How do you handle quest levels?

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How do you handle quest levels?

My first playthrough I pretty much played it by ear, doing main- and side quests as I felt like it without paying attention to levels. By the endgame though, I had to farm giants in Skellige to make enough exp to be able to wear the mastercrafted cat armor so I'd look decent for the finale, as the wolf armor quest had bugged out. All the side quests and contracts I'd long since forgotten about, because they were meant for 15 levels above mine when I received, them only gave a few exp points each, and I felt massively misled.

I read about other players' similar experiences, and the main responses they seemed to get were "Do the quests in order by level!" and "Who cares, I play for the experience, not the exp".

I've now played up to level 8, having spent two entire levels finishing the 'Bloody Baron' questline, and am looking at an evening of cleaning up Velen for most of the other level 6/+ quests. It's too early to say, but it seems pretty likely that I'll be a bit overlevelled by the time I reach Novigrad. Can only imagine it will get worse. Is doing every side quest too much? What sort of balance do you strike? When do you usually get your hands on the mastercrafted armor over the course of the story? Because frankly, most of the preceding armors look fairly ridiculous. It would never even occur to me to change my Temerian armor into the basic wolf one, even though the former is 10 levels weaker than the latter.

As for the "I play for the experience" notion, I usually do that as well, but everything in TW3 is designed to make you think about your level. You can't wear cool-looking armor unless you're high level enough. There are a lot of quests that you'll get way, way before you can complete them depending on your level, and if you don't educate yourself on that fact when you get them then you'll certainly find out as you try to complete them. You get a huge penalty against any and all enemies who are much higher level than you, and you'll run into those enemies constantly if you want to explore. And unless you actively micromanage the order by witch you complete any of the quests, your LEVEL can make content nearly inaccessible for no sensible story-friendly reason whatsoever.
 

iCake

Forum veteran
Just play the game and don't worry about these "levels" as long as you don't jump in on a 6+ levels above yours quest as the enemies in such quests become artificially and significantly bumped up. Overleveling a whole ton of quests is inevitable in this game so there is no point to doing it in any particular order. You can turn on enemy scaling in settings if you still want those quests to present some challenge.

As for when and where you get to an X level to be able to equip an X level cool armor. Again, don't worry about it and just play the game. The whole "suggested level to do this" system is specifically designed to get players to about the same level at key points of the game, no matter if they rushed through it or painstakingly cleared every quest available. This "level control" range is just like the "suggested level" range +/- 5 levels. The final quest is level 35, if you rush through the game you'll end up level 30 at that point, most players will be around level 30-35 there though, completionists can be as high as 40 but that's hard to achieve without DLC content, for the record my "do it all" runs put me around 37 +/- 2 levels there, even the first playthrough. So it is no wonder you had to "grind" to get to wear that master crafted armor but it's your playstyle that put you there, not the game, directly anyway. You just haven't completed enough quests. And for the record, if you ever need to grind XP for whatever reason don't ever do that again by slaughtering enemies. That's very inefficient as you get a minuscule amount of XP for doing that. Instead hunt for abandoned sites and monster nests, they always grant you a fixed and fair amout of XP and have no "too high a level for this" penalty. If you follow a guide that shows exactly where those locations are you can increase in up to about 5 levels in an hour or so.

P.S. No "micro-managing" is required to get through the game and no content will be "nearly inaccessible for no sensible story-friendly reason whatsoever". You'll get to it all if you want to no matter how you play. The only possible way to fall short in this game is to stubbornly compete a ton of 6+ level quests since the game won't grant you more XP than usual for completing such quests and in turn you'll overlevel quests that still were in your level range at that moment. But you really have to work at it to "earn" this eventuality. I guess it's clear now why 6+ levels enemies get significantly tougher and the HUD screams at you: "don't do that now!" with a nice frightening red skul, right?
 
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iCake;n8461250 said:
Just play the game and don't worry about these "levels" as long as you don't jump in on a 6+ levels above yours quest as the enemies in such quests become artificially and significantly bumped up. Overleveling a whole ton of quests is inevitable in this game so there is no point to doing it in any particular order. You can turn on enemy scaling in settings if you still want those quests to present some challenge.

I see.

I definitely wouldn't say that my "playstyle" was the problem though. I approached the game exactly as I would any other RPG, occasionally playing the completionist and clearing question marks on the map when I was in the mood, and otherwise completing quests as they were revealed to me and seemed attractive. Running into level 20 mobs and receiving level 22 quests in some of the starting areas of Velen at level 5 is pretty disheartening, I don't play games to keep side-quests and specific locations in starting areas in the back of my mind for weeks and weeks so I can get right on them as soon as I'm powerful enough, because by then I'll be in a completely different place and focused on other quests and story-lines. Most importantly, nobody ever explained this +5/-5 quest level system to me until I was stuck at 30 because I'd run out of content by doing it in this order or that, essentially by doing exactly what you're suggesting, even though I'd been looking forward to wearing a particular level 35 armor since the very beginning of the game thanks to goddam marketing.

I don't see a "nice frightening red skull", I see someone's decision to abruptly, consciously and arbitrarily place content way out of my current reach for no logical reason, and without even going through the effort of giving me a cool explanation, while I'm doing exactly what I feel I'm supposed to do at level 5, exploring and settling into the gameworld without ranging too far out. You know, that little thing called immersion. And spending the entire game regularly hunting down recipes for the coolest and most RP- and fighting style-appropriate armors in the game isn't exactly attractive either if I don't know if I'll ever be high enough level to wear them based on a system I don't know whether or not to pay much attention to.

As I said, I'm only a handful of levels into my second playthrough, I don't know how my current approach will play out, but part of role-playing for me is immersing myself by making sure my character looks and feels appropriate and sensible for any particular occasion, and cool,appropriate armors are a pretty crucial part of any character-focused medieval RPG where attire is customizable. I cannot possibly be alone in feeling that.
 
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iCake

Forum veteran
Thomas999;n8462100 said:
I definitely wouldn't say that my "playstyle" was the problem though.

There isn't a problem really. So you haven't gotten to wear a master crafted armor and now you say they forced you out of content. If anything they forced you to explore more of the content to get to wear that armor you so badly wanted, you just chose to grind in a game that doesn't want you to grind and now you're disappointed. You could have just completed a few more quests to get to that level instead of, as you put it, "forgetting" about them and doing the long boring thing. And if you consider the big picture here, you'll see that inability to equip that armor at that point in no way could have stopped you from completing the game and that's what really matters.

Thomas999;n8462100 said:
I don't see a "nice frightening red skull", I see someone's decision to suddenly, consciously and arbitrarily place content way out of my reach for no logical reason

I guess you need to play Bethesda's go anywhere you want any time you want games. Don't take me wrong, I'm not trying to patronize you here, I myself like many Bethesda games and that sense of freedom they give. The thing is it is actually this approach that is illogical. There is hardly any logical reason why you can't stumble across a powerful foe just around any corner and find a sad weakling that even a sickly old granny could beat around the very next one. Hello Oblivion with its game world that's constantly and so blatantly leveled according to you :D It's all so obviously tailored there that you just start laughing at that absurdity. "Come on! Where did all the wolves and mice go? Was there a mass extinction that I somehow missed? Did this powerful minotaur hide in the grass all those countless times I strolled through here?" Something to be said about that tricky little "immersion" word that's being tossed around by gamers in pretty much any feedback these days, right? To put it in more "modern" words. "The draugr are training!!!" Anyway, too many words here. What I really meant to say that there is 2 distinct approaches to challenge players in open world game. You either constantly tailor the challenge according to how strong the player is or you don't :) You might not like one of those and that's okay but there is nothing to gripe about here.

Thomas999;n8462100 said:
Running into level 20 mobs and receiving level 22 quests in some of the starting areas of Velen at level 5 is pretty disheartening, I don't play games to keep side-quests and specific locations in starting areas in the back of my mind for weeks and weeks so I can get right on them as soon as I'm powerful enough, because by then I'll be in a completely different place and focused on other quests and story-lines.

First, you have your journal. You don't have to keep it in the back of your mind. You can even put custom markers on the map to mark a place where you encountered a powerful foe you couldn't beat at the time. Huge games like this always smother you with quests and stuff to do, you can't possibly do it all at once and will have to put most of them on the backlog. It doesn't even matter if you can complete any of them at any time you want at that point, what matters is when you'll finally get to them. I don't understand what you're talking about here, sorry.

Second, it's some great fortune telling there, to know that you'll be "in a completely different place and focused on other quests and story-lines".

Thomas999;n8462100 said:
but part of role-playing for me is immersing myself by making sure my character looks and feels appropriate and sensible for any particular occasion, and cool,appropriate armors are a pretty crucial part of any character-focused medieval RPG where attire is customizable.

You know what they say? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I for one really like how all tiers of all witcher gear look and they are available for almsot all levels. If you want to play a beauty contest, that's your call but Geralt never really cared about his looks: Geralt: "I hate doublets".

P.S. I mostly understand your feelings and sympathise you but you have to admit that you're being awfully nitpicky here.
 
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iCake;n8462450 said:
There isn't a problem really. So you haven't gotten to wear a master crafted armor and now you say they forced you out of content. If anything they forced you to explore more of the content to get to wear that armor you so badly wanted, you just chose to grind in a game that doesn't want you to grind and now you're disappointed. You could have just completed a few more quests to get to that level instead of, as you put it, "forgetting" about them and doing the long boring thing. And if you consider the big picture here, you'll see that inability to equip that armor at that point in no way could have stopped you from completing the game and that's what really matters.

P.S. I mostly understand your feelings and sympathise you here but you have to admit that you're awfully nitpicky here.

I doubt you're being deliberately obtuse, so would you please read what I'm saying if you're going to respond? I just told you that I was stuck at level 30. Obviously I played every single quest in the quest log and hunted down every single question mark I could reach as soon as I realized that the game was about to end and the armor I had hunted and saved up for and crafted for six weeks, and which all the review videos and forums touted as the pinnacle of Witchering attire, was never going to be worn, and it wasn't until then that I found out that out-levelled quests gave no exp. Which sucked and made me feel quite ambivalent about the game for a few fays, to be candid, however "nitpicky" you think that is. And nothing in there allowed me to go past level 30, because I hadn't been jumping at some of the quests as I qualified for them a week or more after I had received them and watched their introductions. I chose to grind because there was literally nothing else left to do if I wanted to wear the armor, much less before the post-game.

And you're misunderstanding completely, I have no problem with difficulty and played most of the game with enemy upscaling after level 10. I've played through every Dark Souls game to date and enjoyed myself thoroughly no matter how "unfair" the game seemed at certain points, and I've never shied away from trying my luck at a tough miniboss hidden away in a corner - or backed off to come back a little later to test myself again. That isn't what this is. Does that water hag have special experience or intelligence that others don't? Does she have especially ferocious attacks that are harder to predict and force you to be a little more inventive than usual? Is she enchanted somehow, making her significantly stronger than your average water hag and putting your practiced skills to the test? Is there, in fact, anything substantial differentiating her from other water hags whatsoever? No, no, not so far as we're ever made aware, and no. She just has a red dot over her head, and so you cannot be allowed to beat her for two weeks until you're a predetermined higher level and can come back and steamroll her as part of your then-normal regimen for vendor trash, at which point she'll be no different from others of her kind. If you remember at all. Yeah. Thanks. That really helps make the world feel true and consistent.

I honestly don't give a damn if you think I'm being nitpicky. Thousands of others have similar complaints. Nobody is saying it isn't a great game, just that it's great because of some things and in spite of others. Guess we're different kinds of gamers. Who'dve thunk. But for some of us, this particular structure made the game at least marginally less enjoyable and if there is a way to play around it then I'd like to know.

And again, it isn't about beauty, it's about immersion. I live in a relatively cold climate and know a fair bit about historical medieval armor. A lot of the stuff passing through Geralt's inventory is a fair cry from realistic, but some of it at least looks like an especially agile warrior might think to wear it into battle on frozen lakes in the equivalent of ancient Scandinavia. Some of it looks like something Geralt Of Rivia might logically wear to provide some protection from impacts while retaining his mobility. Some of it looks like witcher's armor, because if you hadn't noticed then witchers do have some fashion of their own, and Geralt realistically has plenty of time and opportunity to arm himself in whatever studded leathers he prefers. A lot of it though... doesn't look anything like any of those things.

If a cool scene or touching moment is undercut by Geralt wearing something completely illogical and out-of-character to accommodate excessive level-gating and a weird exp-curve, then what the hell is the point of that? And don't talk like the only alternative is experimental open world mechanics from a decade and a half ago. Modern RPGs have proven that there are balances to be struck, and The Witcher 3 has no excuse for dropping that particular ball in 2015.

iCake;n8462450 said:
First, you have your journal. You don't have to keep it in the back of your mind. You can even put custom markers on the map to mark a place where you encountered a powerful foe you couldn't beat at the time. Huge games like this always smother you with quests and stuff to do, you can't possibly do it all at once and will have to put most of them on the backlog. It doesn't even matter if you can complete any of them at any time you want at that point, what matters is when you'll finally get to them. I don't understand what you're talking about here, sorry.

Second, it's some great fortune telling there, to know that you'll be "in a completely different place and focused on other quests and story-lines".


Mhm, totally. In an open-world game filled with intensive, lengthy and engaging quests, separated into several environments each hosting separate pieces of the main story and possessing a general quest level roughly 5 levels apart, the notion that I might be elsewhere and distracted by playing the game when a given quest finally becomes relevant to me is truly a ridiculous one. You're right. I shouldn't make such wild guesses. Who knows what tomorrow will bring.

I'd actually never heard of or noticed the Custom Waypoints as opposed to the Custom Marker until just now. Thank you for pointing it out, I think that will actually help a bunch, at least when it comes to remembering the specific locations of those creatures.
 
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iCake

Forum veteran
Obtuse, huh? That's interesting, especially when you jump from:

Thomas999;n8462100 said:
Running into level 20 mobs and receiving level 22 quests in some of the starting areas of Velen at level 5 is pretty disheartening,

to this:

Thomas999;n8463310 said:
Does that water hag have special experience or intelligence that others don't? Does she have especially ferocious attacks that are harder to predict and force you to be a little more inventive than usual? Is she enchanted somehow, making her significantly stronger than your average water hag and putting your practiced skills to the test? Is there, in fact, anything substantial differentiating her from other water hags whatsoever? No, no, not so far as we're ever made aware, and no. She just has a red dot over her head, and so you cannot be allowed to beat her for two weeks until you're a predetermined higher level and can come back and steamroll her as part of your then-normal regimen for vendor trash, at which point she'll be no different from others of her kind.

That's a huge leap of logic, don't you think? First, you talk about how it's bad to run into a level 20 mob at level 5 and leave this topic at that. So it all looks like you disappointed at the fact that you can encounter enemies and quests that you can't beat right away. Now you're saying it's not that but the design of the foes whose only difference within each particular kind is numbers? I don't know, you have to be telepatic to get this from your previous posts... Lastly, I never really talked about difficulty earlier. I talked about the 2 prevalent designs of open world games (scaled and unscaled). "Misunderstanding"... R-i-i-i-ght.

P.S. That's a legitimate complaint, yes. I was disappointed with the lack of variety there, it is still not that bad. I can't even remember games that would do a better job here, at least games of this scope. If you take Skyrim or Fallout here, which are basically the only modern games I know of that can be compared with the Witcher 3 here, they also only have only a superficial variety here. No new moves or tactics for a more powerful version of the baddy, just bigger numbers.

Thomas999;n8463310 said:
I doubt you're being deliberately obtuse, so would you please read what I'm saying if you're going to respond? I just told you that I was stuck at level 30.

That's just absolutely not true. You get to level 30 no matter what even if you chose to follow the main quest exclusively. At this level they're quite a few of side quests that fall within +/- 5 range and would yield good XP to you. You could level up at least two times at that point and would absolutely get 2 more by doing the plethora of the quests you have outleveled by that point because you know what? You have wrong info there, outleveled quests do give XP, just with a significant penalty. Moreover there are about 5 more levels hidden within question marks.

Thomas999;n8463310 said:
I honestly don't give a damn if you think I'm being nitpicky. Thousands of others have similar complaints. Nobody is saying it isn't a great game, just that it's great because of some things and in spite of others. Guess we're different kinds of gamers. Who'dve thunk. But for some of us, this particular structure made the game at least marginally less enjoyable and if there is a way to play around it then I'd like to know.

Sure you don't and I never said you should. I just hoped my rumblings would at least encourage you to try and look at things from a different angle. That rarely works though, especially on the internet. FYI, I never said I liked this particular structure and you can find my posts from long ago where I criticized it and specifically said that I don't like it, but at the end of the day, this system does what it is designed to do and that's what matters. It is experimental though, I agree, but definitely not from a decade ago, it's from a year ago :) They tried to deliver the joy of unleveled world while trying to keep the player from becoming too overpowered in relation to it and combine that to an extent with a feeling of freedom leveled worlds can give. It's a very difficult task, you have to admit.

Thomas999;n8463310 said:
And again, it isn't about beauty, it's about immersion. I live in a relatively cold climate and know a fair bit about historical medieval armor. A lot of the stuff passing through Geralt's inventory is a fair cry from realistic, but some of it at least looks like an especially agile warrior might think to wear it into battle on frozen lakes in the equivalent of ancient Scandinavia.

Is there a frozen lake in the game? :) I definitely don't remember one. And only Skellige looks like Scandinavia to me in terms of both climate and atmosphere. Velen looks more like a tempered zone. Something you can see on the plains of South Siberia. Anyway, is there a game that does take both appearance and climate (especially with more than one climate presented) when designing armor? I don't say it's good they didn't care, it's just that's not expected they'll do?


Anyway, it's cool to talk about it and all but I guess we'd have to agree to disagree here. I'll try to give an answer to your original question if you're so set on gaming the system. It's mathematically easy, do quests that are about to "expire" (-5) to get most XP and don't feel the pain of falling short a few levels to be able to equip that armor.
 
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iCake;n8463650 said:
Obtuse, huh? That's interesting, especially when you jump from:



to this:



That's a huge leap of logic, don't you think? First, you talk about how it's bad to run into a level 20 mob at level 5 and leave this topic at that. So it all looks like you disappointed at the fact that you can encounter enemies and quests that you can't beat right away. Now you're saying it's not that but the design of the foes whose only difference within each particular kind is numbers? I don't know, you have to be telepatic to get this from your previous posts... Lastly, I never really talked about difficulty earlier. I talked about the 2 prevalent designs of open world games (scaled and unscaled). "Misunderstanding"... R-i-i-i-ght.

P.S. That's a legitimate complaint, yes. I was disappointed with the lack of variety there, it is still not that bad. I can't even remember games that would do a better job here, at least games of this scope. If you take Skyrim or Fallout here, which are basically the only modern games I know of that can be compared with the Witcher 3 here, they also only have only a superficial variety here. No new moves or tactics for a more powerful version of the baddy, just bigger numbers.



That's just absolutely not true. You get to level 30 no matter what even if you chose to follow the main quest exclusively. At this level they're quite a few of side quests that fall within +/- 5 range and would yield good XP to you. You could level up at least two times at that point and would absolutely get 2 more by doing the plethora of the quests you have outleveled by that point because you know what? You have wrong info there, outleveled quests do give XP, just with a significant penalty. Moreover there are about 5 more levels hidden within question marks.



Sure you don't and I never said you should. I just hoped my rumblings would at least encourage you to try and look at things from a different angle. That rarely works though, especially on the internet. FYI, I never said I liked this particular structure and you can find my posts from long ago where I criticized it and specifically said that I don't like it, but at the end of the day, this system does what it is designed to do and that's what matters. It is experimental though, I agree, but definitely not from a decade ago, it's from a year ago :) They tried to deliver the joy of unleveled world while trying to keep the player from becoming too overpowered in relation to it and combine that to an extent with a feeling of freedom leveled worlds can give. It's a very difficult task, you have to admit.



Is there a frozen lake in the game? :) I definitely don't remember one. And only Skellige looks like Scandinavia to me in terms of both climate and atmosphere. Velen looks more like a tempered zone. Something you can see on the plains of South Siberia. Anyway, is there a game that does take both appearance and climate (especially with more than one climate presented) when designing armor? I don't say it's good they didn't care, it's just that's not expected they'll do?


Anyway, it's cool to talk about it and all but I guess we'd have to agree to disagree here. I'll try to give an answer to your original question if you're so set on gaming the system. It's mathematically easy, do quests that are about to "expire" (-5) to get most XP and don't feel the pain of falling short a few levels to be able to equip that armor.

What was that I said about reading posts before responding to them? I immediately went on to specify that those enemies not being beatable for weeks of realtime - long after you'd stopped caring about them - made them completely pointless for any purposes of player satisfaction, meaning that the only actual impression you ever got from them was the initial "Nope, ain't getting nothing here. Come back in a month or so. Or half a year. We'll see." which I described as disheartening. The lack of variety is just one way they could have made it at least a bit fun but didn't, and you were the one who latched on to that, not me. And the whole damn topic is specifically around the fact that it's all level-dependent. If you stopped making hurried assumptions and trying to simplify people's arguments just to drive the discussion off the rails and make them sound stupid, you wouldn't have to complain about not being telepathic afterwards.

You also definitely talked about difficulty earlier, or in your own words, "enemies you can't beat right away". Again it's your own assumption that I'm talking about game difficulty in general, when I, again, specified that spikes of difficulty didn't bother me as a game concept when they're actual spikes of difficulty and not bare-faced level gates for no reason. And again, as I said, I was a main quest or two from the very end of the game before I started scrambling for exp and ended up at level 30.

I don't know what inside information you think you have or what ridiculous calculations you've performed to make you so certain you understand the game down to every contingency, but I remember a good fifteen hours of my life combing the game for every last morsel of actually earnable exp, including the damn question marks, which involved quite a lot of incredibly boring sailing around in Skellige while watching Vikings on the side, about an hour of internet research and then two hours of killing one giant over and over again while still watching Vikings to make the problem go away when it seemed there was no other way to wear goddam endgame armor at the endgame. I didn't waste my time by any means, Vikings is a great show, I just hope not to have to resort to it again to be able to wear decent armor to the final quests this time around if I can help it.

Okay, now I really don't know what to make of you. Are you playing devil's advocate to "encourage me to see it a different way", are you complaining that I didn't explain an issue you actually agree with well enough at first, or are you looking to "agree to disagree" like we're colleagues who have to work together every day and you don't want to muddle the waters, as if anybody cares about you saving face or pretending to be the adult in this conversation?

And seriously? I say "...might think to wear it into battle on frozen lakes in the equivalent of ancient Scandinavia" and you can't connect the dots between endgame, endgame armor, the circumstances of the endgame, immersion, and the environment in which the endgame takes place? One once again wonders if you even read other people's posts.

And yes, frankly, roleplaying games focused on providing immersion and realism are expected to provide clothing that at least vaguely fits the environments in which they take place and the characters' circumstances, objectives and natures, and the Witcher does exactly that, only the most appropriate of them are hidden behind pointless level-gates which are hidden behind a weird leveling curve. As I've pointed out repeatedly.

I'm not trying to "game the system", just wondering what sorts of compromises other people have made to handle this one way or another, and if there was something I could use in this particular playthrough. So far as I can surmise between all the smug and patronizing yammer, your contribution is essentially "Don't worry too much about immersion."

Noted. Thank you.
 

iCake

Forum veteran
Yay, it's getting toxic. I was so waiting for it. I knew it'd happen though, so I'll stop being "devil's advocate" as you put it. You're so set in your ways and don't want to listen anyway, so there's no point.

Thomas999;n8465050 said:
What was that I said about reading posts before responding to them? I immediately went on to specify that those enemies not being beatable for weeks of realtime

That's exactly what you said inititially and it just screams: "Ah, why can't I beat it right now! Why didn't they tailor it to me so that I could just slice everything I stumble into! Now I have to keep it in the back of my mind but I don't want to. So screw it, I don't care about it anymore". This is what you said up until you mentioned the design problems. Telepathy all the way. But let's try to admit that I might have made a "hurried assumption" on my part to "connect the dots" this way. Before I forget, it's a frozen sea or even ocean there in the final battle ;) In any case, you never presented enough information to actually gather that your issue was with enemy design.

Thomas999;n8465050 said:
You also definitely talked about difficulty earlier, or in your own words, "enemies you can't beat right away".

How is that about difficulty? That's just about the fact that you can't beat someone or something at the time. It's not about difficulty, it's about availability. Yep, "hurried assumptions" on my part :D

Thomas999;n8465050 said:
Okay, now I really don't know what to make of you. Are you playing devil's advocate to "encourage me to see it a different way", are you complaining that I didn't explain an issue you actually agree with well enough at first, or are you looking to "agree to disagree" like we're colleagues who have to work together every day and you don't want to muddle the waters, as if anybody cares about you saving face or pretending to be the adult in this conversation?

I'm the one (looks like the only one) who actually cared enough to try to help you with your question. This is the first thing you have to keep in mind when figuring out what to make of me. Why would you want or need to do that is a mystery to me though. Yes, I wanted to note that you kind of need to be more precise when writing about things but that's a moot point now, you're fixated anyway. And an adult, huh? You're not the one to talk about adults here. You basically started this whole whine fest out of the fact that you didn't get to wear "cool armor" at the end and turned all toxic and defensive on the only person who genuinely tried to help you. Yeah, this is so mature. Take everything, give nothing and let it all burn when I'm gone, right?

Thomas999;n8465050 said:
I don't know what inside information you think you have or what ridiculous calculations you've performed to make you so certain you understand the game down to every contingency

Yeah, "hurried assumptions" alright. To all contigency, ridiculous... it's so sweet to see you go out of your way to butter it up with some venom, so to speak. Tell you what, I've completed the game 4 times since its release, including one quick "main quest only" run. This alone gives me authority to call you on your BS here. You end up level 30 before the final battle if you do nothing but the main quest. This may or may not include a few other quests that were completed when they were outleveled. This is non-negotiable and is demanded to be exactly like this solely by the game design, just so players that chose to go the fastest route through the game had a chance of completing the game without having to deal with too high a level for them quests. This is just a fact. Outleveled quests do give XP, this is again a fact, as is that you have quite a few side quests at that point that will still fall into the +/- 5 level range and will give you good XP. If that won't be enough, you still have a plethora of outleveled quest that will still progress you towards next level and all of them combined will be more than enough to let you get to your precious armor. And the questions marks, don't even have to mention them. So no, you didn't have to go grind that freaking giant to get to level 34 to wear the armor of your sickly dreams. You could have instead go and play quests, explore the content available to you, but you deliberately chose not to and then you started complaing how the game locked you out of content. This is self-contradictory on your part as hell, regardless of how you or anyone else personally think of the XP mechanics that got you there.

Thomas999;n8465050 said:
And yes, frankly, roleplaying games focused on providing immersion and realism are expected to provide clothing that at least vaguely fits the environments in which they take place and the characters' circumstances, objectives and natures, and the Witcher does exactly that, only the most appropriate of them are hidden behind pointless level-gates which are hidden behind a weird leveling curve. As I've pointed out repeatedly.

Sure they do. Just look up what armor is available in tundra Skyrim and cri-i-i-inge. Bandits in armor that barely covers anything in heavily snowed regions and that's the game that's comparable in size, scope and design and is arguably way more popular and known than the Witcher 3. Hell, the Witcher 3 is just a godsend in this departemnt here and many others. Something to be said about being nitpicky, hey? And on the point of your so craved "immersion". Just how much meta-gaming and/or fortune-telling does this kind of "immersion" entail I wonder? "Um, so I know that I'm going to do battle on "frozen lakes" so I need to wear warm armor there."

Lastly, I will again try to answer your original question:

To get the most XP out of this game, you need to follow these simple quidlines:

- Complete the quests that you're about to outlevel first. This means that if you're level 10, you go do the quest in -5 range, which is level 5. For player 11, it's 6 and so on.

- If multiple choices of such quests are available, generally give priority in this order: main quests -> side quests connected to main charactes (Keira, Triss, Krach, Yen and so on) -> witcher contracts -> other side quests. If you're sure that the lowest denominator out of that chain won't be enough to level you up, then do it first.

- Save question marks that are monster nests and abandon villages for as late as possible. They will always net you their full XP ragardless of your level and a fair amount at that.

- Outleveled quests still give XP, so complete them too if you feel like it, save them for later as well if you're this desparate about making the most out of it.

- Don't fret too much of many quests getting outleveled along the way, it's inevitable.

These are general guidlines, figure out how to make it get along with "your personal immersion" standard here on your own. I can't get in your head and tell you how you'd like it. And hey, don't bother putting together another contrived twisted "opus" on where I'm at fault and how ridiculous you think I am. This is the last I wrote to you. Good day, good sir.
 
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(Throws a happy bomb: BANG! Marshmallow everywhere.) Everyone still smiling in here? Good, good. Let's bring all discussion about who has more wrinkles to a close, please.

I will go all the way back to your OP, Thomas999. The game certainly does not follow the normal "lines of progression" as most modern RPGs, you're right. After 4 playthroughs, I find the best way to play is to simply not do all the side quests. As soon as a main quest turns green for recommended level, I stop Witcher contracts and what-not and advance the story. The fastest way to level up is focus on big quests only. Also, using Axii on everyone possible in a conversation really tallies up over time. (Not very immersive for role-playing purposes to do that, but it's a huge chunk of experience). Once you start seeing recommended levels in grey, you won't be getting any meaningful experience from those quests.

As far as blocking content with experience walls, I get what you're saying. This is a challenge with designing "cool stuff" for games. The coolest looking stuff is normally hidden behind level walls or only appears in the late-game. Then, when you finally get the look you're going for, you stab three more things and the credits roll. I get you. Why not just make it available all the time? The answer to that is that, in general, games work better when there's a carrot being dangled.

You're probably like I am. If I find a look I like, I'll just stick with it forever. And I like armor to look like armor...not a T-shirt with 3 studs on one shoulder. I'd prefer no leveled anything, but it's almost impossible to balance the game or keep players invested with totally open systems like that. Minecraft being a notable exception...but it introduced a few new mechanics that kept players interested. ;)

Despite the animosity that may have been developing (and is now under a thick layer of sticky goo, I hope), iCake's suggestions are pretty spot-on about how to make the quest system work for you in the game.
 
I solved this and a lot of others problems very easy with mod removing item level requirement. So I just go, craft Harpy and Tir Tohair swords and all those pesky weak mobs can now be killed extremely fast without wasting time and on the other side I'm quite capable to go against lvl 20 monster being lvl 5 myself so process becomes really an open-world without limitations. So game is much faster and more challenging in the same time. I traveled with this swords with very alike hilts almost all game until B&W and when I placed them on stand in Corvo Bianko, I nearly cried of happy nostalgia remembering how much I experienced with them :upset:


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Martinvls;n8506610 said:
I solved this and a lot of others problems very easy with mod removing item level requirement. So I just go, craft Harpy and Tir Tohair swords and all those pesky weak mobs can now be killed extremely fast without wasting time and on the other side I'm quite capable to go against lvl 20 monster being lvl 5 myself so process becomes really an open-world without limitations. So game is much faster and more challenging in the same time. I traveled with this swords with very alike hilts almost all game until B&W and when I placed them on stand in Corvo Bianko, I nearly cried of happy nostalgia remembering how much I experienced with them :upset:



Same thing with a different approach. I got a mod that removes experience range. I can choose all quests out of range to give 50%, 75% or 100% exp points at completion. This since run 04, when I was already done with this range system. So I use any weapons at their proper level but I do reach them faster. No need to save nests and other fixed xp points (liberated camps/settlements) for when cap is reached only because without doing it, I could not reach the proper level at the end of the game. (also, this was before expansions which have a boost for xp, since I always complete them before the end of Wild Hunt - BAW I clear most of it before the end of WH then back to WH and then finish BAW)

My latest run I ended NG at level 70 and started NG+ at that level with everything leveled - Only downside is that most everything was level 99 required, set tier 2 and good weapons /armor for instance. But 99 is fast to reach with the mod and then just enjoy the game without worrying with quest level and such trivialities. No xp to be gain means more fun for a crazy compulsive completionist power gamer like me. =))
 
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