Just wanted to add one thing that really bugged me about late game on vanilla DM. I was fighting this huge fiend and I was trying to power through the night to finish Act 2. My wheelchair seat was tilted back, I was basically lying down like you would in one of those comfy armchairs. I kept making ridiculous mistakes and I was still able to beat the boss-type fiend on the Isle of Mists.
I think this describes my problem with the vanilla Death March, by the final act I'd completely forgotten that I chose this punishing difficulty and I was playing the game like Zynga Poker on a sleepless night
Whatever your opinion is, this is not the way the hardest difficulty should work
Let me reiterate my previous tips (For PC gamers) based on countless hours of playtesting on my part.:
The Better Combat mod - This gives you a challenging experience where you can still make a mistake or two but ultimately you are always punished. This mod augments every difficulty level differently so you can turn it down a notch if need be. Use the Better Combat mode on Death March if you like epic boss battles like me but you arent necessarily a gaming ninja -
http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/167/?
.
Ucross' Hardcore Mod If you are a legit pro and think that quen should be basically outlawed
, use the Ucross Hardcore mod. On top of harsh new stamina regen rules and a punishing potion rebalancing It also nerfsthe gold yielded from item sales by a staggering 90%, all in order to make your in-game jobs much more relevant. It gives you an extreme combat experience where you really have to get the positioning and timing 100% right. Let me just say, I can appreciate Ucross' vision but ultimately this one was way too hard for me -
http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/139/?
Turn up the XP requirement by 10% manually or use the Ursine version of the
Better Experience Curve mod. Either of those will force a completionist approach on you and overlevelling will not be a big issue for completionists any more -
http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/178/?
Any of those 3 mods will make your Witcher experience fundamentally better. Personally I'm now playing on a combo of Better Combat Death March and a 10% adjustment to the leveling up system. I can personally guarantee that this combination will make TW3 a completely different experience where you actually reminisce epic boss encounters
This game is not fundamentally broken as some suggest, it's just balanced badly for experienced gamers. If you have a PC go ahead and fix it. It is really worth it.