PC to Switch Aerondight bug.

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Hi everyone! Long-time Witcher player here, started with the OG Witcher 1 on the PC and went to the great Witcher 2, only to await anxiously for the release of Witcher 3. I still play it regularly on PC, at least a little every couple of months.

I did come with an issue though, so I'll get to it: I recently bought the Switch version to be able to play on the go and switch back and forth with PC and Switch with the cross-save functionality.
Now... There's something very minor that happened: My current save file on PC is on New Game+, and I have Aerondight with 312 extra damage (with a possible maximum of 340). When I pass it to the Switch, Aerondight's extra damage was apparently reported as 0! I increased it a bit during fights and it went to 8, but it's terribly underperforming if compared to other swords of my level. Uploading the save to the cloud and opening on PC, I can see Aerondight with the correct extra damage it had prior to leveling up, so still 312 (even though I increased it a few times during my time playing on the Switch).

So, I guess this is an actual issue?
Thanks for any info!
 
Hi everyone! Long-time Witcher player here, started with the OG Witcher 1 on the PC and went to the great Witcher 2, only to await anxiously for the release of Witcher 3. I still play it regularly on PC, at least a little every couple of months.

I did come with an issue though, so I'll get to it: I recently bought the Switch version to be able to play on the go and switch back and forth with PC and Switch with the cross-save functionality.
Now... There's something very minor that happened: My current save file on PC is on New Game+, and I have Aerondight with 312 extra damage (with a possible maximum of 340). When I pass it to the Switch, Aerondight's extra damage was apparently reported as 0! I increased it a bit during fights and it went to 8, but it's terribly underperforming if compared to other swords of my level. Uploading the save to the cloud and opening on PC, I can see Aerondight with the correct extra damage it had prior to leveling up, so still 312 (even though I increased it a few times during my time playing on the Switch).

So, I guess this is an actual issue?
Thanks for any info!

This could be a tough one because of how Aerondight works. As long as your base damage is not affected, you should be good. Remember that either being struck, waiting long enough, or leveling up will reset the Aerondight "charges" to 0.

Likely as part of the porting process back-and-forth between Switch and PC, it's forced to "zero out" Aerondight functionality. There may be no way to account for all of the possible variables and charge states while also transferring the data correctly.

You could send it in to CDPR Support, though. I'm only theorizing.
 
This could be a tough one because of how Aerondight works. As long as your base damage is not affected, you should be good. Remember that either being struck, waiting long enough, or leveling up will reset the Aerondight "charges" to 0.

Likely as part of the porting process back-and-forth between Switch and PC, it's forced to "zero out" Aerondight functionality. There may be no way to account for all of the possible variables and charge states while also transferring the data correctly.

You could send it in to CDPR Support, though. I'm only theorizing.

The "charges" I understand, they're battle-related and they're a temporary 'buff', so no worries at all.
The problem is the permanent limit-break that Aerondight does after killing an enemy at 10 "charges" - it's apparently not read between versions.
What happened was: Whatever extra damage I already had in Aerondight on PC did not get transferred to the Switch, and whatever extra damage I got on the Switch did not get transferred to the PC.

So I had 312 extra damage on PC, I transferred to Switch and had 0 extra damage.
I then got 8 extra damage from playing on the Switch, transferred back to PC, still had 312 extra damage.

For reference, here are some screenshots between versions of the same save, same moment in in-game time:

Aerondight PC: 758-926 damage (Damage is increased by 312 out of a maximum of 340)
aerondight-pc.jpg
Aerondight Switch: 484-592 damage (Damage is increased by 8* out of a maximum of 340)
aerondight-switch.jpg

* - to reiterate, it began as 0 and it increased to 8 as I played on the Switch.


I hope it's clearer now!
I imagine the Aerondight object has some sort of additional parameter that's not being read by the cross-save functionality... Since it is ignored both ways.
But I'm just guessing here.
What do you think? Worth to send it to CDPR support?
 
I hope it's clearer now!
I imagine the Aerondight object has some sort of additional parameter that's not being read by the cross-save functionality... Since it is ignored both ways.
But I'm just guessing here.
What do you think? Worth to send it to CDPR support?

:oops:

Much.

That definitely seems goofy. I'd send this in.

Only consideration is mods. Have you ever used any at any point in the past, on either system?
 
:oops:

Much.

That definitely seems goofy. I'd send this in.

Only consideration is mods. Have you ever used any at any point in the past, on either system?

I have a couple of mods on PC (can you put mods on Switch??), but they're all graphics-related. Absolutely none of them changes the gameplay or the way the game is played in any form.
Some lore-friendly texture replacements ("True Witcher eyes", not available in the nexus anymore), the HD Reworked Project (texture improvements), the "Nitpicker's mod", and one to activate Hairworks for everything except Geralt (since that isn't an option, it's either none, Geralt-only, or everything).
I don't think - or at least I hope - that these would conflict with the inner workings of the game, of the sword.

One last note about the bug: Further research makes me believe that they are using two separate variables (one for each platform) for the permanent extra damage somehow, since they scale separately, and are kept between transfers.

Anyway, I sent them a message and got this back:
Hi,

Thank you for your report!

Kind regards,
John
I don't know if this means that it is indeed a bug and something will be done or not :sad:
But I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and wait!
 
I have a couple of mods on PC (can you put mods on Switch??), but they're all graphics-related. Absolutely none of them changes the gameplay or the way the game is played in any form.

Viola! This is most likely going to be the source of the weirdness. Unfortunately, it's not always as simple as "this mod should not affect that". Thing is, game engines are vast, knotted, fickle beasts, and many parts may be affected by small changes to seemingly disconnected areas.

The biggest trouble, however, is that mods will not be able to be used if you intend to move the game back and forth. The other platform won't be able to read the reference data correctly, and it can create whole forests of weirdness.

But yes, as long as you are playing exclusively on one device, there are mods for both PC and the Switch.

And, sadly, while I can't say this with 100% certainty, CDPR Support may not be able to help at all. It's simply not possible to account for all of the variables that may have been affected by all of the possible combinations of mods out there on this or that system. In other words, there is no surefire way to tell in a modded save file whether it's caused by the mod or not.

One final note worthy of consideration: it may simply be that one of your graphical mods is affecting the way the data for Aerondight is being displayed. This has happened with other areas of the game before. The data on the description is wrong, but the weapon is still performing as intended in actual gameplay. Are you noticing severely altered difficulty during combat?
 
Viola! This is most likely going to be the source of the weirdness. Unfortunately, it's not always as simple as "this mod should not affect that". Thing is, game engines are vast, knotted, fickle beasts, and many parts may be affected by small changes to seemingly disconnected areas.

The biggest trouble, however, is that mods will not be able to be used if you intend to move the game back and forth. The other platform won't be able to read the reference data correctly, and it can create whole forests of weirdness.

But yes, as long as you are playing exclusively on one device, there are mods for both PC and the Switch.

And, sadly, while I can't say this with 100% certainty, CDPR Support may not be able to help at all. It's simply not possible to account for all of the variables that may have been affected by all of the possible combinations of mods out there on this or that system. In other words, there is no surefire way to tell in a modded save file whether it's caused by the mod or not.

One final note worthy of consideration: it may simply be that one of your graphical mods is affecting the way the data for Aerondight is being displayed. This has happened with other areas of the game before. The data on the description is wrong, but the weapon is still performing as intended in actual gameplay. Are you noticing severely altered difficulty during combat?

Ok, I understood your reasoning, so I decided to get more test case scenarios.
I deleted each and every mod I had, redownloaded the vanilla game, checked any missing or discrepant files with Steam integrity checker, and acquired a save file that had never touched a mod or console command or anything out of the standard experience.
This particular save file has Aerondight with 30 permanent extra damage. Upon transferring it to Switch - 0 permanent extra damage. I have not passed this save file through my game at all (even if currently Vanilla), the save file is unchanged from its source. I put it in my gamesaves folder, started Witcher 3 and immediately quit the game just so it would be uploaded into the Steam Cloud, then I downloaded the save file using the game on Switch.
(I also happened to notice that the amount of potions on hand is also incongruent between versions.)

I can't quite confirm if the effect of Aerondight is the same and the wrong value is only being displayed... I didn't notice any spike in difficulty. On my personal save file the difference between Switch (0) and PC (some extra damage) is bigger, but on the unaltered file it's a measly 30 extra damage with a 900-1000 base damage. So it would be hard to measure.
But since the issue also happens on an unrelated save (with no mods), I think they may not be the culprit here.

I admit, however, that my single account is not reliable enough, even if using another unaltered save. So I'm posting a request on Reddit for any PC/Switch alternators to test and take note of their Aerondight values on a given save, between versions. I'll report back :cool:
Thanks for your attention to this in the meantime!
 
Ok, so I've managed to find one more person who confirmed the issue happens with Aerondight's permanent extra damage. And he also confirmed the potion quantity issue. All sans mods.
To recap the potion issue: On PC, Geralt has 5 potions. After transferring the save to Switch he has -1 (he's able to drink one and then it goes to 0).

My fiancée has convinced me to fix the issue as such: Use a different silver sword.
So I'll not wait for a fix of these small variables' inconsistencies between versions. That's fine.
But I hope this clears the air in that this is indeed an issue when using the cross-save feature, and not due to mods. Might be to some difference when reading the save files? I'm not sure... Hopefully it'll be fixed someday!

Cheers!
 
Hello!

I am having the exact same issue that is being described here.

I played on my PC, then continued playing on my Nintendo Switch. Then went back to PC again.

My Aerondight sword seemingly has two extra damage counters. One for my Switch and one for my PC.

They seem to coexist at the same time without overwriting each other.

I also found some reddit posts where people reported that their extra damage counter got reset to 0.

Based on the reports the issue appeared after the 3.6 update for the Nintendo Switch.

There are people who are affected by this bug, who only played on the Switch.

For them the issue manifested in their sword's extra damage being reset.

I guess what could have happened was that the name of the counter where the sword's progress is stored was changed.

This would explain why the sword's extra damage counter was reset on the Switch. It would also explain why the extra damage acquired on PC doesn't carry over to the Switch.

Please look into this issue as it is making the Aerondight unusable for us who play the Witcher both on PC and the Nintendo Switch.
 
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