I ran into this:


I wonder if the graphical glitch with river (just above Geralt's head) is in game on windows or if it is something caused by dxvk.

This shot was taken from the southernmost mountain range of Ard Skellig looking approximately north, but when high up I saw similar glitches in the ocean as well.

Last edited by Ehvis on 9 Jan 2020 at 5:34 pm UTC

If you can upload a save somewhere, I can check how it looks on my setup.

Last edited by Shmerl on 9 Jan 2020 at 5:43 pm UTC

Moved on from there. I'd have to go back and make one.

Skillwise NG+ is problematic, because you only have so many slots for skills, and soon you have them filled, so new levels don't really matter.

From what I've heard, expansions give an option to add more skill slots somehow (some mutation attribute).


UPDATE: see: https://witcher.gamepedia.com/Mutations

With that comment I meant the normal skill slots that you get from more levels, where you only have twelve 'slots', if I remember correct. It's not like in e.g. Witcher 1 where you add more and more abilities as you level up. That probably also means the end game isn't a walk in the park, at least not in NG+, but it's also a little disappointing to have so many skill points with no real use for them. Sure, you can swap out depending on what you face, but I never bother with that. Would bore me to tears.

There is also the runewright thingy, but it looks very underwhelming to me. And I'm not sure if it would take one of the 'normal' slots of more powerful Quen or whatever. Should probably look into that. It's also possible to ADD slots on e.g. swords, though, which is nice if you happen to have a good one.

Is Aerondight really better than Witcher gear, though? I've not found it yet in any case, so must be a very late game thing.

I've found the bonuses from Witcher gear to be rather underwhelming as well tbh, because it hasn't applied yet. I'm yet to get the last version of the gear, and it only applies when I do. Looks kinda poor anyway though, so no big deal really. I'm using the Griffin stuff, which fits quite well with my playstyle (although I don't use signs much any more, so err... yeah).

Has been fun to try out some genuinely new stuff, where I don't know what happens. Unusually empty journal, but maybe that's just how it is now. Few but longs quests instead of many fairly small-sized ones. I'll see what happens as I move forward. Barely scratched the surface so far. Or so I hope.. :)

Btw, better use the community Wiki: https://witcher.gamepedia.com

There is a whole story behind it (split from Wikia and etc.).

As for Aerondight, I've heard it's in the game (didn't get to it yet), but I was surprised it actually wasn't imported from TW2 save. I had it all the way from TW1, since it was given to Geralt by Lady of the Lake.

The sad thing here is that now Gamepedia has been bought by Wikia (and the horrifically idiotic Fandom name, holy shit), but thankfully still exists as a separate entity. They can't really say much I guess, but given what happened in the past, the reason for the split, I'd be quite amazed if the employees weren't more than a little upset about the whole thing.

Thankfully with uBlock and suchlike extensions it's easy to block out some things, like that god-awful and butt ugly oversized footer the Gamepedia wikis got forced upon them.

Still, though, it's almost impossible to find the Gamepedia wikis by searching. You basically have to know they exist, and enter the URL directly. So strange.

With that comment I meant the normal skill slots that you get from more levels, where you only have twelve 'slots', if I remember correct.

The above link explains it a bit:

Strengthened Synapses is a special mutation, that develops automatically as you finish research on other mutations.

This mutation has several levels. Each time it gains a level, an additional Ability slot is unlocked in the Character Panel. The color of Ability which can be placed in a slot must match the color of the active mutation, so if a blue mutation is active, you can only activate a blue Ability, and so on. Yellow mutations are an exception -- when a yellow mutation is activated, you can use any Ability from the Combat, Alchemy or Signs groups.

Is Aerondight really better than Witcher gear, though? I've not found it yet in any case, so must be a very late game thing.

The sword has a hit counter that does more damage as the counter gets higher, up to 10 (critical hit at this point). When you get the blade in Blood and Wine, it's at 585 dmg... By the time I finished the game, it scaled up to 638 and there is still the hit counter that does more damage. Quite a good blade.

I've found the bonuses from Witcher gear to be rather underwhelming as well tbh, because it hasn't applied yet. I'm yet to get the last version of the gear, and it only applies when I do. Looks kinda poor anyway though, so no big deal really. I'm using the Griffin stuff, which fits quite well with my playstyle (although I don't use signs much any more, so err... yeah).

Personnally I always end my runs (got 3 of them) with the Viper school gears that you may find in Hearts of Stone expansion. It's the nicest looking, imo and it's still really serviceable by the end of the game... Yet, it's a matter of taste, at this point, and since I'm not a "strong attack" user, the heavy gear you may find aplenty in Blood & Wine doesn't really fit my play style.

Last edited by Mohandevir on 9 Jan 2020 at 7:40 pm UTC

I usually use medium armor (didn't get to Wolven, so using Griffin now), it fits what you'd expect from the regular Witcher style (swords and signs, without losing stamina on heavy armor). Strangely, Wolven armor for lower levels isn't accessible at all (all quests indicate it's in Kaer Morhen).

I usually use medium armor (didn't get to Wolven, so using Griffin now), it fits what you'd expect from the regular Witcher style (swords and signs, without losing stamina on heavy armor). Strangely, Wolven armor for lower levels isn't accessible at all (all quests indicate it's in Kaer Morhen).

Yeah... The Grand Masters, the Viper school gears and Wolven Witcher gears were not part of the original game. It might explain the "anomaly". It makes sense to find the starter Wolven gear set in Kaer Morhen but in the game's chronology, it's weird...

This said, I always start with Griffin armor, then Wolven and I finish with Viper. In my first run, I used the Feline School instead of Griffin. Not a bad set either.

Is it obvious that it's my favorite game? :D

Last edited by Mohandevir on 9 Jan 2020 at 8:19 pm UTC

The bonus of Griffin is a decent boost to all signs, but primarily I like boost to Quen (especially if you add Griffin school ability).

Last edited by Shmerl on 9 Jan 2020 at 8:20 pm UTC

I don't use Igni against people; it looks far too cruel.
(Chopping people in half is OK, though -- because it looks funny, more than anything else. Over the top fictional violence has always seemed to me to be a type of slapstick comedy; though with burning alive it's somehow different.)

Like these poor chaps?




I sometimes run into an odd issue where the game becomes much too dark. It becomes difficult to see much of anything inside buildings, and I will quite regularly have to use a torch to move around, despite most buildings having light sources of one type or another. Perhaps it's a driver issue or something, rather than with the game, because it tends to fix itself after a computer restart. Don't know what triggers it, though. Here is one example.


I noticed it one time, during storm going on outside. I wonder if it's a dxvk bug.

Interesting interactive map: https://www.witchernetflix.com

Gotta admit this amused me. Geralt talking about Roach:



Breaking the fourth wall, kinda, but still :P

Due to exactly that, and Roach having a real hard tendency to take the wrong path at every single crossroad, big or small, I mostly prefer to run wherever I need to go (unless it's really far, with no quick travel in sight).

This is basically wiki related, as I tend to write a little bit there while going through the game, if I happen to spot any missing or incorrect info. https://witcher.gamepedia.com/User_talk:Game_widow#Ingredients_from_dismantling

From what I can see, all the game files are "cooked" and placed in a heap of bundles, making it impossible to directly check xml files for values and so forth (typically very easy in Unity made games, at least if the developer is mod friendly, like for RimWorld). Found some info about this process, but it's for exe files. Obviously I'm on a Linux only system. Do you know if it's possible/easy to "uncook" the game files on Linux?

Game widow, the admin on the wiki, said it wasn't easy to get the info I needed from the XML files either way, but it would perhaps be worth to take a look at least. However, if they only use ID numbers and I'd have to chase down a string of files just to get at ingredients, that's a TON more work than I will bother for this.

I do wish the game itself listed dismantling ingredients correctly though. It just lists the different ingredients, but not the amounts. Meaning it would be a colossal pain to do this manually in-game.

I uncooked some files before using Wine and ModKit. Some details here.

And thanks for contributing to the Wiki! Looks like a lot of contributors deserted to Fandom these days. I actually wanted to make a Witcher wiki page about extracting music, but didn't get to it yet.

Last edited by Shmerl on 12 Jan 2020 at 9:13 pm UTC

I've finally started playing the game properly. Got to Skellige for the first time today, really love the icy theme




Skellige is nice. Explore the mountains a bit for some "snowboarding" fun. See some posts above.

I uncooked some files before using Wine and ModKit. Some details here.

And thanks for contributing to the Wiki! Looks like a lot of contributors deserted to Fandom these days. I actually wanted to make a Witcher wiki page about extracting music, but didn't get to it yet.

Thanks. Perhaps I'll try to look into it, but I suspect it will be a lot of work for little progress. But like I wrote there, if I spot anything else that is wrong, I can update pages as I go. I know from experience that trying to mass-check hundreds of files for correctness quickly turns into thousands of files and days upon endless days of work. I've been down that rabbit hole several times on different wikis.

Surprised if people are migrating to the 10 pixels wide wiki. Haven't showered yet today, so I took the chance of checking it out. Looks as horrible as it always has, and I didn't even find a recent changes link anywhere. But then I do use uBlock, Ghostery and NoScript (everybody should), so perhaps something didn't work. In any case, the official wiki is certainly a lot more user friendly. And I hope Wikia won't eventually assassinate all Gamepedia wikis and "steal" the content. That takeover was such horrible, terrible news :(

Well, I've seen some taking my articles, and just copying them there before, so I'm surely not impressed by Fandom wiki :)

You can see changes there in Explore > Wiki Activity.

I'm somewhat surprised, that contributors like SMiki55 moved there.

Last edited by Shmerl on 13 Jan 2020 at 7:44 am UTC