It's also absent from NG+ because you already have all the best items...
But in "action adventure mode" you could still get better gear that is the only way to improve your stats in that mode. So finding goodies is actually more important that ever in such a mode.
Looks like they'll update the Witcher sets and since you keep leveling up the NG gear becomes outdatet... so I guess the gear "grind" stays the same.
And you don't think the items the game could currently give you are... too boring? For instance this game has basically a single weapon and even if the different versions have different effects, they aren't that exciting imo same for the armor. It's not like opening the dungeons great treasure chest in a Zelda game and finding something really unique.
Actually if you only play a quest to get XP there is no reason why this quest exists in the first place imo. A good quest in a story-driven RPG should always be compelling and interesting by itself, by offering good gameplay, story or hard decisions. Whether you get XP for that or not is secondary. And the money is of course still important because getting better gear and weapons is still part of "action adventure mode", especially since you can't get any better without getting better gear.
Well I totally agree with this, but just look at all the "I have no reason to do this quest, if I only get 5XP! FIX PLZ!!!" complaints...
Yeah money in "Adventure Mode" as an alternative NG could be important, the motivation issue was for "Adventure/Fixed Dark Mode as NG+(+)" where you basically stocked up on anything interesting in your traditional NG.
Agreed. But that's not what I wanted. I know that such a mode would require some serious rebalancing of the whole game but that's something they have to do for NG+ no matter what. It's definitely possible to turn TW3 into an action-adventure without changing too much at the core of the game imo
They
should do serious rebalancing for NG+, we'll see tho
Don't get me wrong I'm not that excited for NG+ and I don't really expect anything else than "same game +lvl30 with everything unlocked from the start (xcept my complete Card collection that I have to complete for the 4th time, or ignore that part of the game completely /rant)" and I'd totally prefer a well done "Adventure mode", but -this is where our opinions differ - I don't think it can be done with a reasonable amount of effort within the games current framework. There is just too much to change, if you want good results imo. I have the same opinion regarding combat tho... simple matter of expectation, well and the definition of "reasonable effort"
The difficulty of insane and DM was exactly the same. Only difference was that DM had no perma-death (which has nothing to do with difficulty imo) and the better gear. But opposed to your opinion I don't think that it was that easy to acquire. On the opposite you needed a ridiculously high amount of crafting material for some of these items. But yes, if you had them DM was a bit easier than insane, but not that much. It was still pretty challenging.
I don't think that perma-death is the best (or even a good) method to increase difficulty, but it does make it harder to beat the game imo. You can't just "yolo" anything and you won't fight till the last sliver of health, if you have to start from the very beginning in case you screw up. You also have to get past all the difficulty spikes without failing, which can be pretty frustrating... it's like the difference between rolling a 6 n-times and rolling a 6 n-times in a row.
Yeah crafting the gear was a lengthy and tedious process, but since you could buy the diagrams and almost all ingredients, I wouldn't say it's hard. You didn't have to solve that tough new quest, with the tough new boss at the end to get the gear... those are just semantics tho.
I think that Witcher gear is basically a slightly better implementation of the Dark Mode gear (craftable BiS gear for a certain lvl range, with a "quest" and some lore attached... quests in TW3 are slightly more exciting at least )
So yeah... DM was Insane with two features making it easier (pretty sure Insane had tougher enemies than Hard)
