I'm going to be a newcomer to this series with this third installment, and everything I've seen of the world and creature design has left me wanting a challenge. The creatures in the Witcher series look monstrous and deadly, and I'd like for that to be reflected in the combat. As I understand it, there's 4 difficulty options available (Death March being the highest) and possibly a permadeath option by the name of "Dark" mode. In a recent livestream the devs demonstrated the differences in the difficulty, and explained that Death March makes the enemies tougher and hit harder, reduces stat bonuses, and prevents regenerative health during meditation.

As I understand it, the enemies and quests don't scale to your level in The Witcher 3, instead it's very likely that you could come across enemies in the wilderness that are much stronger than you. So to know that going in and still have the option of "Death March" or even permadeath is an exciting and daunting thought. And for what it's worth, there are achievements/trophies linked to beating the game on "Death March". Whether or not I'll enjoy playing on "Death March" is yet to be seen, but I tend to fall into the "trial by fire" camp and will likely select that for my first playthrough.

What about you guys? Any idea what difficulty you'll be starting with?

If I hate the combat as much as I did in 2 I'll be putting it on easy so I can see the least of it.

Easy because who has time these days to slog through 100+ hours of combat...

If the difficulty can be changed any time I'll start with the most difficult option. If the only difference is that everything turns into a damage sponge then it'll grow boring almost immediately, though. I don't mind being made weaker (in that I die easily), but repeating the same motions over and over gets tiresome.

It can be changed on the fly. I'll likely do the same, though I don't so much mind the enemies taking a lot of hits. It's more that I don't want to be stuck in a loading screen if I die to every enemy I encounter.

@sunbrozak: Supposedly the difficulty in this game does not effect enemy's hp, just the dmg and tactic they employ.

The Witcher 2 worked on a backwards difficulty curve and never had "great" gameplay. Now, it was never a badly designed system, but it was rarely implemented well and you could easily finish the game by just rolling around everything and keeping your Quen sign up. I thought the game was ridiculously hard until I got that tactic downpat. I didn't hate it but it's not a game that I'm interested in ever finishing on harder difficulties.

Wild Hunt seems to be trying to fix that but until I'm sure that it is almost always a mechanically satisfying game, I'll be playing it on normal.

I'm gonna judge the gameplay in either the tutorial or first act. If i'm unhappy with the feel of movement it'll be put to easy. But more likely normal. If it feels really good I'll put it on hard, but that seems entirely unlikely.

@shinjin977 said:

Neat. If that's the case, I think I'll probably start on the third difficulty setting, whatever it's called. If the combat ends up being more of a chore, then I'll lower it to normal, or "story and sword", is it?

That makes sense. One of the gameplay Q&As CD Projekt ran featured a battle with a griffin on Death March, and while it hit like a truck, it wasn't soaking up a whole lot of damage.

Probably going to play on the highest difficulty (I always do), except if it's auto-coupled with permadeath (dark mode is not an actual difficulty but a seperate thing?), which seems fucking insane in a game that might take 200 hours to complete.

edit: The combat in The Witcher 2 was pretty good already.

I played through Witcher 2 on easy, with a trainer that made me kill everything in one hit, and loved it. Will probably go the same route for 3.

Normal. I'm not one of those cool new generation people who need to play every game on the hardest difficult to really feel alive.

Normal. I play everything on hard (to really feel alive) and started The Witcher 2 on hard, but for a game that long I won't have time to restart checkpoints for hours. Hell, the length might be my biggest challenge.

With that being said, I think the combat system is good enough to warrant a hard playthrough if you're looking for a challenge. I started 2 on hard and accidentally bumped it down. But I left it there when I realized how much fun it was to play Geralt as a bad ass.

Normal. If its too easy I'll maybe bump it up, but I'm mainly there for the story & open world elements (even though I really liked the combat in 2).

Baby Souls level

Start on normal, if combat sucks go to easy.

Hopefully its at least as good in the finalized witcher 2 (or was it a mod that changed the combat?) Either-or I got through that game and found the combat "fine" enough. It looks like it should be more fun/interesting in this game, which will wait to be seen.

At this point, even though I never finished 1, I'm invested enough in the story as it got told in my play-through of 2 to see where it goes from here. The combat will either add to the experience..and thus be on normal or will detract, in which case it will be on easy.

Its absolutely Story>gameplay>graphics for me so eh, we will see how it goes.

usually play one notch of difficulty above normal most of the time.

Well, according to Kevin Van Ord...

"The Witcher 2's combat was overly demanding at the outset, but The Witcher 3 is substantially easier; I recommend, in fact, that you choose a difficulty level one notch higher than the one you would typically choose, presuming you don't default to the most stringent one straight away."

The combat of the Witcher 2 sucked and i expect no less from 3. For roleplaying purpose alone i will keep it on at least normal and maybe one notch above becouse it would just feel dumb running around like Ezio this game. At least preparing with potions, oils and shit feels bad ass even if it gives me nothing gameplaywise.

Witcher 2's combat isn't that bad, except that only some of the Signs are useless. Having beat Witcher 2 on Dark I guess I'll do whatever is hardest.

I'll start on normal, but I'm not really playing it for the combat so if it starts to feel like a slog I'll turn it down.

I'l play on hard, like most games.

Many people found W2 hard at launch, but I never had any trouble because the secret was Quen. Obviously, that was mainly due to poor balance, than people getting it wrong.
I'll presume they learnt that lesson and have a better balanced game.

They didnt learn that lesson from the Witcher 1.

Easiest because I'm in it for story and exploration.

I found the first Witcher a real struggle combat wise so played on normal but then ended up bumping it down, it was way way too hard. I've heard even normal in Wild Hunt is pretty hard so I'll likely go for easy. As long as the combat still feels satisfying this some what negates it's easier nature; let me feel like a badass when really I'm not...

Default ass default setting.

@dekkadekkadekka: Amen. My kids still play games on easy if there is a difficulty choice available even though both can handle normal now often better than I can. Because they don't care. They're in it for the story and/or gameplay, not bragging rights. I've got Bloodborne for when I want to bang my head against a brick wall. I may well play The Witcher 3 on easy. Dumbest thing I ever did was start Alien: Isolation on normal difficulty. Made me put away a great game unfinished. There's even a novice difficulty level now. I should pick it up again, at novice.

The combat was drastically different from Witcher 1. This is an evolution from 2.

As hard as possible. Not because I'm some kind of badass though...

It's just a form of roleplaying for me, and I think the best way to push myself to be strategic. I just love the feeling of actually being afraid of monsters and feeling the battle tension.

First playthroughs are always on normal for me.

Gamespot review said that it is easier than 2 - might start on Hard and bump it down if I need to.

@geraltitude: Yeah, I didn't mean to imply everyone who plays on hard modes is doing it out of some false sense of machismo. Only that it's not worth shelving a good game because I couldn't bring myself to lower the difficulty. I'll probably start Witcher 3 on normal but if I start getting frustrated, easy it is. I think I got myself into this sort of rut playing all the Call of Duty campaigns on highest out of the box difficulty. But they're all linear shooters and I've played so many linear shooters it's unusual I find one I don't have a good sense of what to expect from the combat.

Fuuuck it looks like there's trophies for the highest difficulties so that's probably what I'm going to be playing on. Some people are saying that they will play on normal first then up the difficulty for the second play through. I would consider this if it wasn't such a long game. Playing through a 100-200 hour RPG is daunting enough. Let alone playing through it twice.

@somberowl: I thinks that's total launch content hours, though. Not just main story. Remains to be seen if you can dash through the main story in 20 hours, which you could then go back and do for the difficulty trophies.

I try and play every new game at the highest difficulty. I just think you get more bang for your buck that way.

Sounds like the combat is loads better in 3 and if that's the case Ill probably go in on the notch above normal but I have no issue in turning it down if it gets annoying.

That's possible but it sounds like your going to need to do the side stuff, at least some of it, to get powerful enough to beat the game. Unless there is a NG+ option. Well see.

Maybe the hardest. The world is fucking brutal and it would be a disconnect for me to button mash my way through it and still have any sort of tension. Who cares if I piss off everyone in the town, I'll just kill them all ez pz

I'll start with the average difficulty until I get my bearings and go from there. This is one of those games I kinda want a challenge, but we'll see if the gameplay is good enough to make it worthwhile.

Easy or Normal. I don't really come to video games for a challenge, mainly the experience. Also I adore feeling over powered :D

Yeah totally - I wasn't attacking your stance at all with my comment duder! Definitely if I got bogged-down somewhere I have no qualms about shifting difficulty around back and forth to suit my desires. Never really been a difficulty purist myself, with a few game-to-game exceptions. Just ever since the first Witcher I realized for me it's so much more fun to just barely scrape out of encounters. Love the tension! And yeah like I said in the previous comment there is a role-playing element to it. It makes the monsters and the need for a Witcher seem more real.

No doubt im going through Witcher 3 on the hardest mode available, hopefully dark difficulty since i was able to do it in W2. It's weird seeing the split in interest for the combat systems in witcher because I rarely ever bother playing games on hard much less their respective ultra hard modes but I loved W2's dark mode mainly because I liked using the potions and bombs against large groups and then slowly picking them off one by one as openings appeared. Im really hyped for everything in the game but the combat is definitely a highlight for me.

That's excellent to hear. The Witcher 2 was extremely difficult at the beginning, so hearing that they're making the difficulty curve an actual curve and not a drop off a cliff is a good change. Guess I'll start on hard mode and see what happens from there.

Based on K Ord's gamespot review I will probably choose the difficulty just above medium. I'm in the middle of Bloodborne so I guess I'll see how well those skills transfer over to this game.

Normal. I may try my hand on hard on a few encounters, but Normal is the way I'm going to play.

The hardest that will not delete my save on death.

Probably one level under the fuck you difficulty setting

Easy. I just want to explore and see the story and characters. I don't need challenging combat to enjoy it, and the challenge of the combat may not be the only factor in which makes it enjoyable. For most games I love, I'll do easy first, and then the hardest (unless it's difficulties that are 'you get one life to live' crap, then I'll just do the next hardest), but for games I love that are this large, like Inquisition being a good example, I'll just do easy.