Igni is demonnstrated, the build is not focused on sign intensity, it is a hybrid build which has a piece of everything. With a fully sign intensity focused build the power goes far beyond what is seen here.
Solution: Remove the burning effect applied by Igni completely, this would essentially make Igni work the way it did in The Witcher 2 (which I found much more enjoyable), there should perhaps be a slight buff to the damage of scaling to compensate a little bit for the damage lost by burning, but not by much. Note that because of this burning effect the alternate Igni, firestream, is completely useless. Implementing these changes to Igni would make firestream useful again.
Aard:
Being able to send enemies to the ground with Aard needs to be a lot more difficult, Aard should be a short stun which allows you to get a strong attack in, similar to how it worked in The Witcher 2.
Yrden:
Some complain about the nerf to Yrden as if it was a bad thing, but it was in fact completely necessary. The bottom line is that Yrden is still too powerful because of the Entanglement enchantment introduced in HoS.
Solution: The alternate Yrden sign needs to have its turret frequency reduced, meaning that traps will not be created as frequently, and thus reducing the crowd control effect of the sign, without completely removing it.
Quen:
Quen in The Witcher 2 was in some ways more balanced because having it active reduced stamina regeneration to zero. This made you think twice before applying it since you couldn't use your other signs meanwhile having it up.
Solution: Reduce stamina regeneration when Quen is active, perhaps not to zero, but reduce it severely so that there is a trade off to keeping it up all the time.
Sign progression:
Currently the signs progress, or develop, as you advance in character development by adding to the chance of burning for Igni as well as the damage Igni applies, Aard increases the time and chance for the knockdown effect and Yrden gets an increase in slowdown effect.
Yrden is fine the way it is now, given the the turret frequency gets a decrease.
Quen does not need to be altered as it simply increases the damage shield as sign intensity increases.
If the burning effect of Igni is removed completely, and applied only to the alternate version of Igni the way it is now. Then Igni will still cause more damage as sign intensity increases, and the alternate Igni, firestream, will be useful again as it applies a well balanced version of burning which doesn't last for too long.
Removing the knockdown effect of Aard is problematic because it would mean that there is no progression as your sign intensity increases. I propose that Aard gets a small damage by default, which is much lower than Igni, and that this damage increases as sign intensity increases. This way the last ability in the Aard tree, Shock Wave, would be changed to increase the damage that Aard does for each point taken, and an otherwise completely useless ability could become useful.
Bombs:
Most of the bombs are alright but there are some which simply stun for too long of a period of time, especially dancing star, samum and northern wind, the stun effect for these bombs should be reduced severely.
Alchemy:
One of the most interesting things I found in The Witcher 2 was that a lot of the potions had traits, that is to say, there were trade offs to using them which could be eliminated through progression in the alchemy tree. With two points in catalysis potions like White Raffard's decoction could help you out tremendously without lowering your damage output etc.
Trade offs for potions make for more interesting customization, you may choose to use heavy gear which allow you to take more damage and consequently there is room for a potion like Thunderbolt, which could have a vitality penalty, to be used, etc.
Trade offs to potions increases the difficulty further, since you will have to consider which potions to take and to not take.
The superior version of each potion has extremely powerful effects, some which break the balance of the game. Petri's philter in example allows you to apply special effects of signs every single time you cast them, this means that Ignis burning is applied every single time. Tawny oil lasts forever during nights, in combination with Petri's philter this combines into a game breaking experience, where the game simply ceases to be fun any more because it becomes so easy. Consequently some of these effects need to either be toned down or removed.
In The Witcher 3 White Raffard's decoction gives you full health instantly and it comes with three dozes. What exactly happened in between the second and the third game here? One of the more enjoyable aspects of The Witcher 2 was the fact that you couldn't heal yourself instantaneously, this made you think about your moves and forced you to do everything to avoid taking damage. White Raffard's decoction needs to be changed in one way or the other, exactly how I am not sure as of now.
Several of the decoctions in the game are too powerful, so powerful in fact that it is most beneficial to use them in every situation. These include decoctions such as Ekhidna and Archgriffin. The Ekhidna decoction needs to give less health as a consequence of stamina regeneration to persuade players to look for alternative strategies as well. The Archgriffin needs to deal less damage than it does now, you need only take the toad prince as an example to understand how overpowered the Archgriffin decoction is, and this applies for every boss and npc in the game which has a lot of health. The Archgriffin decoction does not encourage strategy, it encourages player to use nothing but the strong attack, which has to be against the very fundamental principles on which the game is built.
Finally, something needs to be done about the refilling of potions, as it is now you can refill your potions after every fight and you do not have to worry about how you use your potions. Meditation only in villages or certain safe places would solve this issue.
Witcher gear:
It seems to me that one of the bigger problem with the difficulty curve of the game is that as soon as you have acquired your first set of witcher gear the difficulty of the game decreases by a lot, furthermore relic weapons and so forth become useless to you since the witcher gear is so powerful. Something should be done about this, witcher gear should offer less bonuses and resistances. This could be fixed by simply reducing the advantages each set offers.
Rolling and dodging:
As a witcher, Geralt dances around a lot in battle, this is a cool thing and I enjoy the mechanics behind it, but the problem is that there is nothing to prevent Geralt from dodging all the time, meaning that he can mitigate most attacks simply by pressing the dodge button.
Solution: Reduce the stamina recovery upon dodging so that the player needs to think twice before dodging.
Edit history:
Last edited by Oinabilac; 17-03-2016 at 04:50 AM. Reason: Expanded the alchemy section, White Raffard's decoction and special effects of the superior potions.
Last edited by Oinabilac; Today at 10:01 AM. Reason: Added a video demonstrating how Igni is overpowered.
Last edited by Oinabilac; Today at 11:05 AM. Reason: Added a video demonstrating how Yrden is overpowered.
Last edited by Oinabilac; Today at 11:37 AM. Reason: Added a video demonstrating how Aard is overpowered.
Last edited by Oinabilac; Today at 02:26 AM. Reason: Added a discussion on how to add progression to the various signs
Last edited by Oinabilac; Today at 02:31 AM. Reason: Added a discussion on decoctions such as Ekhidna and Archgriffin under the alchemy section
Last edited:
