So I played The Witcher 3 for about 10 hours a month or two ago, and I loved what I saw. I started the game on, I guess, the moderate difficulty. So far I had mixed feelings about the combat. I really love the concepts behind everything, but it seems a little dense in terms of options or thing you would need to consider later on, and I keep dying even from random, small, early encounters multiple times. In fact, the reason why I stopped playing the game was I was in a story mission in an underground area with a companion and I kept dying over and over again. After experiencing stuff like that too many times, I just said, "I don't want to mess with this anymore today" and I sort of forgot about the game.

I want to beat The Witcher 3 this year, but I just spent a huge chunk of time playing MGSV. I know The Witcher is another long ass game and I want to see what it has to offer, but I don't want to spend FOREVER playing this game. So I'm thinking about dropping the difficulty way down to either their equivalent of story mode or easy, just so I can get through the game easily and would hopefully die less and not have to repeat every encounter 5 times in a row.

So for people who have completed this game or messed around with the difficulty settings, what would you recommend? Does the combat get easier as you progress through the game or harder? For somebody who primarily wants to see the story, is playing the game on Just the Story a good enough option for that or does it make the game too dull? Are the difficulties that different anyways? Of course there probably isn't a right answer to this question, especially since the best answer is "I don't know, do whatever you want", but I would like to hear some outside opinions on playing the game.

I played through 3 on "hard", and it eventually plateaus after a few early hurdles and got pretty easy. It's actually a case of "the more options you get, the easier it gets". Most fights were just a case of "use spell that enemy is obviously weak to, then dodge behind them and hit them a few times until said spell recharges, and repeat".

I put the game on easy for Witcher 2, though, for the same reason as you (wanting to get through the story), and it was totally fine. I feel like there should be enough story in this game that it wouldn't get dull blazing through all the fights, only you probably won't feel as enticed to do all the sidequests/hunts because a lot of those boil down to "This horrible thing happened to this lady, now she's a G-G-G-GHOST!", which is going to get real old if you're not getting any engagement out of defeating the monsters themselves.

normal seems about right.. I played on Death March and I found it to still be way too easy with the build I was using(potion/sign build), as you level up with more abilities the game just gets way too easy in my opinion.

If combat is not your jam it's okay dude. Play on easy, but it will be less engaging. While the combat is not as good as lets say as action games like dmc, bayonetta or soulsborne games it still is decent enough. I play on death march on ng+ because I like the feeling that the monsters are dangerous and being a witcher is not an easy profession. First time playing i chose normal but after some time it got quite easy. So yeah dude play on easy and have fun.

The game really is only hard at the very beginning (and there are maybe two or three a bit more difficult encounters later on), even on Death March.

It just gets very easy once you reach maybe level 7-8 and have some halfway decent gear, as well as a real grip on the combat system. Took me maybe 5-6 hours until I had everything under control and always thought "Man, am I glad I didn't dump down the difficulty, because this would probably be pretty boring else wise." (Side note: I love the combat system, and have loved it from the very beginning. No stupid " Oh god, I need a movement patch" for me.")

So yeah, I think you should stick with the difficulty you are on right now at least for a little while longer, if you really still think it's annoying or you don't want to deal with it, you can still tune it down then.

@sessh: I agree with Seesh here a lot but at the end of they day don't let difficulty keep you from this game if you do want to knock it down.

I suspect if anything the game would probably feel like more of a slog with the difficulty set too low (though ofc it would be quicker in reality). I'm not sure what the balance is like now, but at launch there seemed a pretty clear split between people who were playing on Hard being quite positive about the combat, and people playing on Normal or lower finding it disappointing. This makes sense, as the strength of the gameplay definitely comes from the need to think about what you're doing ahead of time, rather than from the physical slickness of the combat itself.

I think the people (and there are many) who come to The Witcher wanting and expecting Batman/AC style combat and then getting disappointed when it doesn't deliver that very well are kinda missing the point and doing themselves a disservice. If you approach the game as intended it's a far more satisfying experience overall. Anything below Hard may as well be called 'Ruin The Game' mode as it turns the game into a completely different thing - a thing it isn't very good at.

You shouldn't worry about having to repeatedly replay encounters though; on Hard the difficulty quite quickly evens out once you get used to the game. You won't find yourself dying very much at all after the first few hours, unless you go out of your way to take on something way beyond your level. You will find yourself engaged in what's going on around you, but imo that's far more enjoyable than just walking through hours of combat without having to think about it at all.

With a few exceptions here and there, I don't think the story is good enough to warrant playing it through for that reason alone at the expense of having to slog through hours of braindead simple combat. Your time would be better spent reading a book or watching some movies.

I switched down to easy for the same reasons as OP and I'm still really enjoying the game.

Even on easy you still have to pay attention to what's going on, block, look for openings, use the right signs etc - if you just button mash you'll still get your ass kicked. So I don't feel I'm missing anything the game has to offer - other than some frustration :-)

Setting the game to the easiest difficulty practically removes combat - you still have to do the encounters, obviously, but you'll be moving through them incredibly quickly, and you won't have to deal with waiting on load times, because you won't be dying. I disagree with the characterization that the easy difficulties make the game a "slog through hours of braindead simple combat," because slogging implies that it's taking a long time.

So take from that what you will. If you want the combat to be fun or an integral part of the game, then turn up the difficulty. If really all you care about is the story and you want to get through it quickly, just turn it down to easy and you'll blast through.

Combat really is not the strong part in Witcher games. If you have problems with dying all the time then just put it on easy becouse you can always turn it up again when everything starts to dying in one hit if you want. The only reason for not experimenting with difficulty is if you are going achievmenthunting but i dont think you are.

Don't worry, after awhile it will actually become too easy.

See if you can craft or buy better equipment.

It's a long-ass game regardless of difficulty settings, but playing on normal would speed you along at least a little. Were the enemies that kept killing you at a way higher level? I played on death march and found the combat fairly easy as long as enemies were within five levels. If anything I'd suggest turning down the difficulty for the poorly designed boss battles.

Thanks for the feedback guys!

I think I might bump the difficulty down by one so I can get out of the area I'm in. (I'm actually thinking about restarting the game since I took a decent break from the game, but I think I'll remember everything that happened so far once I'm back in that world again) Part of my frustration was it felt like I was in a longer area, where I would kill 5 guys, swim through a side passage, and then get killed over there, forcing me to repeat the first encounter again. That's where the "I don't want to mess with this anymore today" feeling came from.

From there I'll probably move it up and down depending on if it feels too simplistic or if I'm losing too much. Conceptually I like the feeling of a dangerous world and being a witcher is hard work, but I mainly want to see the world building aspects, side quests, and where the story goes.

@clagnaught: If you're there for the story then by all means bump the combat down. Depending on your level it can be either trivial or extremely challenging - but at the end of the day the combat doesn't ever really evolve all that much.

YES! Once I got the force push area of effect modifier the game was actually too easy. All you do is use that, then kill a guy, use it again, kill a guy, repeat. I wish the combat was better, but if I had a suggestion it would be to level up quickly and get that power.

go for it the combat is mediocre anyway.

I still haven't finished it, and I'm playing on the hardest difficulty. Each encounter is fun and tactical, but draining so I gotta keep taking breaks.

If you wanna finish the story in a reasonabke time frame, just drop the difficulty. I'm planning to play this game over the course of a year or so, which obviously isn't something everyone would be into.

If you really want to then you might as well. The story and character interactions are the highlights of the game in my opinion. Not the difficulty. The combat is fun on the harder difficulties, but it suffers from the usual witcher problem of feeling really rough in the beginning and too easy at the end.