Patch 1.07 - Superior and Masterwork Witcher Gear Change

[AZRogue]

Patch 1.07 - Superior and Masterwork Witcher Gear Change

I've noticed that all of the Superior and Masterworked witcher gear have had their level requirements raised. The timing was especially bad as I just turned level 27 yesterday and so proudly donned my Superior Ursine set but, today, the set has been raised to level 30! The Masterworked gear, which used to be level 30, has been raised to level 34, for the swords (so probably 35 for the gear if it keeps the same range as Superior).

Both Feline and Wolf, Superior sets, have had their level raised to level 29. Not sure about the Griffin yet. I'm still wearing the armor, because I WAS good enough (yesterday), but the moment I take it off, or the game removes it for a haircut or shave, or any other reason, I won't be able to put them back on. I don't remember reading anything about this change in the patch notes. Did I just miss it? Or is this a bug? It sure seems deliberate. I loaded an old save and the Diagrams even now reflect the new requirements. Were their stats raised to reflect the increase in level? Or are they still using the same stats? The Enhanced sets were left unchanged, it seems.

Has anyone else noticed this?

EDIT: It seems the Enhanced sets were increased as well, but I'm not sure by how much.

 

[Baker70]

Yes same thing for me. All of a sudden I couldn't wear my Superior Griffin Armor. I don't hate it.

 

[Geragio]

maybe a decision to raise the required level was to do with the first expansion.

 

[Gerudon]

Not that is stupid. Now you only get to wear them at the very last battle and can't even enjoy them. Why would they ever change this?

 

[zeypheruk]

The changed it to balance the school gears, before wolven was clearly superior in stats due to having a higher level. Now all schools master version is lvl 34. Think of it as bringing up all the school gears to be on par with wolven.

 

[Scaena]

Not that is stupid. Now you only get to wear them at the very last battle and can't even enjoy them.

This.

I won't post the same thing I already did on another thread, but if you're curios, here it is:
http://forums.cdprojektred.com/threads/53142-lvl-needed-for-witcher-gear?p=1844905&viewfull=1#post1844905

 

[LionOfVenice]

That really sucks! So now all my old savegames with various superior/mastercrafted armors are screwed! I will play naked since i have only ONE witcher armor at a time, or i am forced to rebuild an inferior armor from scratch! This is a total nonsense!

 

[Blackhawk1189]

The changed it to balance the school gears, before wolven was clearly superior in stats due to having a higher level. Now all schools master version is lvl 34. Think of it as bringing up all the school gears to be on par with wolven.

I understand the reasoning, but the implementation is unwise. World of Warcraft, for example, typically nerfs gear abilities before they change gear levels, though they've been known to do both.

The devs decision to change the gear levels instead of stats, imho, is very poor. For example, on my second playthrough (pre-patch), I wanted to do an adrenaline build start to finish. I had dabbled with it near the end of my first playthrough. But, I couldn't get some of the best gear in the game for my build until lvl 20 (the Ursine Armor.) I played half, if not more than half the game, without getting access to the gear I wanted. And that's just the standard Ursine gear! Why should I have to wait that long, when a lot of players are finishing the game around lvl 35-ish?

This leads me to my second point - mastercrafted Ursine armor is unavailable until lvl 34. That's basically the end of the game. I've done almost every single quest and am just a couple main quests away from ending the game, and I still don't have access to the best armor at lvl 33. This is just silly. I'm going to be able to use it for the final quest and that's it, unless I feel like pointlessly romping around end game to finish out all the question marks before the expansion packs come. Where's the fun in using the best armor for only a quest or two?

And I could be mistaken, but on my first playthrough, the early lvl Griffin armor was available before level 10 or right around then, but ursine was inaccessible until lvl 17? It basically pigeon-holes you for a loooooooong time until you get the access to gear you want.

Please, please, lower the gear levels back to what they were (at least) and just adjust the stats a bit. I went through 20 levels on Death March with just found gear before I crafted Ursine, so it's not like adjusting the stats would ruin anything.

 

[jackm8]

To be honest. Level restricted gear is extremely dumb in any case. It has zero roleplaying properties, zero balance properties, and is just a lazy way out of distributing gear manually throughout the game

 

[Blackhawk1189]

To be honest. Level restricted gear is extremely dumb in any case. It has zero roleplaying properties, zero balance properties, and is just a lazy way out of distributing gear manually throughout the game

I agree, but in relatively non-linear games like TW3 where characters level up and enemies don't scale, gear almost has to come with levels. You can get away with unleveled gear in Oblivion, for example, because if something's too tough you can just leave and come back to it later. You can do it in TW3 too, but, not near the extent you can in Oblivion.

I'm not thrilled about the gameplay design of TW3 either, but, given the way the devs designed it, fixing gear levels to make them more accessible seems only fair. I mean hell... I came across a lvl 46 sword diagram the other day at level 34. No way I'm ever going to get to that until DLC comes out at best.