@oursin_360: There's a difference between being dissatisfied with how the PR has handled the situation and being over-exaggerating in how much gamers "deserve". Yes, everyone hit by the bug has a right to be angry and you should expect a product you paid for to work as intended. However, these people on their forums are basically demanding that CDPR work day and night blood, sweat, and tears, without sleep claiming that the bug is "ruining their precious game experience" and "we deserve better than this garbage".

Yes, Momot should never had posted a day for the patch and he's rightfully getting pushback for that. I'm just merely commenting on how ridiculous some of these forum posters are, that's all.

For example. Cmon man, there's no need for that.

@theblue: Oh make no mistake I want to see the patch. It has been days since a quest actually gave me EXP and I should probably be 2 possibly even 3 levels higher than I am. However.... big deal. I can always just run a console command and give myself some exp if I care that much. This is hardly as huge as people are making it out to be.

I can confirm that the Mod posted in this thread works, and in my opinion is better since you get xp for all quests now. You do get slightly less than you normally would, but since you get it for every quest including grayed ones it's a decent balance. It also includes a uninstall if you want to revert back when 1.05 drops, that way you can skip gray quests and just level up like normal.

Gray quests only seem to give you like 50xp anyway depending on your level, so I don't see why not just give xp for all quests in the first place. *shrugs*

@theblue It's the nature business, the customer is always right as they say. I think CDPred is getting off pretty easy if you compare it to say, ubisoft games or EA titles. People don't see man hours, they see what they paid for versus what was promised. Most fans don't understand programming, and with in this DLC generation a lot of games ship before they are finished instead of waiting a few more months or even a year of testing. Hence you get the type of posts and comments your talking about. I'm sure they're companies made a pretty penny on this series, they can deal with complaints from people who threw their pennies in.

Bug just hit me. Its a real bummer. Thankfully the quest I was doing (Called Carnal Sins) was real amazing and I didn't mind it too much.

Level 20 now so I am about 4 levels above from the next available story quest. Gonna take a break till they fix it. I love the game and would like to say that XP doesn't matter, but it does and gotta stop.

That Cabaret story line and following events are incredible! EMOTION! Way way better than the whole Bloody Baron thing which was also great.

@theblue: Honestly the "Trust poll" is so sad that it's already funny again. The creator of that thread is a tragic genius.

You do of course realize that the whole "I'll just give myself xp via the console" thing applies to PC only, with consoles still just as fucked and that there it is game breaking at least to a degree. I of course agree, it's not the end of the world or whatever, but it's also not not a big deal.

This is my first CPR game so not a lot of direct history with them, but given what I've heard I expected them to handle this a bit better. I only know about the bug because it was mentioned on the Bombcast. Looking on their site/forum/GOG.com/Galaxy is pretty painful for a severe game progression bug. It's hard to notice the problem so they really should have made an effort to let people know it's an issue and to wait for a patch.

The official forum post doesn't look moderated either, so no further official updates and lots of internet arguments to wade through. The spam news sites have easier to find info about the bug. Twitter is still a crappy place to post an update.

True but CDPR has always been a PC first developer so I figure fans of this series are going to be getting it on PC unless they had no other choice or their PC was just horrid for gaming. In all fairness you can't even play Witcher 1 on consoles. Even still the game is still great and the exp bug is not "game breaking" and they are still releasing a patch. Hopefully sooner rather than later. It sucks, but it is no where near the embarrassment of games like Assassins Creed Unity. Mole hill is definitely being made into a mountain on this one.

@karkarov: Well, I played 1 on PC obviously, but from 2 on been on consoles, since I just don't care about updating my PC specs all the time so it can actually play games like 3. But yeah, they are primarily a PC developer and I don't have a problem with that at all.

And it is game breaking my friend. If I'm forever stuck at a certain level (21 in my case - way lower for others), I will eventually hit a point where I won't be able to progress, because I simply can't do quests with enemies of a way higher level any more, since you deal no damage (or next to no damage) to them. This is especially true on higher difficulties. Can't progress = game breaking.

Also, I'll say it again and again, there have been worse launches out there and this is not an end all scenario, since you can simply wait out the patch, it still is a bad situation right now, with a lot of people not being able to progress at the moment.

@sessh: Here is the thing.... you know all you have to do is not play for a few days and there will be a patch resolving this. If someone plays themselves into a no win game because of this bug it is CDPR's fault for letting the bug seep in, but it is also the players fault for knowing they were in that scenario and not just doing something else for a week or less and waiting for the patch.

@karkarov: Well the "just dont play the game" workaround was perfect for games like Unity but this game people actually wants to play, and they payed for it. Releasing a game and then asking the player not to play for a week is not ideal and you really can not blame the player.

Sure most players dont know programming and how developing a game works but when stuff like this happens its the customer supports task to bridge the gap between the developer and player.

You can never fault a player for getting angry when it doesnt work based on the argument "Well duh.. you dont know how it is do be a developer". Noone is asking the player to know about the process of developing a game when they take their money so they shuldnt ask for it when they fail to deliver either.

Requiring players to input console commands so as to not play a broken game is a really bad solution. Don't make excuses for a shitty problem.

@karkarov: True, of course. Like I said I just stopped playing for now, but there are bound to be people not aware of the issue, simply because they aren't active on any gaming related internet forums etc. That's a fucked up thing.

Anyway by this point we are just arguing semantics about the definition of what is game breaking and what isn't, so I guess we should leave it at that.

@sessh said:

I don't know, I definitely noticed when I did 4 quests and didn't level then looked and saw my EXP bar had barely moved in hours. If you are effected by the bug and have played for any long length since then you had to notice something was wrong.... not to mention quests stopped having big EXP pop ups :P People who didn't start playing until AFTER 1.04 are in a bad way though.

Touche! Well played.

I still haven't run into this on PS4. I don't get experience for quests that are more than 5 levels below me but that's fine, I've just been trying to do the quests in order before they get to that point. I think this is being way overblown if people like Brad who haven't even encountered it are literally refusing to play the game until it's fixed for people who have encountered it. I've heard of a lot of people who aren't having the problem at all, so the chances of it affecting you seem exaggerated, and it's really not that hard to watch diagnose whether the it is affecting you. The game is very obvious about when you have completed a quest. Just look to see whether it gives you experience

I don't believe i'm close to the end of the main story, but it seems like it won't hit close to level 30 so you shouldn't be to under-leveled to complete them at 21. It really sucks for console players though, the mod i used completely fixed it for me. Not sure if you can roll back updates on the new consoles and reload from an earlier save. Sucks but IMO it would beat waiting another week to play your game. But like i said, i don't believe you'll hit a wall in the main quest line and I believe other side activities like monster nests give you xp, as well as killing enemies. I know there are swords that give boosted xp as well, not sure if it would be enough but i think at your level you should be fine completing the game.

I am on PS4 and decided to just wait for the patch and start the game over, despite putting something like 35-40 hours into it. I am gonna put it on the highest difficulty so I'll definetely need all of them EXP!

What a bummer, this whole situation.

Patch is out on galaxy! wohoo!

Now we just need this on consoles... Got hit with the bug in two story quests...

Great stuff. Now i can look forward to play some Witcher after the F1 practice is done.

Well not today. "a couple of days later" so with some luck you will have it on sunday.

Heads up for PS4 owners, seems the patch is out on the PS4 as well. Not getting any info on the Xbox One version. Hopefully it comes in today as well, one day without Witcher-ing has been hell.

My PS4 just installed the 1.04 patch which has a long list of notes including "Improves the distribution of experience points gained by completing quests with recommended levels lower than the player character level". Enjoy your Witching everyone!

@citizencoffeecake: Interesting. So they did actually wait for console certification before releasing the patches, that will create yet another shitstorm on their forums i imagine but oh well. Their site is down now so i guess a will have to wait for the patchnotes.

Awesome! Let the Witchin' begin, again!

I've removed the mod workaround and tested the game with the new patch and all verified game files, using my previous test case of the KM quest chain and indeed received appropriate XP for the green quest, where I did not before.

@tennmuerti: so confirmed fixed on pc?

@madman356647: So far seems like a yes.

PSA to everyone: Don't forget some quest don't give XP on their completion by default, so don't instantly cry "foul fix didn't work" if you don't receive XP for everything, you're not meant to. Example: Brothers in Arms quests.

You do realise they HAVE to wait for cert before they can push patches to console right? PC got 1.04 a week or so ago.

@alexw00d: The 1.04 patch on consoles is the PC 1.05 patch equivalent. The version numbers were 0.01 off from launch. PC started at 1.02.

@rethla: They probably just managed to make Sony rush it in hot for them. The Xone is still pending the patch.

That's good news and I tried a few quests just now and it's actually fixed. So that's that chapter in the bug tales of TW3.

Also, I agree that they probably just have a deal with Sony that allows them to push patches earlier. The other patches came out on PS4 before XBone too.

Btw if anyone wants the patchnotes here they are. Happy hunting!

@rethla: Holy shit that's a gigantic patch, so much good stuff.

They didn't fix the two quests i currently have a bug in (can't start the one from a duid sitting in their "place" in skellige, can't open an underwater chest in another quest in skellige) but the rest of my problems seem to have been fixed :)

@cagliostro88: Yeah, those still seem to be bugged. As is Empty Coop. Oh well, minor issues at least compared to the xp bug.

"Deploys the Bovine Defense Force Initiative"

Uhhh....haha what?

Do cows fight back now?

More like a giant OP boss enemy comes to murder low level players who kill too many cows.

http://kotaku.com/the-witcher-3-addresses-money-exploit-by-trying-to-kill-1709341894

Stop worrying about xp, you'll be fine. There are so many quest that are all worth doing. Brad was way overstating the problem and it has been fixed. I didn't experience it personally but I almost wish I did. At least that way I wouldn't be overleveled for everything.

@zeik: That's downright incredible.

So i guess the patch works for everyone? I ended up just getting the new version of the xp mod as i like it better

Anyone know if the xbox patch has been pushed through yet?

Does anyone feel like the character system is really unbalanced? There's 70 overall perks and only 12 slots? 16 or 20 would have felt way better (this would make it so there are 4 or 5 slots per section). Makes character progression feel really limited

• Geralt no longer interacts with candles placed near chests and other openable objects.
• Improves the smoothness of camera movement.
• Disables "Input device changed" messages and adds options to disable on-screen combat feedback and floating tags above NPCs.
• Deploys the Bovine Defense Force Initiative.

Those are all rad but wtf is a Bovine Defense Force Initiative? (Edit: Ah I see, thanks Patrick)

@defaultprophet: That Kotaku link I posted earlier (by Patrick no less) will explain all.

It's supposed to be limiting, so that you have to make a build that works for you that will excel in some things but not everything. You are not meant to be the master of everything.

But you are free to switch your skill loadout any time when you're not in battle, so it's really like pretty much every other combat mechanic in the game: It's all about preparation. For example, I make sure to put at least one point into that toxicity increasing skill regardless of my build, but I only equip it when I'm going to use a Decoction, because it's not necessary otherwise. The arrow parry skill is only useful against humans, so I didn't equip it unless I know I'm fighting humans. There are very few encounters in the game where you aren't given a chance to prepare. (As long as you're not in your battle stance you are not technically in battle and can freely adjust any of that stuff.)

I haven't played since I heard about the XP bug was announced and it's killing me. I just can't bring myself to play if I'm not going to be getting anything out of the quests. I understand the writing is some of the quest lines is phenomenal, but again, I just can't bring myself to go through those if my dude ain't getting any more powerful - the issue being a failure in the game portion of the video game. I'm just sitting here doing nothing. I started out gaming fools in Gwent, but to what point? Now I'm just sitting here reading The Kingkiller Chronicles (awesome books, b-t-dubs) like some kind of damn caveman. And Batman comes out in 2 weeks. Will I ever return and experience the majesty of this game? ;_;

Just getting some things off my chest.

Well if you are on pc they released a patch fixing it yesterday....

So, anyone else getting a new bug post 1.05 where every alchemical product can only be produced once as if it was an oil/potion/bomb?

If I want to make a Greater Red Mutagen, I have to make a red mutagen, drop it, another, drop it again, and a third, and pick the previous two up. Same thing for White Gull, the mother of all alchemical components for superior class oils/potions/bombs.

@turambar: yup i need 2 of a certain alchemy ingredient but it won't let me make more than one at a time (I didn't even think of dropping it though...though that sounds kind of annoying).