witcher 3 ghost mod

The best two Witcher 3 mods overhaul the game in radically different ways

We talk to the modders behind Ghost Mode and The Witcher 3 Enhanced editions about their ambitious overhauls.

"Some people mod because they like to give others joy with their creation. Others [mod] because they just fuckin' feel like it. I'm the latter." I'm chatting over Discord with Reaperrz, a Romanian college student and creator of the Witcher 3 Enhanced Edition, an overhaul mod that completely guts the vanilla game and replaces its systems with new approaches to combat, leveling, magic, and alchemy.

Reaperrz (whose full pseudonym is actually "Sir Reaperrz ‘Custard' McButtfuck, Esq") is one of very few people in the world who are ambitious enough to make an "overhaul mod." Rather than adding the mask from Predator into Witcher's Polish folklore-inspired world, overhaul mods are dramatic, sweeping, and huge amounts of work. There are about 2,100 mods for Witcher 3 listed on Mod Nexus; only about 20 of them are considered overhauls.

I talked to the creators of two of the most popular overhaul mods, Witcher 3 Enhanced Edition and Ghost Mode, to find out how and why they go about remaking one of the most ambitious and celebrated games in recent memory. The answer? Mostly boredom.

Anna, a scientist living in Samara, Russia, usually goes by the handle "Wasteland Ghost," shortened to wghost81 in most of her modding projects. She's careful, deliberate, and organized, so it makes sense that she uses her PhD in telecommunications to teach programming at the local university.

After almost three years, Anna has spent more than 1,200 hours inside CD Projekt's magnum opus.

That methodical approach has made her mod, Ghost Mode , one of the most endorsed and most downloaded overhaul mods. It started small and grew over the years into a vast and comprehensive clean-up of Witcher 3's many bugs and quirks. "I was trying to fix sign skills… because half of them were not working," Anna says. "Then I realized that there are many other skills that are not working. And when I started fixing them I realized that I [was] making Geralt even more OP than he already is. So I started thinking on damage formula and on leveling system, how to improve them. And then I understood why armor was not working. So yeah, modding is a fun thing: you never know where [you'll] end up."

Anna's approach to her overhaul mod was born out of love for the game. After beating it three times, going through New Game+ mode and playing through on Death March, the hardest difficulty, she still wanted to play it but had run out of things to do. When she tried to experiment with other builds, she realized that many of the less-popular skills and signs didn't work at all. Instead of moving on to a new game, she started making changes.

As her project grew, she started fixing bugs and cleaning up inconsistencies. Did you know that fire elementals can be killed by Igni, the fire sign? I didn't, because I'd be a damn fool if I tried to cast Igni with a fire demon trying to eat my face. But it can be done., which doesn't make much sense. Though most of the monsters in the game look different, they have the same stats under the hood. When she realized that, she spent a year balancing and polishing all of the enemy and armor details. "I still have the spreadsheets," she says, calling it a "nightmare."

I spent some time with Ghost Mode and a few other favorite mods , and it reignited my love for the game in an instant. I remember being disappointed in my first play-through when I upgraded my Axii into the "puppet" mind-control spell, only to find it didn't work. Checking online, I learned it was a known bug . Bummer.

Thanks to Anna, Axii now works beautifully, and I've been tricking bandits into shanking each other for ages. Everything's the same as I remember it, but better: item descriptions don't have typos anymore and merchants don't charge an arm and a leg for a basic sword. I did cast Igni on a fire elemental, just to check, and it burned me alive as punishment. Exactly as advertised.

Falling in love with the game is the first step, at least for me. Ghost Mode modder Anna

Enemies of all levels are also savvier. I was feeling confident in a one-on-one with a bandit holding a club, so I was shocked when he dodged my counterattack and planted a hit across my jaw. I don't think I've ever been hit by a lone bandit on a road before.

Ghost Mode is very modular, and one of my favorite options is to simply goose enemy damage by 200% or so. Everything more or less feels the same, but when you get hit you really feel it. Even much lower-level bandits and wolves felt dangerous. Should wolves feel dangerous to a master witcher? That depends on the player, but personally I love it.

After almost three years, Anna has spent more than 1,200 hours inside CD Projekt 's magnum opus. She's still regularly updating Ghost Mode . She loves the Witcher 3, and just wants it to be even better. "[I]f the game is bad and boring at its core, no amount of modding support can make me play it and fall in love with it," she says. "And falling in love with the game is the first step, at least for me."

The Witcher 3 Enhanced Edition

"Yeah, I hated the game," Reaperrz says. "I still do, really." After Witcher 2 , Reaperrz got as far as White Orchard before he felt like Witcher 3 was a disappointment. The way the combat camera auto-aims, the way nuisance creatures like nekkers level up with you to always pose a (slight) challenge; Witcher 3 felt like too much handholding and not enough freedom to learn new skills.

Some people mod because they like to give others joy with their creation. Others [mod] because they just fuckin' feel like it. I'm the latter. Reaperrz

"I think a game is more fun if you need to get a feel for the mechanics, find out small ways things interact with each other," he says. "I wanted to drop the game after White Orchard because I grew to hate it so much. I noticed you [could] fumble around in there a bit and change some stuff, so with my then sub-par knowledge I started changing stuff around until it sort of worked differently."

The Witcher 3 Enhanced Edition , unlike most of the mods on the Nexus, hasn't been around since Witcher 3 launched in 2015. Reaperrz just posted the project in the summer of 2017, and it's already one of the most popular overhaul mods, just behind Ghost Mode by number of downloads. Reaperrz has posted videos showing how the new combat system works by eliminating the auto-targeting camera; now all of Geralt's acrobatic swordplay and backflips can be aimed manually, letting players flip around an enemy's shield or slip inside their guard.

"I just started looking at stuff more, learning. People asked different questions in the comments, pitched ideas, [and I] slowly branched out to other stuff I disliked about [the game]." By this time, Reaperzz began his degree in programming and math ("though I don't have a predisposition for either," he says). "At one point I stopped working on it for maybe a year and then came back and rewrote most of it from scratch, it kinda went on from there. It was boredom plus community drive—mostly boredom, though."

The Enhanced Edition makes the Northern Realms feel more like a real place and less like a game world. There's a brutal logic working behind Reaperrz's mod. All levels have been removed, even from Geralt himself. "A nekker is always a nekker," Reaperrz says, and he means it. Getting better at skills and unlocking new talents only come from experience using those skills; players become better at alchemy by making potions, not by killing monsters and deciding to spend their experience points in alchemy.

The mod puts much more emphasis on a player's individual skill and dexterity aiming Geralt's attacks. Anything that feels "gamey"—like automatically refilling potions or limiting players to only three bombs—has been stripped away. Carry as many bombs as you want, as long as you can haul the weight.

I really enjoyed my time with the Enhanced Edition, but it doesn't feel as much like a Witcher game. If anything it feels a little like Dark Souls or perhaps the "hardcore" and "survival" genre of mods popular for Fallout 4 or Skyrim. In my experience, these mods are more logically satisfying than "fun," though that word almost sounds like a pejorative here. Killing monsters for coin is not "fun," and Geralt is not often jolly fellow. This mod fits that dour, grim outlook in a realistic and almost off-putting way.

Combat is the biggest difference. Without the auto-targeting camera I found myself flailing and missing enemies until I calmed down and started to aim . Fights in Enhanced Edition feel faster, and I love that head wounds or crippled limbs can happen at any time, and they dramatically change how enemies behave. I also had to unlearn my habit of spamming health potions or food during a fight, as Geralt now has to stop, put away his sword, and slowly chew an apple before it starts to heal him.

Reaperrz is still regularly updating the Enhanced Edition , and he and Anna have collaborated on a few things here and there. Reaperrz asked permission to use bug fixes and other changes Anna included in her mod. Reaperrz acknowledges that the two of them are "polar opposites." "She really loved it and modded it because of that," he says. "I hated it and had free time. The mods themselves reflect that pretty well."

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Ghost Mode is a mod for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt . It is an overhaul mod that changes almost every aspect of gameplay: from combat and damage to loot and economy. The mod aims to create more challenging and balanced experience, while not deviating too far from vanilla system and principles, i.e. all game basics remain roughly the same.

• 2.1 Manual install instructions
• 2.2 Uninstallation
• 3.1 New damage formula and combat changes
• 3.2 Consistent wording and better descriptions
• 3.3 Alchemy and ranged combat
• 3.4 Economy, looting and crafting
• 3.5 Items and equipment
• 3.6 Quests, experience and rewards
• 3.7 UI changes
• 3.8 Mod customization options
• 3.9 Your very own difficulty mode
• 4 External links

About [ | ]

Vanilla game has lots and lots of gameplay issues: skills not working as intended or not working at all, descriptions being wrong, decoctions not doing what they're supposed to do, quest levels and experience being weirdly distributed, etc. Large portion of the mod is dedicated to resolving these issues: fixing bugged skills and items, providing better descriptions, tweaking useless and overpowered skills and items to be more balanced, changing loot so dimeritium plate can no longer be found inside poor peasant's shack, etc.

The mod supports all DLCs, but doesn't require them to function properly.

NG+ is technically supported, but not recommended as the game itself is not created with NG+ in mind and thus this mode cannot be balanced properly.

Starting a new game is highly recommended both to avoid problems and to get used to mod changes. Starting from existing vanilla save is possible, but some of your equipment might get weird stats after installing the mod (newly found/crafted equipment will have proper stats). Starting from another overhaul mod is not recommended, especially if the mod changes skill tree and/or experience curve - this will result in broken skills and leveling.

12 December 2022

15 October 2019

27 May 2016

Installation [ | ]

Important: The mod requires Community Patch - Base and Community Patch - Shared Imports installed to compile properly.

It's recommended to install the mod using The Witcher 3 Mod Manager - it handles installing/uninstalling the mod and its menu automatically. For manual install see the instructions below. Remember, though, that mod manager does not resolve mod conflicts, you still need Script Merger for this!

If you have any other mods installed, use Script Merger to find and resolve conflicts.

Compatibility with specific mods:

• Preparations - do not merge effects_ep2.xml file. Make sure the one from Ghost Mode has a priority (should be like this by default as modGhostMode is loaded before modPreparations).
• Nitpicker's Patch - do not merge bundled xml files, but make sure Ghost Mode has higher priority (is first in conflicts list). Loading order can be easily changed by renaming modNitpicker folder to modZNitpicker.
• Besserwisser's Patch - do not merge anything (including scripts!), but make sure Ghost Mode has higher priority (is first in conflicts list).
• All NPC Scabbards - do not merge bundled xml files, but make sure Ghost Mode has higher priority (is first in conflicts list). Nitpicker's Patch priority is irrelevant as Ghost Mode overrides both. Loading order can be easily changed by renaming modScabbards folder to modZScabbards.
• Better Icons mod - do not use xml versions of the mod as there are a lot of conflicts with Ghost Mode, but use version that changes icons themselves instead (search the Nexus for the one that corresponds to your language).

General merging advice : no other mod should override GM's files (ws, w3ent, xml, etc.)! If you allow another mod to take priority, the game might run and even seem OK, but later you will inevitably encounter things like wrong levels or abilities on NPCs. One-shotting the final boss of the game is no fun and it can happen if you ignore this warning!

IMPORTANT NOTICE: please, exit the game and re-run it after script compilation is done. It was discovered that playing the game without doing so might result in weird bugs occurring, such as invalid (-1) number of potions, probably, something else. The nature of this bug is yet unknown, but the above procedure should prevent it from happening.

RECOMMENDED MOD SETTINGS: use default/recommended presets in mod's options menu.

Manual install instructions [ | ]

Install the mod by unpacking both modGhostMode and modGMTutorials it into [Path to The Witcher 3]\Mods folder. Run Script Merger to find and resolve conflicts.

For in-game menu to work you need to copy [Path to The Witcher 3]\Mods\modGhostMode\bin folder into your [Path to The Witcher 3] folder.

Uninstallation [ | ]

Delete both modGhostMode and modGMTutorials from [Path to The Witcher 3]\Mods folder. Run Script Merger to fix merged scripts.

Delete [Path to The Witcher 3]\bin\config\r4game\user_config_matrix\pc\modSignsConfig.xml.

Changes [ | ]

New damage formula and combat changes [ | ].

How damage is calculated affects all the other combat related gameplay aspects: from weapons and armors to skills and bonuses. An issue with vanilla formula is that there's nothing that can counter damage increase from attack power: bigger sword damage multiplied by bigger attack power results in fast snowballing into massive damage dealt to any enemy in the game. And it also results in useless skills (like strong attacks), upgrades (like armor penetration) and item stats (like armor value).

New damage formula was implemented in the mod to fix the snowballing problem: you now need to penetrate enemy armor first for your attack power bonuses to start taking effect. This works both sides, so higher difficulties enemy attack bonuses don't render armor value useless.

To complement this change a set of other modifications was introduced:

• strong attacks deal more damage and have armor penetration bonus, as a result, strong attacks work better against armored enemies and hit harder in general;
• enemy types are more distinct in terms of armor and resistances, some enemies are very hard to deal with using light attacks only, because light attacks won't be able to penetrate their armor;
• enemies have better chances do dodge strong attacks, overall AI handling of dodging was improved, making it more consistent, an ability to dodge different types of attack differs depending on enemy type;
• player armor classes were redone, so light armor has smaller resistances, medium armor has average resistances and heavy armor has bigger resistances to all types of damage;
• armor value still depends on armor level like in vanilla and it's now more meaningful because of its considerably bigger effect on damage taken;
• all combat actions require stamina to perform (configurable via in-game mod menu), stamina cost for sign casting is reduced compared to vanilla;
• cooldown mechanic was introduced for signs (configurable via in-game mod menu);
• heavy armors have stamina penalties for certain combat actions per piece, light armors have stamina bonuses for melee combat;
• being over encumbered adds severe penalties to sprinting, rolling and dodging actions, depending on how big your over encumbrance is;
• defense techniques (dodging/rolling, parrying and countering) were reworked, see the in-game description of corresponding skill for details;
• armor sets were introduced for generic (non-witcher) armors: wearing all four pieces of a certain armor type gives you additional bonuses;
• if you have Blood and Wine DLC, non-grandmaser witcher sets will grant you minor bonuses of corresponding grandmaster sets; grandmaster set bonuses were completely reworked;
• AI stamina management was reworked, so all AI actions now have stamina cost and you can now actually cause human opponents to run out of stamina;
• combat is more dynamic and effects that stunlock your enemies have lesser duration to prevent infinite burning stunlock with Igni;
• signs were rebalanced in terms of numbers, calculations and power to fix numerous issues with overpowered and useless skills;
• AI combat behavior was tweaked to make it react better to player actions;
• level up AI bonuses were changed to make NPC progression work better, level difference bonuses were removed;
• game difficulties were reworked, so Blood and Broken Bones is now hard and Death Match is deadly;
• optional enemy scaling was introduced, numerous issues with levels were fixed, so using scaling won't result in ridiculously hard enemies anymore (like rats or D'Jinn in vanilla).

Consistent wording and better descriptions [ | ]

There is a huge issue with wording of gameplay terms in vanilla: the exact same thing can be called by three different names. Another issue is that many descriptions are rather vague and some are even incorrect.

The mod changes many of the texts in game to use consistent wording and provide more precise description and numbers. Almost every skill description was changed, as well as many descriptions for decoctions and other alchemy items.

Alchemy and ranged combat [ | ]

Almost all alchemy recipes were redone for better consistency and more ingredients variety, a lot of bugs and inconsistencies with alchemy items were fixed.

Recipes for various types of strong alcohol were added to alchemists, so you can now brew mahakaman spirit or mandrake cordial yourself (very useful if you play with Preparations mod).

Cooking recipes were introduced into the game: you can now cook different meals using alchemy menu after you buy recipes from innkeepers and gather all the ingredients. Food types were reworked and separate "well hydrated" effect was restored, so you can drink and eat at the same time again.

Decoctions were reworked completely to offer more unique and interesting bonuses and to create synergies with different builds.

Bombs are more consistent and reliable now with their effect: their damage over time effects now reduce a percentage of enemy health, as all the other similar effects do. Non-aimed bomb throws now suffer from 50% penalty to attack power. When destroying a monster nest, the game now tries to use the bomb you have selected first instead of always preferring Dancing Star bomb. Damage from player's own bombs is no longer halved.

Crossbows and crossbow bolts were reworked for better damage and better additional effects. Non-aimed crossbow shots also suffer from 50% attack power penalty same as bombs, headshots go through armor and have additional 50% critical hit chance. Damage from player's own bolts is no longer halved.

Meditation and refilling of alchemy items are unchanged, but the mod is fully compatible with Preparations mod and is balanced for playing with Preparations using default refill option (refilling with base ingredient). Other aspects of Preparations are also accounted for - like no eating/drinking in combat or no applying oils in combat. Using Preparations makes meditation and alchemy/skill management more immersive, so it's highly recommended to install it along this mod.

Economy, looting and crafting [ | ]

Prices are a big issue in vanilla game: when you're charged with astronomical sum for some basic sword or crafting component you rarely even buy anything. On top of that there's loot system that generates rare and expensive ingredients like dimeritium plate inside a regular crate in some poor man's house. Ingredients having zero weight take it even further as you can loot virtually everything, so you never run out of crafting components or money.

The mod makes several adjustments to improve this system:

• merchant price modifiers were changed, so items no longer have 400% extra charge;
• loot tables were completely reworked to not have rare and expensive ingredients or magical items everywhere * they can still be found, but only at alchemy labs or inside treasure chests;
• all items have weight, so you can't carry hundreds of swords and armor anymore;
• due to changes to alchemy recipes and crafting schematics you won't need as many ingredients as in vanilla and due to changes to loot system you won't get that many of them anyway, so weight limitation won't create issues with alchemy and crafting;
• you are no longer able to gallop and fast-travel while overencumbered;
• merchant inventories were also reworked: more common items, generic food and alcohol were added as well as empty bottles (to support new cooking recipes and Preparations mod);
• negotiating monster contract price can now increase your reward up to 70% (if you're very lucky, average number will be around 30%);
• rare monster parts cost more than generic alchemy ingredients, so you can kill monsters and sell these ingredients for money.

Crafting was completely reworked and shifted much earlier into the game:

• crafted item bonuses are no longer random: no matter the quality, all crafted items have fixed set of characteristics you can view immediately while buying corresponding schematic;
• crafting schematics are more consistent now: you don't need monster parts to craft generic human weapon or armor, but witcher sets require a lot of rare materials;
• you now have wider variety of weapons and armors to craft early game;
• Lindenvale blacksmith now has journeyman level, so you can craft different swords early on without a need to go all the way to Oxenfurt (good for those not using fast travel).

Items and equipment [ | ]

Witcher sets are the best looking ones and have the most powerful bonuses in vanilla game (except for some relic items in HoS and BaW). This creates an issue with exploring and treasures when everything you find is far more worse than set items. There also is an issue with monster hunt trophies giving you useless and repetitive bonuses.

To address these issues all equipment and trophies (as well as many other items) were completely redone:

• generic items were given better bonuses, which are still random; higher level items get bigger bonuses, making them competitive to items you can craft or set items;
• relic items were also given better bonuses and items themselves were spread better throughout the game, so better relic swords and armors are available for higher level player;
• trophies were completely redone: all of them are now unique and provide useful bonuses which are related to abilities of a creature the trophy comes from;
• loot leveling system was improved so higher level players won't get items with a very low level;
• special DLC items were reworked for better balance;
• durability penalties were redone, so they now have more impact on the game, especially on higher levels;
• you can now buy special master tools after completing master armorer's and master blacksmith's quests: this tool restores 100% durability and increases item level by one when used;
• dismantle kits were added to armorers/blacksmiths and alchemists/herbalists that allow the player to dismantle items from the inventory;
• razor can now be used for shaving.

Quests, experience and rewards [ | ]

There are numerous issues with quest levels and experience/reward amounts in vanilla game: levels are inconsistent, player tends to quickly overlevel the content, you can get huge amount of experience just for reading a book and almost nothing for completing a long difficult quest, some rewards have fixed level and are useless at the point you get them, etc.

All these issues are dealt with in the mod:

• quest levels were tweaked to spread them better throughout the game, some quests were shifted later into the game, because you can indeed complete them later story wise;
• experience tables were redone for more consistency, huge spikes like 4000 exp points at once were replaced with more reasonable rewards;
• main amount of experience still comes from the main quest, as it is somewhat time sensitive (at least story wise);
• another source of experience comes from monster contracts;
• side quests and minor quests give little experience: they mostly give you either another piece of the story or some reward like items or money;
• optional quests like horse races, fistfights and gwent give less experience and more items/money;
• combat experience was reworked, common monsters give little amount of exp, while bigger and unique monsters give more;
• you get progressively less experience for killing monsters of the same type;
• both quest and combat experience are adjusted by player level and quest/opponent level difference: you get progressively more (up to 150%) experience for higher level quests/opponents and progressively less (up to 0%) for lower level quests/opponents;
• you always get at least 5 exp points for completing a quest and at least 1 exp point for killing an enemy;
• difficulty modifiers were removed as they are no longer needed anyway because of experience table changes, you will no longer get massively overleveled when playing on lower difficulties or using fixed experience option;
• options for fixed quest and combat experience and for removing quest levels entirely were introduced as well as sliders for increasing/decreasing quest and combat experience;
• reward items for important quests were changed to have better bonuses and to autolevel to player level;
• additional unique diagrams of all three armor classes were added to master armorer, free reward armor was changed to match the one you help to test during the quest.

UI changes [ | ]

Quality of life and fixes:

• kill count per enemy type can now be seen in new tab of bestiary menu;
• some mixed up inventory icons for boots, gloves and swords were fixed;
• extended descriptions for books, keys, quest items, etc. were restored.

Character statistic menu was also altered to show more data:

• sword damage now shows damage per hit instead of average damage per second;
• more detailed stats about attack power, critical hits, etc. are now displayed for swords;
• adrenaline gain is now displayed in stats;
• more stats are displayed for crossbows;
• more stats are displayed for each sign, signs section was divided into two to fit all the data;
• sign intensity now shows your base intensity and not average sign intensity for all signs, individual sign intensities a shown in detailed stats;
• more stats are displayed for each skill, even for base ones, so make sure you read them;
• stamina costs for actions are now displayed in stats.

Mod customization options [ | ]

Enemy scaling, damage and health, quest levels, experience and some other options are available from the menu. For more detailed information on those refer to FullChangelist.txt.

Your very own difficulty mode [ | ]

In vanilla difficulty modes differ by AI bonuses to health and damage and by quest and combat experience bonuses/penalties, AI combat behavior is the same on all difficulties. In the mod both quest and combat experience were completely reworked (see above), so vanilla bonuses/penalties no longer exist. This leaves AI bonuses to health and damage, which you can configure yourself using mod options.

In the mod Normal difficulty (Story and Swords) does not have any difficulty modifiers for enemy health and damage, so you can use it as a base to create your own custom difficulty mode:

• All enemies already have their base health, damage and resistances set up on per enemy type basis with additional tweaks for special enemies like monster hunt monsters and bosses.
• By increasing or decreasing additional damage and health you can fine tune the combat to your liking. For example, decreasing enemy health (about -50%) while simultaneously increasing their damage (300-400%) will result in very fast paced, but also very deadly combat as even slightest mistake will make you killed. Leaving health as it is while slightly increasing damage (by 50-100%) will result in more slow paced and less brutal, but still challenging combat.
• By increasing or decreasing quest and combat experience you can speed up or slow down your level up rate. Since experience gain rate is balanced for existing quest levels, these options are only recommended to use if you have both enemy scaling and fixed experience options turned on.

External links [ | ]

• Ghost Mode on Nexus
• Ghost Mode on GitHub
• Discord channel invite link

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• CD Projekt Red

The Ghost mode - overhaul mod for The Witcher 3 - alternative to W3EE

• Thread starter Perkel
• Start date Jul 18, 2017

• Jul 18, 2017

Ghost Mode is an overhaul mod which changes almost every aspect of gameplay: from combat and damage to loot and economy. The mod aims to create more challenging and balanced experience, while not deviating too far from vanilla system and principles, i.e. all game basics remain the same. Vanilla game has lots and lots of gameplay issues: skills not working as intended or not working at all, descriptions being wrong, decoctions not doing what they're supposed to do, quest levels and experience being weirdly distributed, etc. Large portion of the mod is dedicated to resolving these issues: fixing bugged skills and items, providing better descriptions, tweaking useless and overpowered skills and items to be more balanced, changing loot so dimeritium plate can no longer be found inside poor peasant's shack, etc. The mod supports all DLCs, but doesn't require them to function properly. Starting a new game is highly recommended both to avoid problems and to get used to mod changes. Starting from existing vanilla save is possible, but some of your equipment might get weird stats after installing the mod (newly found/crafted equipment will have proper stats). Starting from another overhaul mod is not recommended, especially if the mod changes skill tree and/or experience curve - this will result in broken skills and leveling. Click to expand...

Mod changes by category: 1. New damage formula and combat changes How damage is calculated affects all the other combat related gameplay aspects: from weapons and armors to skills and bonuses. An issue with vanilla formula is that there's nothing that can counter damage increase from attack power: bigger sword damage multiplied by bigger attack power results in fast snowballing into massive damage dealt to any enemy in the game. And it also results in useless skills (like strong attacks), upgrades (like armor penetration) and item stats (like armor value). New damage formula was implemented in the mod to fix the snowballing problem: you now need to penetrate enemy armor first for your attack power bonuses to start taking effect. This works both sides, so higher difficulties enemy attack bonuses don't render armor value useless. To complement this change a set of other modifications was introduced: - strong attacks deal 25% more damage and have +200 armor penetration bonus, as a result strong attacks always hit considerably harder; - enemy types are more distinct in terms of armor and resistances, some enemies are very hard to deal with using light attacks only, because light attacks won't be able to penetrate their armor; - enemies have better chances do dodge strong attacks, overall AI handling of dodging was improved, making it more consistent, an ability to dodge different types of attack differs depending on enemy type; - player armor classes were redone, so light armor has smaller resistances, medium armor has average resistances and heavy armor has bigger resistances to all types of damage; - armor value still depends on armor level like in vanilla and it's now more meaningful because of its considerably bigger effect on damage taken; - medium and heavy armors have stamina penalties for certain combat actions per piece: medium - for sprinting and rolling, heavy - for sprinting, rolling and dodging; - being over encumbered adds severe penalties to sprinting, rolling and dodging actions, depending on how big your over encumbrance is; - medium and heavy armors now grant a chance to keep balance when hit, i.e. a chance that getting hit won't interrupt your current combat action: medium armor chances are very low, while heavy armor chances are considerably bigger; - overall stamina management was reworked: all combat actions now pause stamina regeneration, even if an action itself has no stamina cost; casting a sign has a small delay before stamina starts regenerating, alternative sign casting has bigger delay; - AI stamina management was also reworked, so all AI actions now have stamina cost and you can now actually cause human opponents to run out of stamina; - combat is more dynamic and effects that stunlock your enemies have lesser duration to prevent infinite burning stunlock with Igni; - signs were rebalanced in terms of numbers, calculations and power to fix numerous issues with overpowered and useless skills; - AI combat behavior was tweaked to make it more aggressive; - level up AI bonuses were changed to make enemies progressively harder; - game difficulties were reworked, so Blood and Broken Bones is now hard and Death Match is deadly; - optional enemy scaling was introduced, numerous issues with levels were fixed, so using scaling won't result in ridiculously hard enemies anymore (like rats or D'Jinn in vanilla). 2. Consistent wording and better descriptions There is a huge issue with wording of gameplay terms in vanilla: the exact same thing can be called by three different names. Another issue is that many descriptions are rather vague and some are even incorrect. The mod changes many of the texts in game to use consistent wording and provide more precise description and numbers. Almost every skill description was changed, as well as many descriptions for decoctions and other alchemy items. 3. Alchemy and ranged combat Almost all alchemy recipes were redone for better consistency and more ingredients variety, a lot of bugs and inconsistencies with alchemy items were fixed. You can now stash alchemy ingredients and when accessing alchemy menu from alchemist or herbalist these stashed ingredients will be automatically used for brewing potions if you need them. But when doing alchemy on your own, you will still be able to use ingredients from your inventory only. Recipes for various types of strong alcohol were added to alchemists, so you can now brew mahakaman spirit or mandrake cordial yourself (very useful if you play with Preparations mod). Cooking recipes were introduced into the game: you can now cook different meals using alchemy menu after you buy recipes from innkeepers and gather all the ingredients. Food types were reworked and separate "well hydrated" effect was restored, so you can drink and eat at the same time again. Bombs are more consistent and reliable now with their effect: their damage over time effects now reduce a percentage of enemy health, as all the other similar effects do. Non-aimed bomb throws now suffer from 50% penalty to attack power. When destroying a monster nest, the game now tries to use the bomb you have selected first instead of always preferring Dancing Star bomb. Damage from player's own bombs is no longer halved. Crossbows and crossbow bolts were reworked for better damage and better additional effects. Non-aimed crossbow shots also suffer from 50% attack power penalty same as bombs, headshots go through armor and have additional 50% critical hit chance. Damage from player's own bolts is no longer halved. Meditation and refilling of alchemy items are unchanged, but the mod is fully compatible with Preparations mod and is balanced for playing with Preparations using default refill option (refilling with base ingredient). Other aspects of Preparations are also accounted for - like no eating/drinking in combat or no applying oils in combat. Using Preparations makes meditation and alchemy/skill management more immersive, so it's highly recommended to install it along this mod. 4. Economy, looting and crafting Prices are a big issue in vanilla game: when you're charged with astronomical sum for some basic sword or crafting component you rarely even buy anything. On top of that there's loot system that generates rare and expensive ingredients like dimeritium plate inside a regular crate in some poor man's house. Ingredients having zero weight take it even further as you can loot virtually everything, so you never run out of crafting components or money. The mod makes several adjustments to improve this system: - merchant price modifiers were changed, so items no longer have 400% extra charge; - loot tables were completely reworked to not have rare and expensive ingredients or magical items everywhere - they can still be found, but only at alchemy labs or inside treasure chests; - all items have weight, so you can't carry hundreds of swords and armor anymore; - due to changes to alchemy recipes and crafting schematics you won't need as many ingredients as in vanilla and due to changes to loot system you won't get that many of them anyway, so weight limitation won't create issues with alchemy and crafting; - merchant inventories were also reworked: more common items, generic food and alcohol were added as well as empty bottles (to support new cooking recipes and Preparations mod); - negotiating monster contract price can now increase your reward up to 70% (if you're very lucky, average number will be around 30%); - rare monster parts cost more than generic alchemy ingredients, so you can kill monsters and sell these ingredients for money. Crafting was completely reworked and shifted much earlier into the game: - crafted item bonuses are no longer random: no matter the quality, all crafted items have fixed set of characteristics you can view immediately while buying corresponding schematic; - crafting schematics are more consistent now: you don't need monster parts to craft generic human weapon or armor, but witcher sets require a lot of rare materials; - you can store your crafting ingredients in stash and they will be automatically used when crafting; you can also dismantle stashed items and components will go back to stash after that; - you now have wider variety of weapons and armors to craft early game; - Lindenvale blacksmith now has journeyman level, so you can craft different swords early on without a need to go all the way to Oxenfurt (good for those not using fast travel). 5. Items and equipment Witcher sets are the best looking ones and have the most powerful bonuses in vanilla game (except for some relic items in HoS and BaW). This creates an issue with exploring and treasures when everything you find is far more worse than set items. There also is an issue with monster hunt trophies giving you useless and repetitive bonuses. To address these issues all equipment and trophies (as well as many other items) were completely redone: - generic items were given better bonuses, which are still random; higher level items get bigger bonuses, making them competitive to items you can craft or set items; - relic items were also given better bonuses and items themselves were spread better throughout the game, so better relic swords and armors are available for higher level player; - trophies were completely redone: all of them are now unique and provide useful bonuses which are related to abilities of a creature the trophy comes from; - loot leveling system was improved so higher level players won't get items with a very low level; - special DLC items were reworked for better balance; - durability penalties were redone, so they now have more impact on the game, especially on higher levels; - you can now buy special master tools after completing master armorer's and master blacksmith's quests: this tool restores 100% durability and increases item level by one when used; - razor can now be used for shaving. 6. Quests, experience and rewards There are numerous issues with quest levels and experience/reward amounts in vanilla game: levels are inconsistent, player tends to quickly overlevel the content, you can get huge amount of experience just for reading a book and almost nothing for completing a long difficult quest, some rewards have fixed level and are useless at the point you get them ,etc. All these issues are dealt with in the mod: - quest levels were tweaked to spread them better throughout the game, some quests were shifted later into the game, because you can indeed complete them later story wise; - experience tables were redone for more consistency, huge spikes like 4000 exp points at once were replaced with more reasonable rewards; - main amount of experience still comes from the main quest, as it is somewhat time sensitive (at least story wise); - another source of experience comes from monster contracts; - side quests and minor quests give little experience: they mostly give you either another piece of the story or some reward like items or money; - optional quests like horse races, fistfights and gwent give less experience and more items/money; - combat experience was reworked, common monsters give little amount of exp, while bigger and unique monsters give more; - you get progressively less experience for killing monsters of the same type; - both quest and combat experience are adjusted by player level and quest/opponent level difference: you get progressively more (up to 150%) experience for higher level quests/opponents and progressively less (up to 0%) for lower level quests/opponents; - you always get at least 5 exp points for completing a quest and at least 1 exp point for killing an enemy; - difficulty modifiers were removed as they are no longer needed anyway because of experience table changes, you will no longer get massively overleveled when playing on lower difficulties or using fixed experience option; - options for fixed quest and combat experience and for removing quest levels entirely were introduced as well as sliders for increasing/decreasing quest and combat experience; - reward items for important quests were changed to have better bonuses and to autolevel to player level; - additional unique diagrams of all three armor classes were added to master armorer, free reward armor was changed to match the one you help to test during the quest. 7. UI and QoL changes Inventory and stash management was improved in the mod to help the player deal with increased item weights: - stash is now always accessible for viewing by pressing hotkey or using hub menu; - information about crafting ingredients you get from dismantling an item was added to item tooltip; - synchronized mode was introduced for stash menu: stash window only shows items which belong to currently opened player inventory tab; - stashed items are used for crafting and alchemy (while at alchemist/herbalist) along with items in your inventory; - kill count per enemy type can now be seen in new tab of bestiary menu; - some mixed up inventory icons for boots, gloves and swords were fixed; - extended descriptions for books, keys, quest items, etc. were restored. Character statistic menu was also altered to show more data: - sword damage now shows damage per hit instead of average damage per second; - more detailed stats about attack power, critical hits, etc. are now displayed for swords; - stamina penalty is now displayed for armors that have it and also in armor section of statistic screen; - adrenaline gain is now displayed in stats; - more stats are displayed for crossbows; - more stats are displayed for each sign, signs section was divided into two to fit all the data; - sign intensity now shows your base intensity and not average sign intensity for all signs, individual sign intensities a shown in detailed stats; - more stats are displayed for each skill, even for base ones, so make sure you read them. 8. Mod customization options Enemy scaling, damage and health, quest levels, experience and some other options are available from the menu: - Auto-leveling: * disabled - default mod behavior - no changes to vanilla levels; * upscale - upscale lower level enemies to match current player level, higher level enemies are unchanged; * match - upscale or downscale enemies to match current player level; * soft - upscale only enemies that are more than 6 levels below player's to be exactly 6 levels below player's; * random - ignore vanilla levels, use max/min allowed level setting (see below) to generate random level for enemies; * random with no downscaling - same as above, but higher level enemies are unchanged. - Random scaling: lower/upper bound relative to player level - limits for auto-scaling enemies in random mode. - Do not upscale animals: switches off level scaling for dogs, wolves, bears, etc. - Enemy damage modifier: increases or decreases enemy damage (in addition to difficulty damage increase). For example, setting -0.2 will decrease final damage dealt by enemies by 20% and setting 1.5 will increase final damage by 150%. - Enemy health modifier: increases or decreases enemy health (in addition to difficulty health increase). For example, setting -0.2 will decrease final enemy health by 20% and setting 1.5 will increase it by 150%. - Disable quest levels: disables quest levels (none are shown in the journal) and related exp penalties. Without auto-scaling quest monsters retain their original level, so you might want to switch auto-scaling on, if you want truly level-less quests. - Fixed experience for quests and combat: removes default mod behavior of adjusting exp for higher/lower level quests and monsters, makes all quest and combat exp fixed. - Quest experience modifier and Combat experience modifier: allow to increase or decrease experience gained. For example, setting -0.2 for quest exp modifier will result in 20% less experience from quests and setting 0.2 will result in 20% more experience. - An option to sink a boat if over encumbrance is too big (off by default). - An option to reduce item encumbrance (off by default, not recommended if you like immersion). Most of these options are available only from main menu (Options -> Mods -> Ghost Mode) when no game is currently loaded (due to technical reasons), they're not get saved for just one game, but affect all games you play. Recommended options for "intended by devs" playthrough: everything off, can turn sink boat on if you like and set about 20% over encumbrance for sinking. Recommended options for "I go where I want" playthrough: auto-scaling - random, max allowed levels about +/- 5 (more than 5 will result in too weak/deadly enemies, so be careful when tuning this option); do not upscale animals - on; disable quest levels - on; everything else - off, can turn sink boat on if you like and set about 20% over encumbrance for sinking. 9. Your very own difficulty mode In vanilla difficulty modes differ by AI bonuses to health and damage and by quest and combat experience bonuses/penalties, AI combat behavior is the same on all difficulties. In the mod both quest and combat experience were completely reworked (see above), so vanilla bonuses/penalties no longer exist. This leaves AI bonuses to health and damage, which you can configure yourself using mod options. In the mod Normal difficulty (Story and Swords) does not have any difficulty modifiers for enemy health and damage, so you can use it as a base to create your own custom difficulty mode: 1. All enemies already have their base health, damage and resistances set up on per enemy type basis with additional tweaks for special enemies like monster hunt monsters and bosses. 2. By increasing or decreasing additional damage and health you can fine tune the combat to your liking. For example, decreasing enemy health (about -50%) while simultaneously increasing their damage (300-400%) will result in very fast paced, but also very deadly combat as even slightest mistake will make you killed. Leaving health as it is while slightly increasing damage (by 50-100%) will result in more slow paced and less brutal, but still challenging combat. 3. By increasing or decreasing quest and combat experience you can speed up or slow down your level up rate. Since experience gain rate is balanced for existing quest levels, these options are only recommended to use if you have both enemy scaling and fixed experience options turned on. Full changelist is available in the readme. { "lightbox_close": "Close", "lightbox_next": "Next", "lightbox_previous": "Previous", "lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.", "lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow", "lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow", "lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen", "lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails", "lightbox_download": "Download", "lightbox_share": "Share", "lightbox_zoom": "Zoom", "lightbox_new_window": "New window", "lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar" } Install the mod manually by unpacking it into [Path to The Witcher 3]\Mods folder or with NMM. For in-game menu to work you need to copy [Path to The Witcher 3]\Mods\modGhostMode\bin folder into your [Path to The Witcher 3] folder. If you have any other mods installed, use Script Merger to find and resolve conflicts. Compatibility with specific mods: * Preparations - do not merge effects_ep2.xml file. Make sure the one from this mod has a priority (should be like this by default as modGhostMode is loaded before modPreparations). * Nitpicker's Patch - do not merge bundled xml files, but make sure Ghost Mode has higher priority (is first in conflicts list). Loading order can be easily changed by renaming modNitpicker folder to modZNitpicker. * All NPC Scabbards - do not merge bundled xml files, but make sure Ghost Mode has higher priority (is first in conflicts list). Nitpicker's Patch priority is irrelevant as Ghost Mode overrides both. Loading order can be easily changed by renaming modScabbards folder to modZScabbards. * Better Icons mod - do not use xml versions of the mod as there are a lot of conflicts with Ghost Mode, but use this one instead. IMPORTANT NOTICE: please, exit the game and re-run it after script compilation is done. It was discovered that playing the game without doing so might result in weird bugs occurring, such as invalid (-1) number of potions, probably, something else. The nature of this bug is yet unknown, but the above procedure should prevent it from happening. If you want quick access to new stash view menu, you need to insert the content of input.settings.part.txt file at the beginning of your [Documents]\The Witcher 3\input.settings and also insert the content of input.xml.part.txt into your [Path To The Witcher 3]\bin\config\r4game\user_config_matrix\pc\input.xml before <!-- [BASE_CharacterMovement] --> line. Default hotkey is U, you can reassign it via hotkeys menu. If you skip this step, you will still be able to access stash menu via hub menu (Enter by default). - Enhanced Targeting by Mpstark for better control over Geralt in combat (use Script Merger). Since the mod author has abandoned his mod, I made an updated version you can download here . Still I ask you to follow original file link to download and endorse original mod if you like it. - Preparations for even more challenge (use Script Merger, don't merge bundled xml files). - Friendly HUD for better immersion (use Script Merger). - All NPC Scabbards by eguitar01 - for all NPCs to finally have scabbards (don't merge bundled xml files). - Additional Stash Locations by DJ_Kovrik. - Nitpicker's Patch by CHC (don't merge bundled xml files). Click to expand...

It would be great if Twitcher 3 was actually worth a replay.  

veskoandroid

http://imgur.com/pSSwl6V.jpg http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/2470/? Wraith Mode adds an extra layer of difficulty to wghost81's brilliant Ghost Mode mod. Ghost Mode is perfectly functional on it's own, and currently has no known bugs. Wraith Mode's purpose is not to continue the work of wghost81's Ghost Mode, but rather it's purpose is to provide mod users the option to turn up the difficulty in more ways than just the "tougher enemies that hit harder" approach. NOTE: Installing this mod is fairly simple, but still requires you to follow the instructions. I encourage you to read the included "README_SERIOUSLY.txt" document that comes included with this mod. Wraith Mode is dependent on both Ghost Mode and Preparations Mod to function correctly. ALCHEMY Preparations Mod is a requirement for Wraith Mode, otherwise you will have script compilation errors. Preparations Mod's in-game options have not been changed, so feel free to pick your favorite settings. The only thing that Wraith Mode as changed in the Preparations coding is that now you are able to Meditate from the Radial Menu, and players who use a Game Pad can exit Meditation by pressing the B button. All potion durations have been increased (most of them around 1 minute 15 seconds, and then increase by 30 seconds per potion recipe upgrade learned). The effects of all potions have also been adjusted to better-reflect these new durations, and of course to also maintain balanced game play. Toxicity degeneration is now about half of vanilla speed. This means that you must wait much longer before having enough toxicity to chug more potions. Choose your potions wisely, because only a Witcher who has mastered the Alchemy skills can consume more than 3 at once. The Toxicity of all Decoctions has been increased. You likely cannot consume anything else unless you're skilled enough in Alchemy. MELEE In short, everything takes more damage and hits harder - including Geralt. Combat is more fast-paced and one wrong step could finish you off. There are several different factors which effect how much damage is done to Geralt, and enemies are no longer able to just "tickle" you with their laughable damage. Drowner and Nekkers are just a couple examples of enemies that you'd be wise to stay focused against. Rolling in combat delays stamina by 1 sec (was 0.5) ENEMY NPCs Enemy monsters have randomly-generated sizes, attack speeds, and stats (within limits of course). Humanoids also have randomized attack speeds and increased stats, but their size does not change. Ghost Mod's enemy scaling algorithm has been adjusted. This was a necessary change, not because Ghost Mode's is flawed, but because with Wraith Mode, there are NEVER any item level requirements. This new algorithm simply applies additional bonuses to enemies if your equipped item's average item level exceeds Geralt's player level. NOTE: You can still use whichever scaling option you want, but all of them have this added algorithm. Some monsters have received special attention : - Wraiths and Noon/Night Wraiths now have greatly increased attack and movement speeds. Yrden is now a much bigger asset against them. - Noon/Night Wraiths now have life steal. It would be wise to brush-up on your dodging skills against them. - Alghouls have a chance to poison you if you are struck by them. - Several different enemies now have a chance to cause Bleeding. Such as Bears, Rotfiends, Werewolves, and more. - Werewolves and Katakins now have greatly-increased movement speeds. However, I heard a rumor that they struggle against damage-over-time abilities. - Golems and Gargoyles take 88% less fire damage. - Leshens now move faster. - All animals with fur take 25% increased fire damage. - Drowners take 33% increased fire damage, but they move faster now. - Nekkers move 25% faster. One just might pluck out your eye! ECONOMY All high-level or DLC armors which are purchasable have had their prices greatly increased so they cannot be abused at early levels. A whole new economy buy and sell pricing algorithm has been implemented to keep sell prices from getting out of control. You're a Witcher, not a junk salesman. Most of your income will now come from contracts and quest rewards. INSTALLING THE MOD FILE WRAITH MODE V1.0 THIS MOD WILL **NOT** FUNCTION CORRECTLY WITHOUT THE FOLLOWING MODS: GHOST MODE - by wghost81 - http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/992/? Unification patch for 1.31 and 1.31GOTY game versions - by wghost81 - http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/2134/? PREPARATIONS MOD - by wghost81 - http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/750/? 1. Simply put the "mod0WraithMode" folder into your Witcher 3 mods folder 2. Open the content folder for "modGhostMode" and "modPreparations" -- DELETE the scripts folder in both of these mods. 3. Use ScriptMerger to merge all scripts with other mods. 4. Within ScriptMerge, set Wraith Mode XLM files to #1 priority. You can do this by : Go to "Bundled Text" -> Right-click on the first instance of mod0WraithMode -> Click "Set Overall Mod Priority" change the value to 1. INSTALLING ADDITIONAL HOTKEYES Copy and paste the following text into your input.settings file (usually located at C:\Users\[User]\Documents\The Witcher 3) =========================================================================== [Exploration] IK_Pad_A_CROSS=(Action=MeditationFastForward) IK_Space=(Action=MeditationFastForward) IK_Pad_B_CIRCLE=(Action=ExitMeditationState) IK_Pad_RightThumb=(Action=PanelMeditation,State=Duration,IdleTime=0.5) =========================================================================== Also make sure your input.settings file is not set to "read-only", otherwise it will revert back to vanilla on game launch. THE "BIN" FOLDER 1. If you have no other mods which use menus, simply drag and drop the included "bin" folder into your Witcher 3 Directory (NOT the mods folder!) You will most likely be asked to overwrite a few files - just say yes. - Installation complete! Have fun! 2. If you DO have other mods that use menus, those mods likely have instructions to copy-paste some code into your input.xml file. Follow the instructions on the mod page for whatever other mod you're using. The path should be: \[Your The Witcher 3 folder]\bin\config\r4game\user_config_matrix\pc - Installation complete! Have fun! RECOMMENDED MODS TO USE ALONG-SIDE WRAITH MODE Witcher 2 Gear - With this mod, the vast majority of non-Witcher gear actually looks good! Friendly HUD- To give your game a more immersive feel Nitpicker's Patch - Fixes some minor visual bugs in the game  

Also i recommend potion mods for ghost/wraith: -BetterGhostPotions -Witcher 2 potion length -Dark Souls Potions for Ghostmode I stuck with BetterGhostPotions, its easiest to install and works, whereas other two are either complicated or have added food functions which i didnt want/conflicted with my other mods. All are great though. Echelon117 chose (and recommended me) dark and it works for him, but as said above, i stuck w better. I didn't go with wraith in the end since it removes equipment level limit so u can use anything wo restrictions and i was already used to it. Good for starting new game or new game plus though. Perkel how do I make the text show - more option like your post? Im using Tapatalk on amdroid, dont use pc for that.  

Konjad said: It would be great if Twitcher 3 was actually worth a replay. Click to expand...

Recently finished a playthrough of the original game with Ghost Mode/Preparations/BetterGhostPotions on Death March. I don't think it's particularly well balanced for that difficulty at all: everything takes far too long to die. In my experience, it pretty much makes a crit focused build mandatory. In many ways, I think Ghost mode illuminates or exaggerates the flaws in W3's combat and general gameplay. Enemy stagger being incredibly inconsistent and no I-Frames makes the combat very unpredictable which becomes somewhat frustrating when it takes 2 hits to die and 100 hits to kill anything. There are still a lot of useless skills (although some like undying are now well worth taking) and it maintains the stupid system of gating higher tier talents behind point investments in a tree. By default, Ghost Mode also grants you bonus exp for completing higher level content, but this means you get less exp for completing lower level content. I imagine you probably get the most overall experience by completing quests close to your level the entire game, which means that completing higher level content punishes the player if anything. There is a much better spread of higher level quests across the game though (which is nice). Overall, playing it on Blood and Broken Bones or Death March with 0.5 enemy health creates an improved vanilla experience. However, I doubt Ghost Mode is going to appeal to anyone that thought W3's gameplay was flat out bad.  

PorkyThePaladin

Meh, read through the list of changes, and would advise people to play without it. Witcher 3 is actually a very good game (unlike typical Bethesda shit), so it doesn't need to be modded. There are some things that would be nice to fix with a mod, but these mods listed above don't address them. What W3 needs is a mod that makes enemies dodge/parry all the time, instead of only some of the time, forcing the player to counter them first in order to successfully attack. And of course it would be nice to remove question marks and breadcrumb trail stuff, but I don't see any modder being able to edit dialogue to include actual hints on where to go, so ...  

Ghoulish for skill gating you can just use ellys all skills active mod. There are others but this one worked wo conflicts for me.  

CrunchyHemorrhoids

• Jul 19, 2017

PorkyThePaladin said: What W3 needs is a mod that makes enemies dodge/parry all the time, instead of only some of the time, forcing the player to counter them first in order to successfully attack. Click to expand...

AwesomeButton

Proud owner of bg 3: day of swen's tentacle.

• Jul 25, 2017

From reading the description, I would have a similar problem with this mod as I was having with W3EE (I ultimately removed it, after giving it a second chance for one day). That is that I like some of the functions - like making potions and decoctions meaningful, putting limits on the amount of money the player accumulates. On the other hand, I'm suspicious about changes like rebalancing of enemies, and this particularly put me off "- you get progressively less experience for killing monsters of the same type;" How is it my fault that the game keeps spawning the packs of wolves/dogs/nekkers, so that I am being punished by diminishing XP? I've been experimenting yesterday with Primal Needs, What's For Dinner, Lore Friendly Economy, and a mod for more animations. I have to say I admire the OCD of the guy who thought it's a good idea to trigger an input-blocking animation for Geralt every time I loot a container. Lol, I'm removing this mod today. Primal Needs I found to be fine, once I quadrupled the time needed for increases in the needs. What's For Dinner worked very well in combination with Lore-Friendly Economy and Primal Needs. I spent my last orens on recipes, just haven't cooked anything yet. The fact that nearly everything I try to sell I can't, or it costs 1 oren really makes for a tight financial situation for Geralt and prompts me to go on Monster Hunt quests. I've also rediscovered the minigames - Gwent, races, boxing - as life-saving sources of income. 10 orens bet on a Gwent game suddenly feels like a lot of money. I've also installed Super Turbo Lighting mod, which fits pretty good the color sheme I like. The vanilla was always too saturated green and red for my taste. I think I'll also add Increased Draw Distance mod to that, and I should be set graphics-wise.  

I beat Witcher 3 on launch and never cared to go back to it. The game is good but is there re-playability? Also fan balance mods for a single player game? Did Sawyer make them or something?  

Hm, I made a vanilla playthrough, about 99% completionist, barring a few sidequests in Toussaint that were left over after the main story. I felt there were shortcomings in balance, like the strong attacks being mostly useless, or never needing potions, decoctions - what are they even for, what's the difference from potions, or how come a band of deserters is dropping loot that was worth more than a monster hunt. But I didn't want to have played half the time with mods and half without. Also, I had tried to add mods a couple of times, ran into conflicts and gave up on it. I have enough work at work in order to have to preform three way merges of code to play a game. And I was just lazy. Is it worth a second playthrough? I definetly want to play Toussaint again, for the idyllic atmosphere of the setting. I liked Skellige and Novigrad too, Velen less so. Some part hiking sim, some part interactive movie, that's how I play, small bits at a time, and I find it fun.  

you can customize mod how you want, switch on/off things you don't like in mod options menu in game itself.  

AwesomeButton said: I have to say I admire the OCD of the guy who thought it's a good idea to trigger an input-blocking animation for Geralt every time I loot a container. Lol, I'm removing this mod today. Click to expand...

• Jul 26, 2017

I looked through the full list of changes of the Ghost Mode mod and I liked all I saw there. Many of the changes didn't mean much to me because they were related to stuff I've never used in the game. I'll try to merge Ghost Mode with the Primer mod this evening and see how it goes. I am about to reach the Crones of Crooback Bog, so I think it's just about the right time to test how the mods work. I was really impressed by what I read in the description of the Primer mod, let's just see if it plays as good as it sounds. It appears there will be some merge conflicts with Ghost Mode, but I should be able to merge them.  

^Ghost Mode was made with Preparations in mind rather than Primer.  

W3ee has now incorporated primer and friendly hud but its hellish pita to merge with some of important mods, like autoloot etc. But i like it better so far with primer than ghost&preps.  

Eh... that's why when it comes to modding I'm in either the camp of "install one big overhaul and nothing else", or "install 2-3 very concrete and small-scale mods and don't tinker further". I'll still try to mrege with Primer and tell you how it goes. Edit: After I faced over 10 merge conflicts which wouldn't autoresolve, and the game failed to start when I tried to give priority to Primer over Ghost Mode in all cases where automerge was not possible, I gave up on Primer and I'm playing with just Ghost Mode.  

• Aug 2, 2017

Well yeah, ghost is compatible w preparations. Primer is also very tough customer to merge with other mods  

The problem is, I don't particularly like any of Preparations' changes. Let's see: - Meditation required to progress skills and make alchemy - ok, but after a while it just becomes an annoyance, you have to press one more key before you can do that - Alchemy items become more expensive to refill - that's also cool, at first at least, and provides a money drain (I've started getting filthy rich from bandits again, even with Ghost mode), but ultimately it just adds one of two frustrating activities: hunt down the alchemist who sells what ingredient you need, or learn where this ingredient grows/can be found and go farm it yourself. In the long run, this will start feeling as a chore. - Oils need to be refilled - that's nice, and I've thought it's needed, but isn't that already the case if you play vanilla on Death March? Or it was just the potions, and no healing while meditating? - Meditating required resources, etc. - this reminds me of similar, survivalist mods for Skyrim, mostly I've had experience with Frostfall. It's cool at the start but gets repetetive and loses the immersion angle pretty soon. In the end, it's just a few actions you need to preform in the UI, and gathering firewood isn't as exciting in real life either - Managing skills and alchemy takes ingame time - not much of a big deal - Disallows eating and drinking in combat (but I guess you can use potions?) - not very important either, because Ghost mode already slows down food and drink effects so much as to make the health gain irrelevant during combat.  

• Aug 3, 2017

AwesomeButton said: The problem is, I don't particularly like any of Preparations' changes. Let's see: - Meditation required to progress skills and make alchemy Click to expand...

AwesomeButton said: - Meditating required resources, etc. - this reminds me of similar, survivalist mods for Skyrim, mostly I've had experience with Frostfall. It's cool at the start but gets repetetive and loses the immersion angle pretty soon. In the end, it's just a few actions you need to preform in the UI, and gathering firewood isn't as exciting in real life either Click to expand...

AwesomeButton said: - Alchemy items become more expensive to refill - that's also cool, at first at least, and provides a money drain (I've started getting filthy rich from bandits again, even with Ghost mode), but ultimately it just adds one of two frustrating activities: hunt down the alchemist who sells what ingredient you need, or learn where this ingredient grows/can be found and go farm it yourself. In the long run, this will start feeling as a chore. Click to expand...

AwesomeButton said: - Oils need to be refilled - that's nice, and I've thought it's needed, but isn't that already the case if you play vanilla on Death March? Or it was just the potions, and no healing while meditating? Click to expand...

AwesomeButton said: - Disallows eating and drinking in combat (but I guess you can use potions?) - not very important either, because Ghost mode already slows down food and drink effects so much as to make the health gain irrelevant during combat. Click to expand...

Haven't you played the vanilla game? Whenever you rest all your bombs, potions, decoctions and oils are all automatically refilled with just one single alcohol item consumed for the whole lot(any of alcohest, dwarven spirit or white gull, of which you pick up hundreds). Whether you heal or not while meditating depends on your difficulty setting(no healing on B&BB and deathmarch). Click to expand...

You don't have to use ghost mode with preparations, it works well enough on its own, Click to expand...

I've been fool enough to play through TW3 twice just because I was convinced that I must be missing something amazing with so many people spunking over it's "quality". First time was a horrible slogfest, second time was a slightly improved slogfest (mainly because I avoided a lot of the filler) with few other alternate choices worth seeing other than the flipside of the Tris/Yen romance. I'd sooner torture myself than do a 3rd playthrough. Would much sooner go back to TW2, DA:O, BG2 etc. for a 6th/7th playthrough than suffer through this again.  

Lol i was just reminiscing of w2 and some of its closed locations, gotta come back to it sometime. It was wonderful. Now if they made w4 with w2 closed world and tight main/side/witcher quests and w3 gfx and combat(improved), that would be a treat. With ciris story or whatever.  

veskoandroid said: Lol i was just reminiscing of w2 and some of its closed locations, gotta come back to it sometime. It was wonderful. Now if they made w4 with w2 closed world and tight main/side/witcher quests and w3 gfx and combat(improved), that would be a treat. With ciris story or whatever. Click to expand...

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Ghost Mode Mod for Windows

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Daylight Saving For Ghost Mode

Made for The Witcher 3, the newest entry in the RPG series, Ghost Mode is a major overhaul to the game's overall structure and mechanics. Similar to many game mods, it seeks to enhance the game's mechanics by tweaking or completely removing certain features that may be too weak or that may cause the game to feel stale. Ghost Mode, is an overhaul Mod, also changes nearly every aspect of gameplay: from damage and attack to inventory and economy. The mod strives to make more difficult and more balanced experience, while still not deviating way from the vanilla game rules and core principles, i.e., all game fundamentals remain about the same. This means that you'll still have countless hours of satisfying and rewarding game play, and that you won't feel like your choices have been taken out of your hands.

One of the biggest overhauls in the game is in the game's leveling system. Where before completing various quests and events would drastically raise your level, and change your overall game effectiveness, the current system allows you to complete quests at a normal pace without expending so many levels. This is a huge boon for casual players who enjoy playing the game without putting so much effort into it, but who still want to progress through the game as quickly as possible. Another key feature of the new leveling system is the inclusion of a new quest chain system where you'll be tasked to do different quests in sequence, rather than just progressing through the "main" quest. This means that you'll get more out of your game overall, as you'll spend less time grinding for higher levels and more time doing the fun quests. Overall, this new quest chain system gives you a far more fulfilling overall game play experience.

One of the final major overhauls in the game involves the new flying mechanic. Although it doesn't make a lot of sense on one hand, because most games have this mechanic already, it has nonetheless been made for Ghost Mode, making it an interesting addition. Basically, when in Ghost Mode, your aim is to fly as high into the air as possible, attacking enemy soldiers and completing missions while protecting yourself from further harm. It can be used effectively as both a cover and offensive move, which make it a cool addition to the overall gameplay.

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The Witcher 3 - Ghost Mode Mod List 2020

This list of mods is built around the excellent Ghost Mode overhaul mod. Here's WGhost81's own excellent list of mods to use with the mod: The Witcher 3: Ghost Mode Mod List . The Total Immersion Mod List is another excellent source of ideas for mods to use with Ghost Mode.

My original list of mods for Ghost Mode from 2017/18 is here: The Witcher 3 - Ghost Mode Mod List . That list does not change the look of the game in any way and is focused on gameplay tweaks. This list takes a different approach and will try for an updated and different look for this playthrough.

Executable Changes

These edit the witcher3.exe binary.

• 21:9 Cutscene Fix
• Or use: Mod Limit Adjuster if you don't want to edit the binary.

Base Mods and Patches

• Community Patch - Base
• Community Patch - Shared Imports - Ghost Mode needs it.
• Community Patch - Menu Strings
• Community Patch - Besserwisser's Fix Collection (Including Nitpickers Patch) - no scripts, since Ghost Mode.

Overhauls and Mechanics Changes

• Preparations
• Friendly Meditation
• Combat Stance
• Enhanced Targeting for UPatch
• E3 Improved Combat Animations
• Manual Bomb Aiming
• Galloping In Settlements
• Igni Destroys Monster Nests
• Jump And Sprint When You Need It
• No Auto Sword Sheathing/Switching
• No Forced Alternative Movement
• No Slow Motion On Kill
• No Startup Movies
• No Zoom In When Using Witcher Senses (also in Immersive Cam)
• Slower Gametime - 10 minute version.
• Auto Win Gwent

Quests & New Gear

• Better Gold required.
• Sezon Burz Witcher's Gear required. Needs manual install of DLC subfolder, mod manager will not install it.

Quality of Life

• Friendly Stash
• Friendly HUD
• All Quest Objectives On Map
• Colored Map Markers
• Sort Everything - plus Extras.
• No Herbs and Enemy Dots on Minimap
• Or a mod that does this in an immersive way: Alternate Lightsources Interaction
• [-] Minimap Reworked - Clock Only, with direction on the clock and distance meter. Hides minimap.
• FOV Tweak is a fine alternative that's easy to merge.
• modHorseDustAndControls\content\scripts\game\behavior_tree\tasks\horse\btHorse.ws
• modHorseDustAndControls\content\scripts\game\vehicles\horse\horseManager.ws
• Do not merge these scripts in blindly, the scripts will not compile!
• Thoughtful Roach - see note on Changed Horse Controls mod if using both.
• Immersive Horse Whistling - Use Friendly Hud mergeable version .
• Remove Camera Shake and Bobbing effect while running or sprinting
• No More Rolling Down The Stairs
• Unread Descriptions
• Additional Stash Locations
• Fast Travel Points Pack
• Subtitles for Foreign Languages - use updated for patch 1.31 version
• Trollonly Subtitles - use updated for patch 1.31 version
• Hide Sound Effects Subtitles
• Component Part Stock on Dismantle Screen
• Item Stock on Crafting Screen - use lite version .
• Live Bestiary (3D Models in the Bestiary)
• Quicksave Menu
• Disable storybook videos
• Abandoned Sites Time Lapse
• Ladders camera fix
• No Indignant NPCs
• Player Interior No Run Lock
• Quest level on NoticeBoard
• Disable Loot Popup for Herbs
• World Map Fixes
• DUI Crossbow Fix
• E3 Geralt Hair Physics 60FPS FIX
• NPC Physics 60FPS FIX
• Hide Cursor after Dialogue Choice times out
• Item Selection Grid Fix
• LOD Bug Fix collection
• Oxenfurt Drunk Fix
• Heart of the Woods Quest Fix
• Fast Stash Menu - for use with Friendly Stash copy the whole function from Fast Stash Menu where the conflict occurs. Do this by hand, overriding changes from Frindly Stash to the function.
• Cutscenes Lighting Fix

Lighting and Weather

• Tweaks - with Friendly HUD Preset.
• ProShadows - Tweaks + Shadows version.
• True Fires - get part 2 from New Fires + HDR compatability patch.
• Immersive Lighting - use Nudel caves & KM version from Gudmods .
• Fix Rain - type "rain" in console to fix vanilla bug where rain is only visible from some angles. Immersive Lighting has more rain and tends to trigger this bug a lot.
• More Shadows for Toussaint
• Better Torches
• Natural Torchlight
• Smart Magic Lamp
• Lamp on Player's boat

Textures & Effects

• HD Reworked Project - just the textures.
• HDMR - HD Monsters Reworked - plus Trophies.
• Or Meadows v2 - WIP mod from Gudmods.
• HD Blood and Wine Dry Grass - less saturated.
• All NPC Scabbards
• Dirty NPC Scabbards
• Simple NPC Swords
• No Save Indicator Icon
• Screen FX Removal
• Toxicity - Clean Face and Screen
• Dynamic Wet Face
• Better Icons - English
• Runestone Icons
• Aerondight Replacer - W3.
• Geralt Head Tweak
• The Berserker - Unofficial Concept Art Ursine Armour
• Griffin Armour (On The Path) Update - use fully merged version
• High Quality Textures for Feline Armours
• HD Tree LOD Billboards - base and Toussaint.
• Witcher's Knife - hunter knife.
• Brutal Blood - use banemenot's fixed Lite version .
• Cat Potion No Enemy Glow
• Dynamic Wet Face - move mod content into new folder and repack for TW3MM usage.
• Pesky sword trails begone - use Moahofer30's no arrow trails version .
• No More Glowing - use Disable Monsters Glow For GM Fixed from Gudmods .
• Lightsource Yrden And Igni
• ZZFX - can use both this and ZZFX2.
• Or use base ZZFX2
• Ultimate Water - "HD Water Mod Without Buggy Waterfalls + Water From PLM Ultimate 7 Beta 2 Mod + Up-scaled Water Textures To 4K"
• Ultimate Clouds - "Ultimate Clouds 4K - MonarchX Clouds + Vanilla Storms + Up-scaled Blood And Wine Clouds + FXs"
• Immersive Sound - bug fixes only version.
• Leave Roach Alone - No More Horse Voice Commands
• Less Is More - Balanced_4on_6off preset.
• [-] No Chatterboxes - aka Remove Most Useless Repeating NPC Dialogue and Sounds
• Silent UI - Standard.
• Lip Movement and HiRes Shadows (and High Quality Heads) on NPCs in gameplay