Quests grayed out - by design ?

[WanWhiteWolf]

Quests grayed out - by design ?

Hello all,

I am on my first playthough. I've been reading that you should do all the quests in the 6 + - level range.

Problem is: I level up way faster than the quests requirements. I am level 18 at the moment, getting close to 19. I have 2 grayed out quests , 4 quests on level 13-14. So I am about to lose another 3 or so quests. I also have 5 question marks on the map that most likely will have more quests in the below-my-level range.

I did little exploring outside the main / secondary quests.

Am I doing something wrong, or this is simply a flaw in design?

Also, there seem to be a problem with the progression of some quests. You have, for example, level 11-12 requirement. Once you finish it, you get a quests with level 7 requirement. So if you did the quest when you were level 13, you automatically lost the experience the next quest - which you have no way of knowing it from advance.

So instead of of exploring the map a little bit (which I would assume to be expected in an open world), I am always pressured by the - I have to do this quest now or I lose XP.


Is there any way to disable graying out the quests? I don't think players should be penalized for exploring.

Thank you.

Edit: I am on the highest difficulty. I imagine this is a bigger problem on the lower difficulties.

 

[Riven-Twain]

Is there any way to disable graying out the quests? I don't think players should be penalized for exploring.

This has been criticised before. There may be a modification somewhere that removes this from the level-requirements system. However, as it stands in the game, this was a design choice -- intended to maintain balance, I believe. Quests grey out once you advance 5 levels beyond the recommended level.

 

[Garrison72]

Someday I'd like to hear a RED comment on their logic for this, because while it doesn't ruin the game, it's antithetical to what gamers expect in xp progression. It seems to be an evolution of what they did in the last two games, both of which discourage over leveling and grinding. But in TW3, you basically get overleveled no matter what. In my next run I'm going to let it guide me and see if the game 'works' any better or if the narrative is more coherent.

 

[porkface]

It might be difficult, especially for veteran players, to play the game without getting XP as a reward for completing the quests in mind. TW3 side quests “system”, illogical as it is, has one advantage – it gives you an opportunity to feel over powered every now and then. And, the quality of the quests of course makes up for not getting rewarded by other means. If you’re not the type that only reads battle chapters in War and Peace and skips the rest of the book and can be as interested in the story in this game, it may actually work.

 

[jon7882]

I came straight off an MMO (SWTOR) to be precise when the game released so it took me by surprise to see it in a SP RPG however I know why it was done. Like in MMO's greying out quests and offering low xp for those quests is designed to keep you from getting over powered and making the game too easy but in an MMO there is another reason and that is to make it fair to the other players and to keep you from becoming over powered and pwning everyone. The argument here is " so what it's a SP game who cares if it makes the game too easy." Well it's a double edge sword. From a game developers point of view they had two options. Allow the quests to give equal hp no matter what and in a game this big would make most people hit max level before act 2 and make the game far too easy or do what they did and allow modding so people who don't like it can fix or modify their level to their liking. I agree with the way they did it.

 

[Garrison72]

The game is already too easy. The exception being you can challenge yourself and always take quests above your level, but unlike the last two games, systems aren't in place to prevent such fights from becoming eternal slogs with ridiculous HP on the enemies. They only got difficulty right with HoS on Death March imo.

 

[jj284b]

Game was intended to be played nonlinearly.. therefore after White Orchard, you could take 3 possible paths... go doing Velen questlines, go to Novigrad or go directly to Skellige.. because of that, there are several quests made for lower level Geralt.. same way, you wont utterly overlevel doing everything.. Only shame they didnt made this more profound.. Witcher contracts in my opinion should not be level fixed as they are unrelated to the story, therefore could be finished anytime, but locked levels force player to do them in certain order...

 

[Krull32]

this was a design choice

For me a very bad one to be honest.
It would be nice if this would be revised.

 

[GerardofRiviera]

I've never found it to be an issue, leveling always seems to even out for me and you can always play on harder difficulties for a challenge.

 

[iCake]

I've never found it to be an issue, leveling always seems to even out for me and you can always play on harder difficulties for a challenge.

To each their own, but for me this is the only significant issue in this game, the reasons being:

1) Confuses players who are on their first playthroughs. If you don't quite know how the system works, you'll inevitably start wondering if you're potentially going to lose some exp. That alone instilled some sense of unrest in me throughout my first playthrough, that unrest didn't feel well.

2) Forces a linear approach to quests. Wanna go to Skellige first? Yes, you can, but, you're level 4 and the Skellige quest is 16, you're going to get owned there or at the very least bored to death by long and tedious battles, thanks to all the ridiculously high buffs your enemies get... The linear questing would be fine by me, but then, why the open world if you're still pushed into doing quests in a supposedly correct order? The problem becomes even more accute when you do decide to complete the red quests first, you see, you're still going to get the same amount of XP for them and this is the only way when you can actually miss out on some XP along the way.

3) Makes you feel punished for exploring. So we have this beautful open world that just invites you to go and see what lies in it... But you see, if you do one more monster nest you'll be overlevelled for the next main quest, turning it into a cakewalk for you. You love challenge? Sorry, we don't, neither should you.

 

[porkface]

Okay, what is the solution to this then? / How other open world games solve this?

 

[dragonbird]

3) Makes you feel punished for exploring. So we have this beautful open world that just invites you to go and see what lies in it...

Depends on your definition of "punished". I like the fact that I can explore and do sidequests without running the risk of being TOO over-levelled for later main quests, and therefore finding them too easy. So overall, the game's way of balancing it out by giving you less XP suits me, and I'd feel punished if the result of exploring was to make the final bossfights even easier than they are now.

The thing is, different people have different preferences, so what suits some people, and what some people want, doesn't necessarily match what others want. I'm pretty sure that if they didn't reduce the XP, there'd be just as many people complaining about being extremely overlevelled as are complaining now about grey quests. It would just be different people doing the complaining. (at least, I hope so )

I would love to see some minor tweaking, for example, there's some low-level Skellige quests that I'm pretty sure almost EVERYONE only gets when they're already greyed-out, but overall I like the concept.

 

[iCake]

@Dragonbird

I absolutely agree with you on "different people have different preferences". In fact, the very post you took that quote from started off with "to each their own". But might I suggest that you're trying to give credit to this "over-level" preventive system while still bound by its concept. In other words, you're trying to judge whether the system in use is appropriate by examining the system itself. That's a healthy approach and I myself have to admit that the system more or less is suitable for its task. There is still a core flaw in it, if you go exclusively for red quests you'll lose a ton of XP as amount of experience points you get is not adjusted in that case, but then the tremendously high buffs red-skulled enemies get suddenly make much more sense...

Anyway, what I really wanted to say is that there are much better ways to adress over-levelling than introducing a forceful and very artificial system. This is where our opinions diverge. I think that the whole system that is used in this game is outright a disaster, a cancer even, and the devs shouldn't have gone down this road. Instead, they should have come up with something different, something much less invasive and more elegant. When I first saw the whole "12 abilities only" thing, I actually thought that the idea was brilliant, I thought this was where all the balancing issues would be addressed from, an anchor point if you will.

That way we could have all the initial stats on both enemies and Geralt static, no increase with higher levels. Progression is mostly handled with better gear and special abilities. The best gear should not be immensly more powerful than the worst. Just enough to make it worthwhile to upgrade, but ultimately not a game changer it is right now. Instead, make abilities real game-changers. Have higher level monsters be in some way susceptible to your higher level abilties. Mix and match here, have both offensive and defensive abilities more effective in particular situtations and from different trees, so that there is no "just-right build", widen it across the spectrum of your foes, make it impossible to always be well prepared for each kind of enemy, always leave a possibility to fall short. Being a very high level would just mean having a wider range of abilities to choose from, becoming more well-rounded if you spend the time to re-arrange your abilties to be best prepared for different encounters, effectively adding another layer of preparation to the game, that is supposed to be all about preparation. Just note, all these adjustments would not automatically result in you failing to take on high level foes when being low levelled yourself, unlike it is right now. You'll just have less of the right tools to deal with them, potentially making it a very difficult encounter but your actual playing skill could help you out here, not some damn numbers and stats.

Long story short, make it so your level number is just this a number and a way to get more ability points and just some progression up untill you have enough points to fill in all 12 slots. This way there is no need to try and force people to go about their business the way you want, rather than the way they want.

 

[Garrison72]

Depends on your definition of "punished". I like the fact that I can explore and do sidequests without running the risk of being TOO over-levelled for later main quests, and therefore finding them too easy. So overall, the game's way of balancing it out by giving you less XP suits me, and I'd feel punished if the result of exploring was to make the final bossfights even easier than they are now.

The thing is, different people have different preferences, so what suits some people, and what some people want, doesn't necessarily match what others want. I'm pretty sure that if they didn't reduce the XP, there'd be just as many people complaining about being extremely overlevelled as are complaining now about grey quests. It would just be different people doing the complaining. (at least, I hope so )

I would love to see some minor tweaking, for example, there's some low-level Skellige quests that I'm pretty sure almost EVERYONE only gets when they're already greyed-out, but overall I like the concept.

I have to agree with this. I'm not sure the base concept is flawed, rather that it could be implemented better. They had to try and balance XP out somehow, and I don't think the system punishes you or that quality exploration isn't feasible.

 

[Sunsibar]

I like that system. When I explored everything (over 300 hours) I was lvl 35 at the end. When I quick played one round (36 hours), doing only main quests and those side quests "needed" to

Spoiler

Brothers In Arms

I was lvl 33 at the end.

So I don't mind that much for grey quests. Usually I try to do everything when it's still green, but it's not the end of the world if it turns grey.

I played one other game recently where I also did everything and right now I'm lvl 99 in the areas which are recommended to lvl 64. That sucks. Need to find those secret post game bosses yet and see if they can give me any challenge with my super overleveled characters.

 

[dragonbird]

I like that system. When I explored everything (over 300 hours) I was lvl 35 at the end. When I quick played one round (36 hours), doing only main quests and those side quests "needed" to I was lvl 33 at the end.

So I don't mind that much for grey quests. Usually I try to do everything when it's still green, but it's not the end of the world if it turns grey.

That's what I found too. On a (fairly) completionist game, (trying to do everything, but not grinding and not going out of my way to find every single monster), I was hitting 34. On what I described to myself as a "Witcherly" playthrough (Main quests, help out your friends, do monster-related quests if they were close by and someone was paying), I hit the same level, because the amount of XP I got for each quest compensated for doing much fewer quests and virtually no random monster-kills (unless they attacked me when I was riding past).

Which then comes down to "Do you think that's a good thing or a bad thing?". There's no right or wrong answer to that. Some will think it's a point in the game's favour, others that it's a major criticism.

 

[Sunsibar]

do monster-related quests if they were close by and someone was paying)

I forgot to mention those with my quick run... But those were very few, like you said, I also did them if they were nicely near or otherwise easy and quick.

 

[Paul_cz]

Witcher 3 is quite unique in that its quests are so good that they are worth playing for their own sake. Even if there was no XP reward and no loot reward, the quest itself, its story etc, is so good it is its own reward. So do not mind any quests going grey - the game is balanced so that you will not be overlevelled, and it will stay fun all the way. Sure some quests will be easy, but still great fun. Do them all.

 

[jon7882]

The game is already too easy. The exception being you can challenge yourself and always take quests above your level, but unlike the last two games, systems aren't in place to prevent such fights from becoming eternal slogs with ridiculous HP on the enemies. They only got difficulty right with HoS on Death March imo.

Maybe for you. But even with expirenced gamers one mans "easy" is another mans "hard." Everyone has a different handicap when or skill level with gaming regardless if they've been gaming for 5 years or 30. It's not always the system it's the preference of the person playing and as someone else pointed out the game was meant to be played in a non linear fashion.

 

[iCake]

Maybe for you. But even with expirenced gamers one mans "easy" is another mans "hard." Everyone has a different handicap when or skill level with gaming regardless if they've been gaming for 5 years or 30. It's not always the system it's the preference of the person playing and as someone else pointed out the game was meant to be played in a non linear fashion.

This talk would have been perfectly on point, were it not for one simple thing. There are different difficulties in this game. If you choose the last one, you're not supposed to cake walk through it. Your skill level is irrelevant in this case, if you find deathmarch too difficult, lower the difficulty. But what happens if the deathmarch is too easy? Then you're screwed, you won't get the challenge you were hoping for.

Now there is the point, when it comes to difficulties, they should be balanced out to suit the majority of players that are most likely to choose a particular level of challenge, individual players are irrelevant in this case. Judging how many people have complained that the deathmarch is too easy, the devs have failed to deliver it right for this group of people.