The Witcher 3 - Any player agency?

So I'm finally home from a long tour overseas, and have dived into my backlog of the last six months. First up was The Witcher 3. Gotta say, I had big expectations for this game, and so far, it's pretty much as good as I'd hoped.

Still, there's one thing I'm left wondering, is there any real player agency in this game? I'm currently level 11, and I've spent a lot of hours in the game, mainly doing side missions, and progressing the story when I run out of current level side missions.

Story wise I'm at the point where I have two leads for finding Ciri. I've completed the three-part quest for that sorceress, and she's on her way to Kaer Morhen (think that's right). Instead of going to those witches in the bog, I rolled into the Bloody Baron lead that I had, and I've just found out that his wife was taken by some monster. On a side note, I have to say that this quest is turning out to be that special kind of grim, beautiful tragedy that I've come to expect from The Witcher series. I fucking hate the Bloody Baron, and at the same time kinda feel sorry for him. Oh, and that baby thingy, fucking disgusting.

Anyway, back to the matter at hand. So far, I feel like I've not really had much control over the story. I can't really look back at a lot of points in the story and go "wonder what would have happened if I went right instead of left", which is a bit dissapointing.

Is this just the way the game is, or does it start to give more agency to the player? Also, I met Letho of Gulet and sent him to Kaer Morhen as well, and so far that seems to be my biggest decision. Can those characters be used as companions later?

Oh, and a final side note, the active version of Quen at level 3 is fucking beast. Man, if I have one tip for anyone playing this game, use fucking Quen.

Always be Quening.

You're really close to some choices that I felt had substantial consequences. There were some decisions I made around this time that definitely changed how things played out.

Preach.

@legion_: What Gennah said and you've actually already made a more important choice than the one with Letho. Nothing that would influence the ending of the game though. Yet.

@qrdl: What choice would that be? I'm guessing Keira?

yeah

Do you mean urgency?

Yeah, I just passed the part of which you speak myself, and I have no idea how it would have been different if... well, let's just say that trade-offs were made.

The only choices that matter are the ones that affect your Gwent collection.

There is agency but it is not immediately clear what. Also some things you just can't control even if you try to do the good thing it comes biting you in the ass.

Yeah, there are choices that will drastically affect how things play out. They're not always super obvious.

There's a lot of choices that have multiple outcomes but aside from a few in the main questline there aren't really many that are overly impactful. You're coming up on probably the most major before-endgame choice in the game so what you're looking for is still there it's just less dense because the game is so much longer than TW2. You've barely scraped the surface of the main story I'd say you're about 1/5 if that through it.

Also Quen is a terrible spell and pretty useless when you have dat Igni. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJ3KIaoKnbA

Always be Gwenting

@legion_: There is a lot of passive agency I guess you could call it. You make a lot of decisions that feel fairly unimportant throughout the game but some of them will come back to you later. Not everything mind you, a lot of side quests are just that, one-offs on the side. If you're saying will there be a ton of moments where you get asked a very specific question and you decide something that will have an immediate impact on the game then no, not really. Most of that stuff builds up over time and you get a Fallout-esque epilogue when you beat the game with what happened to who based on your actions.

Also Gwent is kinda boring and relies way too much on deck building and luck. There, I said it.

No sir.

@legion_: He doesn't understand what you mean, and I'm not surprised. Agency isn't used that way very often.

This is all correct. It isn't like the Witcher 2 where you actually get a different game depending on which decision you make at the (kind of) beginning. It doesn't have a lot of branching paths, but it does have branching outcomes. I think the main thing that Witcher 3 does that draws back from preserving character decisions from the last games. If you thought that Mass Effect 3 trivialized earlier decisions you made, you ain't seen nothing yet.

The answer you are looking for is the witcher 2.

Oh and play gwent.

I'll say with this game, vs two, the threads start coming together a lot later in the story. I'm near the end and they start showing you a lot of consequences. The ink-y cutscenes that show up at times are showing you the results of things you decided or set in motion. Also, if you ask some people for help later with issues you have, some will tell you to fuck off if you didn't do right by them, which is cool.

Witcher 2 was more direct with this though, sending you to whole different areas and all that. It was a different type of game. Both games are oustanding.

Not sure I agree with you on this. I mean, there definitely is some of that going on but it's not nearly as egregious as Mass Effect because of Mass Effect's scope and the issues you are tackling (i.e. saving the universe). You are deciding all the fate of whole species and cultures and well everyone (often very overtly), so when that's not respected it's way more of an issue. I don't think the issue is even in the same ball park between the two series/games.

So far (near the end), I think they've delivered a strong, personal story while trying to respect many decisions and I'm happy with the balance. They have to tell a story too.

There are a lot of decisions that you will be making fairly soon in the story quest missions that will have substantial consequences.

Speaking of, I loved this game overall (would be my GOTY right now) but one thing I did not like is the way that they choose your final ending. I don't want to spoil anything but suffice it to say that there are a couple of dialogue choices in the game that don't appear even remotely important at the time but that will have HUGE consequences. I think that would be fine if done well but I don't think that's the case here as I see barely any connection between some of these dialogue choices and the eventual results. It would be really easy to get stuck with a shitty ending even if you think you are doing a good job. And that didn't even happen to me as I got one of the better endings but i think that was mostly luck.

A lot of it is so subtle you don't actually realise you've made a difference to the way things will pan out, especially as it's very rarely immediate either.

@bceagles128: When I went back and looked at what could have happened, I think it's actually handled very well. The dialogue choices you're referencing pretty much come down to you giving Ciri the belief in herself to win. The snowball fight cheers her up, when you smash the place up in the elf house calms her down, and whether or not you take her to see Emhyr means she either learns that she can become empress or not. It all makes sense to me.

@alexw00d: I agree, it all makes quite a lot of sense. And the scene when you trash the laboratory is golden.

@alexw00d:

SPOILERS BELOW but I'm on mobile so I can't tag them

Sorry but that's a load of crap.

First off, the dialogue choice for the snowball fight is "I know something that will cheer you up." The game gives you no indication of what that something actually is or whether it is actually something that will work with which to make the choice before you need to make it Further, even if it did, starting a snowball fight to supposedly cheer someone up has literally no connection at all to what happens later on through her confidence or otherwise.

As for the laboratory, encouraging Ciri to have a childish temper tantrum and smash up the lab of the person who has helped her for the entire game and saved her life multiple times simply because you are confronted with some second hand claims that he doesn't really like you without --oh I don't know-- actually confronting him to figure out more first (you know, like an actual adult would) is an undeniably stupid choice that should not push you toward a positive ending.

All the people you're sending will help you in a moment that seems like it's the last stand, but then after that, they all go their separate ways and you have hours more to play. Also, I will tell you, if you want everyone to go, do ask they ask prior, because the character Dijkstra didn't help me; that's okay, because I killed him later. He asked for it. Also, yes, there are quite a lot of subtle choices that'll change things, some of which aren't even mentioned on sites that tell you about choices, one of which you're pretty close to. All I can say is that it has to do with the crone sister, the red baron, and the spirit. I came across the hillock tree prior to meeting any of them, and set it free, which I thought I'd regret, but no. By doing that, the happier ending will happen in which wouldn't if you did it in another order.

@bceagles128: I think the problem here is how you're looking at it. There's 3 endings right, and I believe you need to hit 2/4 certain things for two of the endings, with whether you went to see Emhyr changing those two, and then if you don't do 2/4 you get a third ending. The condition for Ciri surviving is that she believes in herself, Geralt acting in a way that let's her be comfortable and believe in herself are the choices you make. It has nothing to do with acting like an adult or whatever you seem to think, it's that you stood by her. Hell, one of the choices is if you go bury that dude, you show you care, and that you're willing to help her, to be with her through her harder times. That's what it's about.

Really? I think it's pretty normal. By player agency I mean the ability to interact with the game world in a meaningful way.

It's strange because there's a lot of weird things where you can back off from doing things in a quest and it turns out differently. Also recently there was a super minor side quest I did about finding and retrieving a horse. When I found where it was I left it there and it said "Quest Failed" as it does in red when you fail a quest. But then as that happened, I ran over to the horse I thought needed, jumped on and rode back to the guy who lost his horse and the quest "reactivated" and updated and then we talked and I got the minor reward. It was really cool.