Andrzej Kwiatkowski was Senior Gameplay Designer on both Witcher 2 and 3 and is author of the Full Combat Rebalance Mod for Witcher 2, and now he's released a full "immersion" mod for Witcher 3. The mod offers a range of tweaks and gameplay balances to make the game more believable and to better fit with the universe. Details below.
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You can find the mod and full Changelog over at Nexus Mods. While there are a lot of great mods out there for the game, not many come from actual developers of The Witcher 3. Andrzej had this to say about what his mod offers:
"This 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."
Basically it adds tweaks and changes to make the game feel, if not more realistic, then more in keeping with the Witcher universe and less game-y. Furthermore as designer on Witcher 3, Andrzej has more of an idea of what the team were aiming to do with certain things but had to compromise on - he's restored a lot of those to make more sense. Here's a few examples of things the mod changes:
- 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.
- Buffed sorceress and witcher followers damage. These are the most powerful characters in the setting, you should feel that now.
- 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.
- 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.
- Moon Dust bombs block abilities of cursed monsters and shapeshifters. These monsters are especially vulnerable to silver.
And a lot more.
The mod can simply be installed and uninstalled once downloaded, so you just need a copy of The Witcher 3 to use it. You can find the Witcher 2 Combat Rebalance Mod right here if you'd like to try that too.
Both of these are the type of mods we can really get behind. Not necessarily more realistic, like requiring characters to eat and drink, but just to make it closer to The Witcher books than the game could manage. Will you be trying it out? Let us know below!
