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Andrzej Kwiatkowski is game designer who worked on Witcher 2 and 3 and is the author of Full Combat Rebalance for Witcher 2. Yesterday, he released a a gameplay and immersion mod for Witcher 3. Below is the mod's description.
Posted by1 year ago
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FCR3 - Immersion and Gameplay Tweaks by Andrzej Kwiatkowski
Hey, I'm a senior gameplay designer and I worked on The Witcher3 and both expansion packs. This mod used to be a personal set of tweaks and fixes meant to spice up my first The Witcher 3 playthrough after releasing the game. Being in creation for more than half a year and enjoyed during >300h playthrough I thought that I might share it with witcher community. Mod doesn't aim for any deep and intrusive changes, instead it is meant to maintain original feeling of the game, sometimes going closer to original intention behind the designs. It focuses mainly on fixing immersion breakers, buffing underperforming skills and items, cosmetic changes and bugfixing. It also fixes few instances of items and abilities that made Geralt (nearly) immortal and removed all the challenge from the game.
Installation
Because mod affects character development, Geralt's abilities will be reset and skillpoints returned just as in case of free respec. It also comes with few compatibility fixes for other mods that I've been playing with.
Compatibility fixes
Full mod in version working with Nitpicker's Patch by CHC (full mod installation, don't use together with main file) hotfix for Friendly HUD by wghost81 (use together with full mod) hotfix for Friendly HUD by wghost81 plus All Quest Objectives On Map by Wolfmark (use together with full mod)
Uninstallation
To return to vanilla character development after uninstalling the mod, please install 'uninstallation' package, load and resave savegames affected by FCR3. This should revert all of the mod changes and provide you with another free respec. After resaving the savegame you need to remove uninstallation package or it will keep respecing Geralt each time you load the game.
Known issues
Newly picked up crossbow bolts will have incorrectly calculated item level. Level will correct itself on each transition between maps, loading of saved game and Geralt’s level up. Maybe I’ll fix this issue at some point but the whole bolt damage scaling feature was a real pain to implement and I’m just tired of debugging it at the moment. In character sheet padlocks visualizing locked rows of skills show incorrect level needed to unlock the row. Unfortunately these values are hardcoded in Flash and I cannot modify them in a mod. This is a cosmetic issue that doesn’t affect gameplay.
List of modified strings for translation to other languages
1177865, 1071085, 1071086, 1177864, 1177863, 1135386, 1136195, 1135401, 1138659, 1135396, 1188321, 1188311, 1188313, 1064023, 1064024, 1064025, 1081470, 1081488, 1081489, 1066921, 1136201, 1087553, 1129122
CHANGELOG
Immersion
Bunch of features that added to ‘wow’ factor and changes for things that bothered me.
• Metamorphosis mutation effect 'Witcher Senses now increase visibility in dark places without the use of potions works' works without the mutation. In combat it works automatically, while outside of combat it can be activated in focus mode. Witchers see in the dark. All of them, no potions needed. It’s in lore.
• Added reaction to stealing for commoners. There are two severities of reactions and two results for each of them depending on npc AI. Commoners will react depending on the priority of tasks they are undergoing at the moment. The effect is that some of the npcs will ignore you stealing stuff, others will call you out on it, some will just stare. There will be also rare cases when someone will be become intimidated, cover in fear or possibly run away. The effect is especially visible in Novigrad, less in Skellige and least in Toussaint, where even guards ignore player stealing.
• Increased minimal height from which fall damage starts to be applied.
• Made Ciri immune to damage while she's performing special 'teleport' charged attack. Could be considered as a bugfix.
• Allied NPCs (followers) deal full damage to enemies (used to deal minimal damage).
• Buffed sorceress and witcher followers damage. These are the most powerful characters in the setting, you should feel that now.
• Reduced level bonus of guards from player level plus random 11-13 to player level plus random 0-5. A random guard shouldn't pose a threat to legendary witcher.
• Sped up animations of flying monsters falling down after being shot from the sky.
• Added fall damage on ground contact for monsters that were shot from the sky. Damage depends on the height from which they fall.
• Allowed to bounce majority of the physical projectiles with Aard hit.
• Signs buffed by Flood of Anger skill cause enemy explosive dismemberment on kill.
• Sorceresses now dismember enemies on kill.
• Fixed majority of rare cases where Geralt jumped after hitting ground while playing death animation.
• Fixed some of the cases for sorceresses where spell visual effect remained on hand after combat. Still not sure if all instances were fixed but should be better.
Character development
Multiple changes that aim at bringing back the original intended feeling to character development and alchemy builds. Initially skills were designed as a single point investments. The excess of skillpoints player was given was meant to encourage swapping skills depending on the enemies and situations. To bring back that feeling max levels of skills were reduced giving more bang for the buck instead of small percent increases. Additionally there are few changes bringing high toxicity Euphoria build down to be on par with other builds and buffs for mutations that didn’t feel strong or unique enough.
• Decreased skills max levels (most had 5, now 3) and adjusted stats to retain the same balance. Utility skills like slowdown on aiming now have only 1 level.
• Nerfed Acquired Tolerance skill to grant 0.5 Toxicity point per level to prevent safe activation of more than 3 decoctions at the same time in end game.
• Quen doesn't remove damage over time effects on cast, instead it protects player while DoTs consume the shield. Resistances on armors should matter more now.
• Reduced healing from damage on alternate Quen from 100% of received damage to 0.1 * damage * Spell Power. This mechanic was clearly overpowered and made player nearly immortal.
• Decreased toxicity overdose damage threshold from 75 to 50. That was the initial original idea for toxicity handling encouraging player to take risk and correctly time potion use.
• Equalized out of combat and combat toxicity drop rate (used to be twice as fast).
• Crippling Strikes skill: Deals regular bleeding effect damage that cannot go below the dmg value specified in skill description. Also effect duration was increased from 5 to 10 seconds to match the duration of regular bleeding. General idea is that effect originating from skill shouldn't be weaker than bleeding from item.
• Adrenaline Rush mutation: When at maximum Vitality, Adrenaline Points drop after 4s delay. Introduced new potential skill combos and play styles instead of another percentage damage buff.
• Deadly Counter mutation: A counterattack immediately triggers a finisher with a chance based on the number of Adrenaline Points. Opponents immune to counterattacks are not affected. Used to work only on opponents below 25% health.
• Toxic Blood mutation: doubled the returned damage value (3% per toxicity point, was 1.5%) to compensate for reducing maximum achievable toxicity.
NPCs
Couple of bugfixes and removing arbitrary stat bonuses.
• Removed huge arbitrary stat buffs on enemies with skull icons. They are already higher level than player, that alone makes them more difficult.
• Allowed to parry and counterattack enemies with skull icons.
• Fixed leshen root damage being a fixed value throughout the whole game. It's taken from his melee attack damage so it scales with enemy level.
• Made bird swarm attacks ignore armor. Leshen bird attacks dealt zero damage starting from mid-game.
• Fixed sprigan's root ground attack dealing no damage.
• Restored monster essence (silver health bar) regeneration (mostly for werewolves). It was temporarily disabled at some point in implementation and never brought back.
• Fixed discrepancies between NG+ and base game xml files, like missing ability definitions, ability tags, etc. These potentially caused minor bugs in enemy stats in NG+.
• Rats are not affected by enemy upscaling option.
General items
Bunch of small changes that put more emphasis on some of the gameplay mechanics that didn’t work as originally intended due to balancing issues.
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• Increased random range of item levels rolled for quest rewards. You might end up with an item you cannot use yet, but at least you'll get a guaranteed upgrade on level up.
• Increased stat debuff on damaged items. Value depends on game difficulty level with 50% debuff on highest difficulty. Repairing items matter now.
• Increased amount of gold given in quests where it made sense (Baron should be more generous, etc.). Didn't touch the mini-quests.
• Reduced the amount of healing per second from food but increased healing duration. Overall it's a slight buff for food without Gourmet perk and a significant nerf with it. Swallow and White Raffard potions are intended healing in combat, not chicken sandwiches.
Witcher sets
Changes are focused on fixing near immortality issue coming from high rending (monster) damage reduction combined with Protective Coating skill. Also there are two sets partially focusing on buffing alchemy builds. Mod moves alchemy bonuses to Manticore set making it a dedicated alchemy set and introduces new bonuses and playstyle to Wolven set. I remember reading about the idea of Wolven set built around bleeding damage on Witcher Reddit, so cheers to the Reddit community.
• Scaled down monster damage resistance on witcher armors where applicable. Upgraded witcher sets used in conjunction with Protective Coating oil used to reach 100% rending damage reduction (some damage still passed due to resistance cap). That shouldn't be the case now. For details on numbers check attached images.
• Enabled grandmaster set bonuses on all witcher sets items in New Game+.
• Moved 3 item Wolven set bonus (bombs are thrown without a delay) and merged it with 3 item Manticore set bonus (bombs are affected by critical hit chance and critical hit damage).
• Reduced Manticore set Toxicity bonus from 30 (and more on NG+) to 20, to prevent safe activation of more than 3 decoctions at the same time in end game.
• Moved 6 item Wolven set bonus (3 different oils can be applied to a sword) to Fixative alchemy skill. Should make Fixative skill a more interesting choice in character development.
• New Wolven set 3 item bonus: Each stack of Bleeding effect applied to enemies increases sword damage by 1% for each piece of the set.
• New Wolven set 6 item bonus: Each Adrenaline Point increases number of possible stacks of Bleeding effect that can be applied to single opponent. With new set bonuses Wolven set tries to fulfil the fantasy of specialized Damage over Time build working well in conjunction with buffed Crippling Strikes skill.
Item upgrades
Buffed every runeword and glyphword about which I thought “I’d never use that when I have that other, better choice”. Beside buffing, Possession runeword had its effect changed because there used to be 2 glyphwords buffing Axii in different ways and 3rd being a sum of previous two, so it just wasn’t interesting enough.
• Rejuvenation runeword: Fatal blows restore 100% stamina (was 25%).
• Dumplings runeword: changed duration bonus to 5x increase in healing speed. With this buff food brought back to the same healing speed as in vanilla game while also having significantly increased effect duration.
• Elation runeword: Fatal blows give 1 Adrenaline point (was 0.1 to 0.25).
• Prolongation runeword: Unblocked blows increases potion duration by 1s (was 0.5s)
• Ignition glyphword: Enemies set alight with Igni have a 100% chance to ignite other enemies within a 2 yard radius. (was 25% chance)
• Rotation glyphword: Igni strikes in a 360 radius (removed 'but doesn't induce Burning' tradeoff). When I read 360 radius I thought “cool!”, then I read “but doesn’t induce Burning” and I thought “aww, but that tradeoff makes it useless”.
• Possession glyphword, new effect: When effect of Axii ends, opponent receives damage dependent on effect duration and Sign intensity. Spent long time balancing the damage potential. It’s a nice bonus when you don’t invest in Sign intensity and a killer when you do. It’s very effective at the cost of waiting - you could finish off enemies faster by other means. As a bonus eye candy, enemies that die to Possession effect explode.
• Retribution glyphword: 100% chance for half damage returned (was 30% chance for ⅔ damage returned). A small damage nerf in exchange for consistency and reliability. When you allow yourself to be hit to deal damage, you want it to be reliable, not bet on random chance.
• Eruption glyphword: explosion deals the same damage as rotfiend's explosion added to original damage. Used to be only 50 dmg multiplied by Sign intensity.
• Depletion glyphword: casting Aard depletes enemy’s stamina (was 50% stamina damage). The idea behind the glyphword was to allow player to overcome enemy defence even if he didn’t manage to knock him down (stamina is used for offensive and defensive actions). With just 50% stamina damage enemies could still parry after casting Aard, so it didn’t feel like it made any difference.
Bombs
Bombs deal a decent amount of damage up to the middle of main game and then they fall behind Signs and sword damage becoming useless as damage dealers in end game, both expansions and NG+. These changes aim to make bombs a perfectly viable build if player chooses to invest enough skill points in alchemy build.
• Beside increasing potion duration each active alchemy skill also increases damage of bombs by 5% per skill level.
• Added DoT value scaling with enemy max health on top of existing damage value to Devil's Puffball bomb. This is how majority of other DoTs work in the game.
• Heavy Artillery damage bonus acts as a final damage multiplier calculated after bonus from alchemy skills.
• Doubled damage values of bombs and Pyromancy skill in NG+.
• Moon Dust bombs block abilities of cursed monsters and shapeshifters. These monsters are especially vulnerable to silver.
• Northern Wind bombs block rotfiend enemy types explosive deaths.
Crossbow
Beside the cosmetic improvements the main intention is to make crossbow damage useful but not competing with swords, Signs and bombs unless you invest in crossbow related skills and use high quality bolts.
• Crossbow bolt's damage scales with player level. Damage is dependent on bolt quality.
• Slowed down crossbow bolts when shot underwater.
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• Increased crossbow bolts range from 25m to 50m when not underwater.
Potions
Didn’t like the way Blizzard potion was triggered. It was useless in 1v1 monster hunts and boss fights. I wanted to remedy that.
• Blizzard potion now activates slow motion when Geralt is in danger, no need to kill an enemy anymore. To compensate, effect's strength and duration was slightly decreased. Blizzard should be more consistent and easy to use now but also not that overpowered.
• Cat potion grants 5% crit chance bonus. A little bonus that should make Cat potion a bit more useful.
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Geralt of Rivia has been in our midst for four years now, so let’s take a look at the best mods for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Tf2 what is vintage.
The Witcher 3 is one of the best RPGs out there and still looks incredible on PC, but if you have grown weary of watching Geralt’s beard quivering in the wind then perhaps it’s time to install a few mods.
Mods can do weird and wonderful things to games, as well as make enhancements to combat, environmental textures and other things that the community thought was lacking.
There are mods that allow you to fast travel from any point on the map, ones that show every single object if you like to really test your eyesight, and mods that make The Witcher 3 a bit of a gore fest.
We’ll also take a look at how you go about installing mods if this is your first foray into modding a game. Let me be the first to congratulate you on choosing the correct game to mod.
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The Witcher 3: best mods
How to install mods
The easiest way to install mods would be to use the Nexus Mods Manager. It goes as far as installing any updates to the mods you use and makes the whole process a bit less daunting.
You can also install mods manually if it’s something you feel confident in doing and could use something like Script Merger to make sure you don’t accidentally break your game forever.
Depending on your set up, you might already be playing on ultra high settings and getting the best out of The Witcher 3. This mod enhances the textures environment around you and that of some animals and creatures, making The Witcher 3 feel even more real.
These fine touches really make cutscenes all the more vibrant and realistic as the textures of wooden houses, rocks and plants have been improved.
This mod reminded me of one from TES 4: Oblivion in that it just makes everything that bit sharper and more pleasant to look at.
This mod is as simple as it is brilliant. It removes the requirement of visiting a signpost in order to fast travel. Instead, you can choose a point on the map and transport there no matter where you are. Stuck in a boat off the coast of Ard Skellig? Just open up your map, choose a destination and away you go.
The Witcher 3’s map is busy as it is and it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the volume of activities. For those of you who are easily distracted from the main quest by side missions, this could be the mod for you.
This mod allows you to select and track more than one quest at any given time. You can also change your priority task from the map instead of going through the quest log.
Merchant locations can also be cached to make them easier to find.
Now that you’ve sharpened up your surroundings and fast travelled back to the mainland, it’s time to install a mod that lets you soak up the world around you.
Friendly Meditation lets you meditate in real time, watching the weather change and the sun rising or setting. Many players complained they missed this feature and didn’t like just watching the hands on the sundial move forward, so this mod is perfect if you want to watch the world go by as you rest.
Photo modes are increasingly popular in triple-A titles these days. My favourite one can be found in God of War where you can force Kratos to have an overbearing grin. Oz the great and powerful full movie download in hindi 480p.
While you can’t pose Geralt with this photo mode, you can freeze the game and spawn certain weather conditions to add some flair. The camera spins 360 degrees and you can even make yourself and the HUD invisible to capture the perfect shot.
Even the most experienced Witchers occasionally forget to oil their sword before combat. This mod scans the enemies around you and applies the appropriate oil to your sword. All you need to do now is draw your sword, hit Quen and dive into battle.
If – like me – you simply must pick up every lootable object in sight, then this mod will make the task less laborious.
You can filter what kinds of items you want to automatically pick up and what you want to leave behind, so you won’t end up with as much junk in your inventory. Or, you can set it to pick up everything because you’re a hoarder and that’s how you like it.
It’s only logical, then, that we include a mod that will let you carry everything you want. By now you’ll have found a decent amount of merchants and can fast travel directly to them to sell off your goods.
These mods are very useful in the opening hours of The Witcher 3 as you’ll have loads to trade and can earn a lot of gold quite quickly.
This mod was created by one of The Witcher 3 devs, Andrzej Kwiatkowski. It comes with a bunch of tweaks, nerfs and buffs that make the game much more balanced but also far more dangerous.
If you’re looking for a good overhaul of the major systems in The Witcher 3 then this mod is perfect.
I’ve put as many hours into playing Gwent as I have the main storyline and side quests in The Witcher 3. It can be slow at the start to build up a decent deck and not lose to every merchant you plays a quick round of Gwent with you. Luckily, this mod turns the Bloody Baron’s quartermaster into a Gwent card dealer who sells almost every card in the game.
Now you can smash the Baron and whoever else decides to challenge you at Gwent and become the Gwent master you always wanted to be.
If you want to savour the moment when Geralt successfully decapitates a bandit, then look no further than this mod.
When Geralt lands a critical hit, time slows down to show off how brutal his attacks can be. You could pair this with KNGR’s More Blood mod which makes a bit gory mess. Brilliant.
If playing on Deathmarch isn’t enough for you, then you might want to check out this mod.
Enemies of Rivia scales up enemy combat to a ridiculous degree. As enemies level with you, they’ll display new combat behaviours and attacks, making battles much more challenging and varied.
If you’ve managed to bag Grandmaster Ursine gear then this mod is really going to shake things up for you as you won’t be anywhere near as overpowered.
The CD Projekt Red E3 2014 showcased a battle between Geralt and a water hag with what was deemed the perfect dodge system. For one reason or another, the dodge system was overhauled for release, adding in a few more pirouettes and flair.
This mod recreates the dodge system from the E3 showcase, keeping the rest of the combat much the same. It makes targets easier to hit as Geralt and his sword are always pointing forward, as opposed to rolling away and facing the other direction accidentally.
Eating food during or after battles is a great way to regain health, particularly if you have the Gourmet perk active. You can always hunt game and sell their meat for a small profit.
If you’re tired of running around looking for animals to kill, this mod will increase the loot dropped by animals. You could end up with half a dozen bear skins in one go, so it’s lucky you installed that weight increase mod early, eh?
Must Have Witcher 3 Mods
If repairing weapons is too laborious a task for you, then this mod should make your playthrough a little easier. The entire weapon degradation system is pulled from the game with this mod, which means you won’t need to waste precious kits on repairing broken weapons before selling them.
It’s a relatively small change in comparison to some of the other mods on this list, but it’s a welcome one nonetheless.
If you’ve played through New Game+ on Deathmarch a few times and are looking for an even bigger challenge, then check out the Enhanced Edition mod.
It adds new animations, new ways to charge and flank your enemy and even new ways to parry. Every attack has a chance of causing you and your enemy an injury, so you might end up with a broken arm or leg depending on what happens.
You’ll also see major changes in alchemy, signs, the levelling up systems and certain items. It’s a big mod so we’d recommend making sure you have no other mods installed before attempting to install the Enhanced Edition. We don’t want you to break your game.
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This is not the Witcher 3 I played. In the game I remember, Geralt whirled and twirled his way through combat, magnetising to the nearest enemy. Combat wasn't always easy, and it did have some depth--I had fun wading into crowds of enemies, dodging and rolling out of the way, and buffing up with potions before big fights. But I was always disappointed with the limitations of The Witcher 3's skill upgrade system, and upgrading gear and the Quen sign made late-game battles less challenge, more race to see how fast I could decapitate every monster or thug in sight. The Witcher 3 Enhanced Edition does not play like that. And for anyone who was turned off by The Witcher 3's vanilla combat, this mod might be just what they need to enjoy one of the best games of all time.
Here's the pitch for The Witcher 3 Enhanced Edition, from the mod page: '[Insert generic sales pitch here.]' Okay, well, that doesn't help us at all. Let me take a crack at it: W3EE comes from a team of modders who couldn't stand the vanilla game's combat, and so they set out to fix it by removing autotargeting, adding new animations, new ways to parry attacks, the ability to control the distance of every swing, inflicting and taking injuries to body parts like the head and legs, and a whole slew of new stats that affect damage, speed, etc. And that's just the combat stuff.
What makes Witcher 3 Enhanced Edition a really interesting mod, even if you were fine with the original combat system like I was, is that it completely removes the concept of leveling from the game. Every item, enemy, everything out there in the world has a set level from the get-go. As you'd expect from a mod this big, signs, inventory, and especially alchemy have been radically changed as well. Here are some of the highlights:
'Gameplay and Exploration: There are absolutely no things in the game that are leveled anymore. Not the equipment, not the quests, not the enemies and not even Geralt. You can explore anywhere and take on anything at the beginning of the game with the potential to be successful in your endeavors instead of being completely barred from content. Geralt's progression happens organically through gameplay by using his innate abilities, like performing fast and heavy attacks, blocking, countering, creating alchemical items, casting signs, etc. These all increase the skill progression of their respective paths, granting you talent points for use ONLY in that path. If you brew many potions, you will be good at brewing potions. Makes sense.
'Talents: Talents have been majorly overhauled and rebalanced. Most combat talents were changed, along with half of alchemy ones and a couple of the sign ones. They are active as soon as unlocked and they only need to be equipped to synergize with mutagens.You can preview the later talent levels by highlighting it and using the contextual buttons displayed on the bottom of the screen.
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'Poise: Poise is the stat which dictates resistance to stagger. Both the player and enemies have it. It is calculated based on armor worn, available health, red mutagens, toxicity, etc. Higher poise means a higher chance to resist stagger from an incoming light attack (and possibly heavy attacks too, later on).'
That's just a portion of the many changes Enhanced Edition makes, like adding different size enemies and giving enemies armor and more aggressive AI, and giving every alchemy ingredient a set of base components that can be used interchangeably.
But you get the idea. It looks like the same game, but a few seconds into combat and it feels very different. The simple lack of magnetism on attacks meant most of my early swings sliced through the air in front of me. A pack of random nekkers posed a real threat. But I liked the feel of pressing Ctrl or Alt to modify an attack's distance, helping me close gaps and dance behind an enemy to slash them without taking damage. There's suddenly a stiff skill curve here, and not one primarily dictated by what level I am compared to my enemies.
My favorite thing about the original Witcher was how essential potions and oils were to defeating its monsters. That was a hard-ass game, and hard in a way that utterly sold the idea of Witchers and the power of their mutagens.
Witcher 3 Enhanced Edition feels like it brings that back, and then some. The mod has been in development since last year, but recently hit its v2.5 release, and one member of the mod team posted a new video showing off the combat in more depth.
This is all a long way of saying: if you felt like you needed an excuse to spend a hundred hours playing The Witcher 3 again, now you have one. You can grab Enhanced Edition on Nexus Mods here. We also have a full list of the best Witcher 3 mods if you need even more goodies.
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