No wonder Andromeda sucks. Because the game formula they copied, The Witcher 3, sucks!

How is it not filler just because some people like to waste a bunch of time unlocking filler?  Looting does not advance the main story of TW3; it is not even in character for facilitating role playing... it goes against the characterization of a Witcher to loot people's houses in the dead of night whether he does a lot of it or just a little bit of it.  A better way would have been to have 0% looting and have Geralt earn enough from his contracts to buy everything he needed from the overabundance of vendors also present in the game.

They criticize Bioware for exactly the same things they refuse to criticize CDPR for because they are prejudiced... yes, I know this because it's so blatantly obvious after years of reading junk biased posts online... and their criticisms of Bioware have no credibility precisely because of that extreme bias against Bioware.  People complain incessantly about Shepard having to pick up ammo in ME2 and ME3... same thing really as the incessant looting in TW3... both pull the player out of the character as portrayed in the lore.  There's no difference really between "find out what happened to my missing son Bilal" and "find out what happened to my missing mare."  Both are "fetch" quests.

You can play and finish TW3 without stealing at all. Geralt will only steal if you decide to do so. It's a choice.
Play your version of Geralt. There are many other ways to get what you need. 

I'm 100% sure that people criticize Bioware because of DAI and MEA now. So why do you mention Shepard? 

Give me some proof of that... a youtuber who did a playthrough without doing any looting whatsoever (and no glitching either for added coin).

You edit too much.

If i kill some bandits and use their stuff, is that stealing? Please! 

And don't listen too much people who suffer from cognitive disorder. Like OP of this thread.
These people are confused. 

Annoying isn't it?... when you're trying to follow a story (or a conversation) and the person keeps giving it to you in little dribs and drabs of jumbled ideas... much like my experience with the little books one loots in TW3.

Case closed.

I played like that once it's harder, but not that much. To recover health you can use potions and quen.

Quen is completely free, you just have to spec it the right way.

You can buy all potion ingredients with coins you earn from quests\contracts\gwent\etc and sometimes you get them as a reward anyway. 

I think you mixed up 'picking up any objects whatsoever' with 'looting'.

I did some quests to get armour and weapons schematics, though it's not necessary.

The Fall of the House of Reardon is the quest where Letho shows up provided you played TW2 or simulated your choices. 

Anyway, what's your point exactly?

I don't think so... because those special objects are labeled "loot."  Looting is a repetitive mechanic within TW3 similar to picking up ammo in ME3.  Looting ammo is optional in ME3 as well... just make sure that you use your powers instead of your weapon... makes the game a little tougher is all.

Still, people incessantly complain about ammo in ME3... but they'll defend the looting in TW3 to death.  CDPR is above criticism; Bioware can't get around it.  It's blatant prejudicial bias that's all but killed ME:A.  ME:A is a better game than it got.  The "criticism" of it was over the top already months before the game was even released.  It shares a lot of similarities with TW3... things that people repeatedly say they like about TW3, they staunchly declare that they hate in ME:A (and hated even in ME3 for that matter).

There are also legitimate reasons why Bioware should not follow TW3 model.  If you're thinking all of this boils down to just one is generally considered better than other... I suggest you read this thread all again. 

Bioware's brand of story and story telling does not work in an open-world setting.  Following TW3 blindly down this open-world path will not work becaus  Bioware's brand of story telling is about character personality development.  The personality of Geralt is set... More often than not, all the player is deciding is who lives and who dies (and usually that decision is with regard to the person standing right in front of him during the side quest).  If he lets them live, they may turn up later in the game to help him fight the final battle.  He's deciding between 2 romance partners (both sorceresses), and he can determine which faction wins the war.  The quests that determine these actual endings are a very few - listed here:  www.vg247.com/2015/12/22/the-witcher-3-how-to-get-the-best-ending/ and that's out of some 300 possible quests the player can do, more than 50 of which are main ones. 

ME3 had 15 main quests (1/3 of that of TW3) and 1/5th of the total number of side quests.  In that game, the player does determine whether the geth or the quarian win that war or whether they settled it peacefully; they determined whether the genophage is cured or not cured, and they determine the fate of the Virmire Survivor based on how they felt about the character/personality of your Shepard.  They can choose how they develop EDIs personality a little bit.  MaleShep can choose among 6 or 7 romances; Femshep can choose among 5 (although two get broken off by mid game).  Then, 2 of those side quests determined whether or not the Turian bomb on Tuchanka blew up and whether a group of biotic students escaped Cerberus' control and whether or not they survive the war.  He/she also decides whether the rachni queen/breeder queen should live or die... alll without even touching the ending(s).

Man... your bias for CDPR is obvious. Why not go to their forums instrad since you seem to rate everything as inferior to them.

Also, don't lump this with the other Witcher 3 threads, or I'm out. This focus is different enough for me to not want to get lost in the mess of a thread to follow that is the merged Witcher 3 threads.



Anyway, disclaimer. I couldn't beat The Witcher 3. I tried, I really tried, but the game is so boring and flawed. Did everything in the first world map, and made it as far as hunting for the witch main quest - then doing that cave mission with her. After that I couldn't push myself to keep going with the flaws of this game.

Everyone is tooting this the next benchmark in open world gaming? But this is where the game bombs hardest.

Next, Andromeda really does rip off The Witcher 3 at every turn. Way more then I expected. So all the comparisons of Andromeda to The Witcher 3 are not at all unfound. It's like BioWare took it's skeleton literally and built upon it, because no standard folks are praising The Witcher 3 as the next standard in open and EA wants that open world success formula means they has to rip it off completely. So here are some similarities I've spotted.

- the hold a button long enough to activate something to activate something to save on the lack of buttons for console gamers
- the stupidly hard to pinpoint circle thing on NPCs you have to aim for to activate NPS dialog
- the way too many NPCs who just talk on their own and constant overlapping dialogs that happen with it
- the bland to explore open worlds
- the fact that the open world are not just one massive open world like Bethesda games, but several separate open world maps
- how combat in open world is very lazy thought out (just copy paste a group of enemies in the same setups over and over - for MEA is the same bases over and over, while for TW3 it's just a boring flat ground with sometimes massive foliage blocking your field of view)
- boring combat, but to ME:A's credit, TW3 is way more boring
- how exploring open world feels like a chore in both games
- how both games are padded with way to many boring fetch quests
- the interface for TS3 is also total garbage, lol
- in both game interest in collecting items OCD'ness ends soon because of how much crap these games toss at you and because the UI for menus are such balls to navigate that you never both to looks up and manage all this junk anyways.
- the stupid scanner, yep, in both games and just as stupid in TW3
- riding the horse sucks, riding the Nomad better, but still sucks. Both only serve purpose to get to next destination. While you can use the Nomad as cover, the horse can sometimes get in the way of combat, lol.
- etc, etc.


Gameplay wise and overall design wise, TW3 is actually worse then Andromeda. Not just because of gameplay combat, but how exploration is handled. It literally is a very linear game in a checklist of fetch quest. And you can't just have all the side and main quests market on the map all at once like in Skyrim so you can take the route of least resistance and maybe get sidetracked in discovering and opening/completing new quests discovered on the way to do other quests. No, you can only have one quest at a time highlighted on the map, and to toggle between quests, you have to enter another sub menu, lol. And did I mention on console (PS4) bringing up the map is not instant, but comes with an actual 3 or so seconds of loading?

So yeah, if you want to follow the quests marked on the map, you're basically doing way more riding horse waste of time across boring open world then needed, or wasting extra time in this game's total garbage UI for navigating between menus. "But what about the question marks on the map, surely they are an alternative for more open non-linear exploration" you say? Yeah, well it would have been if those question marks also listed the recommended levels for doing them too, because starting with the second map you end up in areas where enemies are too powerful for you. Meaning you've just arrived at "Waste of time destination! Proceed to next possible waste of time destination through boring over world because you aren't following the one at at time side quests markers marked on your 3 second load screen map!"

How this game got GotY is beyond me. Guess it's all those I have no standards people who say "RPGs don't need gameplay. Just build pretty graphics and story and we will pay." Or in the case of Andromeda "My face is tired animation and graphics to the song and dance of Mac Walters quality of writing & directing? Yes please!"

End rant/