Thresholds for toxicity showing on Geralt's face have been increased from <25%/<50%/<75%/75%+ to <45%/<65%/<85%/85%+
Witcher Senses Enhancement originally part of the Metamorphosis Mutation [Blood and Wine] is available from the start.
The Cat potion can be toggled on and off by using the parry key [can be customised — see installation instructions below] when not in combat. It will also automatically turn on if you are entering combat in a dark place.
Arbitrary huge stat bonuses/penalties based on level differences removed.Inability to parry or perform critical hits or effects against enemies that are a much higher level than you has been removed.
Followers do more damage, especially Sorceresses.
Bosses (i.e Eredin) always scale to Geralt's level.
Weapons degrade 25% slower.
Almost all silver swords have been removed as loot from random containers and merchants. Silver swords are rare, and should not be appearing as random loot. They will need to be crafted, given as a reward for a quest or found in a specific "set" container. Toussaint, due to its fairy tale nature, is exempt from this.
Places of Power will show up on the map when unlocked by a notice board. This will persist even if POIs are turned off in the Options menu
Food now heals more Vitality but over a significantly longer period of time (5 minutes real-time).
The following rewards have been modified to make them more meaningful. The following weapons have had their stats modified to make them feel like actual rewards when they are received. They've also had their level set to 1 so they will always be able to be equipped:
Blade from the Bits - steel sword given to Geralt by Hattori upon completing the quest "Swords and Dumplings". It now rivals the Basic Witcher Gear steel swords. Although this doesn't really match the quest's level requirement, I did this since levels are now less important when it comes to human enemies with this mod (see below), so its possible to easily complete this quest at around levels 11-15.
Fate - silver sword given to Geralt by Crache during "King's Gambit". It now rivals the Enhanced Witcher Gear silver swords.Winter's Blade - steel sword given to Geralt by Crache when getting allies for Kaer Morhen. It now rivals the Superior Witcher Gear steel swords. The following Armors have had stat changes:
Manticore gear [Blood and Wine] has been changed to a light armor.
Superior Wolf Jacket [DLC] no longer requires a master armorer (pretty sure this was a bug/oversight). Mastercrafted Wolf Boots, Gloves and Trousers [DLC] now require a master armorer (pretty sure this was a bug/oversight).Grandmaster Wolf gear [Blood and Wine] now requires the Mastercrafted Wolf gear to craft.Grandmaster Wolf gear [Blood and Wine] 3/6 bonus changed to the vanilla version of the Fixative skill — blade oils don't wear off.The following changes have been made to quest rewards:
Ugly Baby & Blood on the Battlefield: Increased the amount of Crowns given by the Emperor from 2000 to 10000 (So, you'll get 5000 when you see him during Ugly Baby and 5000 if you accept the reward when/if you take Ciri to him).
Consumables (food/drink) cannot be used during combat
Sprinting/Jumping outside of combat costs no Stamina
Geralt can parry arrows from the start — no skill required. To balance, arrows deal triple damage.
Geralt's base attack power at the start of the game has been increased while the attack power increases he receives in the first 10 levels or so has been decreased. Ultimately, you still get the same net gain of attack power. This was done to smooth out the difficulty and Geralt's progression at the start of the game.
Adrenaline generates 60% slower through melee attacks and drains much quicker when hit or combat is over. Finishers generate 0.1 Adrenaline Points. Geralt still loses adrenaline when hit with an active Quen.
The duration of the base "Bleeding" effect Geralt could cause has been decreased from 10 seconds to 5 seconds.
Lowered the global damage reduction value of the "Ice Armor" ability from 50% to 25%. With the below changes to damage resistance and oils, this ability needed to be nerfed otherwise it made fighting Ice Trolls extremely tedious.
Place of Power Sign Intensity boost increased from 20% to 75%.
The stamina delay after casting Quen (basic version) has been increased from 0.5 seconds to 2 seconds.
Sign Intensity scaling has been re-worked. In general, damage/effects from signs scale in a linear fashion, with +250% (so, 350% in total) Sign Intensity giving you the max chance to apply effects in most cases. Specifically, from +0% to +250% Sign Intensity:
Aard knockdown effect scales from approximately 15% to 125% chance (no cap). This is lower than vanilla.
Basic Igni burn effect scales from approximately 0% to 100% chance (capped). This is significantly lower than vanilla. Alternate Igni burn effect scales from approximately 30% to 200% chance (capped at 100%). This is about vanilla level. Igni Damage scales from approximately 120 to 575 damage (no cap). This is slightly higher than VanillaYrden slowdown effect scales from approximately 20% to 45% (capped). This is slightly lower than Vanilla.Quen is the same as vanilla.Axii is the same as vanilla.The idea here was to have signs be less useful with lower sign intensity, and more useful with higher sign intensity, making the third tier sign skills that boost SI more viable. Further more, basic Igni needed to be nerfed, as causing burning was far too easy. This also makes alternate Igni much more useful.
Axii's stun effect has been slightly re-worked. In the vanilla version, once you had stunned/turned a human opponent, there was a relatively high chance of performing an instant finisher kill. This was overpowered, so now an attack against a stunned/turned opponent is an automatic critical hit instead.
Base potion overdose threshold has been increased from 75% to 85%.
Progressive Sign Damage Scaling
One issue that I've noticed is that monsters that are "susceptible" to signs in the bestiary aren't actually susceptible to their "offensive" attributes in any meaningful way. In the best case scenario they simply have zero or negative resistance to the special effects but don't actually receive any extra damage. Hence, I've created a multi-tier bracket system for fire and shock damage based on sign intensity. Note that this only applies if the following conditions are met:
Geralt has more than +100% Sign Intensity.
Monster is susceptible to either Igni (fire) or Yrden/Quen (shock) in the bestiary. Note that I've also given Elementals a significant weakness to shock, despite them not having such a weakness specified in the bestiary.This system work in tiers (kind of like a progressive tax system) with each tier providing a greater damage boost for each extra % of Sign Intensity. Each monster also has a different level of susceptibility based on their type. This is difficult to explain in words, so suffice to say that fire/shock damage will become exponentially more powerful as your Sign Intensity increases, but only once it is over +100%. There is no bonus for +0 to +100% Sign Intensity. For those interested in the exact logic, the Sign Intensity tiers are as follows:
Tier 1: +100% — +199%, damage weight = 20%
Tier 2: +200% — +299%, damage weight = 30%Tier 3: +300% — +349%, damage weight = 50%Now, let's say I've made it so that vampires have a 200% weakness to fire. If you have a Geralt with +160% SI, and their base Igni damage is 360, they will do an extra 24% damage to vampires (so, 446). This is because they are within the first tier, so each extra % of SI here gives them extra damage up to 20% of the Vampire's total weakness (so, 20% of 200% is 40%).
A Geralt with +350% SI and a base damage of 700, would therefore do the full extra 200%, and do a massive 2100 damage with each hit.
Fatigue is an invisible debuff that only affects Geralt and has the following effects:
Delays Stamina Regeneration.
Increases Geralt's recovery time for stagger and knockdown effects. Lowers Geralt's melee damage. Fatigue builds in two ways:
Each time Geralt's Quen (basic version) breaks (this excludes the first Quen cast).
Each time Geralt is staggered/knocked down. When this occurs, Geralt is afflicted with Fatigue. Fatigue can stack up to 5 times and has the following effects at each level:
10% damage decrease with melee attacks. 20% higher recovery time from applied stagger/knockdown effects, 100% longer delay in regenerating stamina.
20% damage decrease with melee attacks. 40% higher recovery time from applied stagger/knockdown effects, 200% longer delay in regenerating stamina.30% damage decrease with melee attacks. 60% higher recovery time from applied stagger/knockdown effects, 300% longer delay in regenerating stamina.40% damage decrease with melee attacks. 80% higher recovery time from applied stagger/knockdown effects, 400% longer delay in regenerating stamina.50% damage decrease with melee attacks. 100% higher recovery time from applied stagger/knockdown effects, 500% longer delay in regenerating stamina.Fatigue is automatically removed at the end of each combat scenario. It can also be removed and prevented from generating by drinking a superior swallow potion. The goal here was to nerf the tactic of always just recasting Quen when it breaks which basically allowed you to cheese the combat system. It also makes being stunned or knocked down more of an issue, as each time it debuffs Geralt. This also makes enemies that are able to counter your attacks a lot more dangerous. In vanilla, getting countered usually wasn't a problem, since you still recovered quickly enough to dodge the next attack (assuming you weren't surrounded). Now, get countered enough times and you won't be able to dodge the next attack. This means that once you realise an enemy is able to counter you, you need to re-think your strategy in dealing with them.
DAMAGE OVER TIME RESISTANCES
For some reason, despite the framework being present in the game, none of the monsters have resistances to the actual damage done by DoT effects. Hence, I've added a simple system that decreases the effect of these criticals based on their resistances. For example, if a monster has a 70% resistance to poison, only 30% of the DoT every second will affect the monster.
The skill system has been majorly re-worked. For one, all skills now only have one level, instead of the usual 3 or 5. This was done to make levelling have greater impact and be less incremental. Each time you receive and use a skill point it should actually have a visible effect on how your Geralt plays. To balance this, skill points are only awarded every 2/3 levels. Specifically, the changes are as follows:
Skill Tiers 2,3 & 4 are no longer unlocked by spending skill points in the relevant tree, but rather by finding Places of Power. This encourages exploration and allows for a lot more mixing and matching between skills. You no longer have to commit to one tree to unlock the best abilities. Each tier requires 6 places of power to be unlocked (so, tier 4 skills require 18 places of power to be found in total). After 18 have been found, any new places of power from then on will grant skill points as per vanilla. Tier 1 is unlocked at the beginning of the game. Hence, including the expansions, you're looking at a maximum of about 32 skill points at level 50 if you find all the places of power and eat the magic acorn. For comparison, each tree has 20 points in it with the change described above. Based on the locations of the places of power, and assuming you play the game in the normal order (Velen->Novigrad->Skellige), the earliest you can unlock each tier is as follows: Tier 2 — White Orchard, Tier 3 — Novigrad, Tier 4 — Skellige.Skill slots unlock every 2 levels until level 13 (1-13), then every 3 levels until level 28 (16-28)Mutagen Slots unlock at Levels 1,7,13,22Most skills have been upgraded to their strongest version (i.e the level 3 or 5 version) with some minor exceptions. Some skills have been completely re-designed.
Each skill in each relevant tree grants +5% Adrenaline Generation, +2.5/s Stamina Regeneration and +25% Potion Duration, respectively.Below are the specific skill changes. In case you don't want to read them all, I've color coded them as follows:
Red = Skill completely re-designed/overhauled
Orange = Skill had a minor design change
Green = Skill buffed/debuffed
White = Same as vanilla version
Muscle Memory - +25% Attack Power with fast attacks
Precise Blows - Critical Hit Chance +10%, Critical Hit Damage +50%. Minor nerf.Whirl - Spinning attack that strikes all foes in the surrounding area. Consumes stamina and adrenaline. Cost reductions removed and stamina usage increased, it will always cost 100 stamina/per sec and, once there is no stamina left, 0.5 adrenaline points/per sec.Crippling Strikes - A 10% chance per Adrenaline Point that a fast attack will cause a bleeding effect that damages 2% of the enemy's Vitality/Essence per second for 5 seconds. The original Crippling Strikes was far too under powered with its low base value bleeding damage effect. Strength Training - +25% Attack Power with strong attacksCrushing Blows - Critical Hit Chance +10%, Critical Hit Damage +50%. Minor nerf.Rend - Deals additional damage in proportion to the Stamina consumed. Ignores enemy Defense and increases critical hit chance by 50%. Adrenaline Points increase total damage by 33%.Sunder Armor - Reduces enemy damage resistance by 10% per Adrenaline Point. Arrow Deflection - Deflecting an arrow generates 0.3 Adrenaline Points. Geralt can parry arrows without a skill because he's Geralt, and deflecting arrows back at the attacker is just sillyFleet Footed - An attack after a successful dodge is an automatic critical hit. Dodging is already too easy, making the original version of this skill of limited use. Instead, good dodging is now rewarded with extra damage.Counterattack - A successful counterattack has a 30% chance per Adrenaline Point of activating an instant finisher. If activated, 1 Adrenaline Point is consumed. This skill felt a bit under powered, so I changed it to make combat with humans a bit more interesting. Deadly Precision - Each Adrenaline Point adds 2.5% to the chance of killing an opponent instantly. This effect cannot be triggered more than once every 15 seconds.Lightning Reflexes - Time is slowed by an additional 45% while aiming the crossbowCold Blood - Killing an enemy generates 1 Adrenaline Point. Changed this to give the crossbow a bit more tactical use in generating Adrenaline. It now needs to be timed perfectly so it kills the opponent, but the reward is 1 whole Adrenaline Point. Anatomical Knowledge - +25% Crossbow Critical Hit Chance.Crippling Shot - Crossbow critical hits disable monster special abilities for 25 seconds.Resolve - Adrenaline Points are not lost upon taking damage.Undying - When Vitality reaches 0, Adrenaline Points will be consumed to heal the player. The original of this was far too overpowered. Now, you must have Adrenaline for the skill to be used at all and only 20% Vitality is healed per Adrenaline Point.Razor Focus - Instantly gain 1 Adrenaline Point when entering combat. The Adrenaline Points generated by sword blows are increased by 25%Flood of Anger - 3 Adrenaline Points (if available) are consumed for Geralt to enter a "battle trance" mode. In this mode, time is slowed down for a duration based on how many enemies he is facing. Each successful melee attack is an automatic finisher. If the enemy is immune to finishers, double damage is dealt instead. The original version of this ability made no sense to me as it is one of the last abilities in the combat tree but is sign related. Instead, if you manage to get 3 Adrenaline Points (not an easy feat), you are rewarded by going into a quite lore specific "battle frenzy" mode where Geralt deals some real damage. Note that trying to use "Whirl" while in this mode will immediately turn it off. This was intentional as that made the ability too overpowered.Far-Reaching Aard - Increases Aard's range by 3 yardsAard Sweep - Aard strikes all opponents in a certain radiusAard Intensity - Increases Aard Sign Intensity by 50%. Buffed to be more useful. Shockwave - Aard now deals 50 stamina damage and stops enemy stamina regeneration for 3 seconds. Original was far too under powered and it never made sense for Aard to start dealing damage, Igni does a much better job of that.Melt Armor - Damage dealt by Igni also permanently weakens enemy Armor. Effect scales with Sign intensity up to maximum of 75%.Firestream - Emits a continuous stream of fire that damages enemies. Significantly higher chance of causing burning. Slight damage buff compared to Vanilla. Igni Intensity - Increases Igni Sign Intensity by 50%. Buffed to be more usefulPyromaniac - Igni deals +100% more damage. Sign Intensity already adequately controls your chance of causing burning, so changed this to give you more damage. Sustained Glyphs - Increases Sign duration by 10 seconds. Number of alternative mode charges: 9. Number of standard mode traps: 2.Magic Trap - Damages (shock) and slows enemies within a 14-yard radius. Destroys projectiles passing through this areaYrden Intensity - Increases Yrden Sign intensity by 50%. Buffed to be more usefulSupercharged Glyphs - Yrden has an extra +15% slowdown effect. This is able to go over the cap of 45%, so can be very usefulExploding Shield - Quen shield pushes opponents back and deals damage when it breaks, with a chance for knock-down.Active Shield - Creates an active shield. Maintaining it and blocking attacks drains Stamina. Damage absorbed by the shield restores player Vitality. The healing factor here was far too overpowered. The healing effect now scales based on sign intensity, and will heal 40% of Geralt's Vitality at +250% Sign Intensity. Quen Intensity - Increases Quen Sign intensity by 50%. Buffed to be more usefulQuen Discharge - Reflects 30% absorbed damage back to the attacker. Slightly buffed. Delusion - Target does not move towards Geralt while he is casting Axii. Increases the effectiveness of Axii in dialogues. Reduces Axii casting time.Puppet - Targeted enemy briefly becomes an ally and deals 60% more damage.Axii Intensity - Increases Axii Sign intensity by 50%. Buffed to be more usefulDomination - Two opponents can be influenced by Axii at the same time.Heightened Tolerance - Increases potion overdose threshold by 15%.Refreshment - Each potion dose imbibed heals 25% of maximum Vitality.Delayed Recovery - Potion effects don't wear off until potion Toxicity falls to 80% of the maximum level. Minor nerf.Side Effects - Imbibing a potion gives a 100% chance of activating the effects of another randomly-selected potion, without additional Toxicity cost. Removed "Killer Whale" Potion from the random potions pool.Poisoned Blades - Oil applied to blades gives a 15% chance of poisoning the target on each hit. The chance is greater the higher the level of oil used.Protective Coating - Adds 25% protection against attacks from the monster type the oil targets.Fixative - Lowers damage resistance by 10% for monsters the oil targets. The original ability wasn't really all that useful for a third tier skill and was too much of a "convenience skill"Hunter Instinct - When Adrenaline Points are at their maximum, critical hit damage against the targeted enemy type is increased by 100%. Vanilla bug with this skill resolved.Steady Aim - Time is slowed a further 45% while aiming bombs.Pyrotechnics - Bombs that inflict damage now deal +50% more damage. The original effect here was severely under powered with the constant base value increase, so I changed it so damage-dealing bombs are more lethal.Efficiency - Increases the maximum number of bombs in each slot by 3. Minor nerf.Cluster Bombs - Upon detonation bombs separate into 4 explosive fragments. Minor nerf.Acquired Tolerance - Every known alchemy formula increases maximum Toxicity by 0.4. This effectively changes the way potions are handled as chugging potions is now not possible. Tissue Transmutation - When consumed, mutagen decoction increases maximum Vitality by 1000 for decoction's effective duration.Synergy - Increases bonus for mutagen placed in mutagen slot by 50%.Adaptation - Lowers toxicity offset of all decoctions by 15. Changed this as decoction duration is already long enough, and this skill needed buffing. Frenzy - If potion Toxicity is above 0, time automatically slows when an enemy is about to perform a counterattack.Endure Pain - Increases maximum Vitality by 50% when Toxicity exceeds the safe threshold.Fast Metabolism - Toxicity drops 5 point(s) per second fasterKilling Spree - If Toxicity is above 0, each opponent killed increases critical hit chance by 50% for the duration of that fight.Survival Instinct: Buffed Vitality boost to 1000Advanced Pyrotechnics: Buffed bomb Adrenaline Generation to 0.2 pointsMetabolic Control: Lowered Toxicity gain to 25 pointsStrong Back: Increased inventory weight bonus to 100Cat School Techniques: Lowered critical damage boost from 25%/per item to 10%/per item. Critical Hits are too easy to get, so this skill was way overpowered. It was also a lot more powerful than its griffin and bear counterparts. Potions/Bombs/Decoctions/Oils have been changed to be more useful. I found that some of the decoctions especially were far too situational and unclear in their effect (what exactly IS cloudy weather?), so I've updated the stats on most of them and overhauled a few.
In general, potions are a lot more useful — especially the upgraded versions — but also more toxic. This means strategic potion usage is essential.
Basic: Duration increased from 15 to 20 seconds.
Enhanced: Duration increased from 20 to 25 seconds.Superior: Slightly increased the slow motion effect. Stamina will not be depleted if Geralt has 3 Adrenaline Points, regardless of whether the blizzard slow motion effect is currently active (this is how it was before it was patched out). Basic: Duration increased from 60 to 180 seconds. Ammo increased from 3 to 4.
Enhanced: Duration increased from 120 to 300 seconds. Ammo increased from 4 to 6.Superior: Duration increased from 180 to 540 seconds. Ammo increased from 5 to 8. Basic: Increased the Vitality boost from 300 to 1000. Toxicity increased from 25 to 30.
Enhanced: Increased the Vitality boost from 650 to 3000. Toxicity increased from 25 to 30. Superior: Increased the Vitality boost from 1000 to 6000. Toxicity increased from 25 to 30. Basic: Toxicity increased from 20 to 25
Enhanced: Toxicity increased from 20 to 25. Superior: Toxicity increased from 20 to 25. Duration increased from 180 to 210 seconds.Basic: Increased the adrenaline gain boost from 15% to 20%. Toxicity increased from 20 to 35.
Enhanced: Increased the adrenaline gain boost from 15% to 30%. Toxicity increased from 20 to 35. Duration decreased from 60 to 45 seconds. Superior: Increased the adrenaline gain boost from 15% to 60%. Toxicity increased from 20 to 40. Duration decreased from 90 to 60 seconds. Basic: Increased the sign intensity bonus from 15% to 30%. Toxicity increased from 25 to 30. Duration increased from 30 to 45 seconds.
Enhanced: Increased the sign intensity bonus from 20% to 50%. Toxicity increased from 25 to 30. Duration increased from 60 to 90 seconds.Superior: Increased the sign intensity bonus from 25% to 80%. Toxicity increased from 25 to 40. Duration increased from 90 to 120 seconds. 100% chance of sign special effect removed as it was far too powerful and basically makes upgrading your sign intensity useless. Added +25% chance to all sign special effects instead.Basic: Toxicity increased from 20 to 25. Duration increased from 20 to 30 seconds.
Enhanced: Toxicity increased from 20 to 25. Duration increased from 20 to 30 seconds.Superior: Increased vitality regen from 80/s to 90/s. Toxicity increased from 20 to 25. Duration increased from 20 to 30 seconds. Also removes the effects of fatigue and prevents it from generating. Basic: Toxicity increased from 20 to 25.
Enhanced: Toxicity increased from 20 to 25.Superior: Increased the Stamina Regen boost from 10 to 15. Toxicity increased from 20 to 25. Basic: Toxicity increased from 25 to 30.
Enhanced: Attack Power boost increased from 30% to 45%. Toxicity increased from 25 to 30.Superior: Attack Power boost increased from 35% to 80%. Toxicity increased from 25 to 40. Storm effect removed, reliable +10% critical chance added.Toxicity increased from 10 to 15.
Toxicity decreased from 30 to 1. This potion is not toxic to normal humans, so it shouldn't be toxic to Geralt.
In most cases, bomb damage has been buffed, but ammo count lowered for the basic bombs. Hence, upgrading the bombs and investing in bomb skills will give you a lethal ranged build.
Basic: Damage increased from 100 to 150. Ammo count lowered from 2 to 1.
Enhanced: Damage increased from 100 to 250.Superior: Damage increased from 100 to 500. Ammo count increased from 4 to 5.Basic: Base damage decreased from 100 to 50. Ammo count lowered from 2 to 1.
Enhanced: Base damage decreased from 100 to 50. Poison damage per second increased from 1.6% to 3%Superior: Base damage decreased from 100 to 50. Ammo count increased from 4 to 5. Poison damage per second increased from 1.6% to 4%.Basic: Damage increased from 300 to 400.
Enhanced: Damage increased from 400 to 500.Superior: Damage increased from 400 to 800. Explosion damage increased from 20 to 80.Basic: Blocks Gargoyle "Jump" attack and Leshen "Wolf Summon".
Enhanced: Blocks Gargoyle "Jump" attack and Leshen "Wolf Summon". Superior: Blocks Gargoyle "Jump" attack and Leshen "Wolf Summon". Increased ammo count from 4 to 5.Basic: Decreased physical damage from 350 to 200. Increased silver damage from 350 to 400. Lowered ammo count from 2 to 1.
Enhanced: Decreased physical damage from 600 to 300. Increased silver damage from 600 to 800. Decreased ammo count from 3 to 2.Superior: Increased silver damage from 600 to 1800. Decreased ammo count from 4 to 3.Enhanced: Increased ammo count from 3 to 4.
Superior: Increased ammo count from 4 to 6.Basic: Increased duration from 20 to 30 seconds.
Enhanced: Increased duration from 40 to 45 seconds. Increased ammo count from 3 to 4.Superior: Increased ammo count from 4 to 6. All Decoctions have had their toxicity offset lowered from 70 to 60. Stats have been buffed on most, debuffed on some overpowered ones and some have been re-designed entirely to be less situational.
Red = Decoction completely re-designed/overhauled
Orange = Decoction had a minor design change
Green = Decoction buffed/debuffed
Katakan: Increased Critical Hit Chance from 5% to 20%.
Ekimmara: Increased Life Drain effect from 10% to 15%. Ekhidna: Stamina usage will only regenerate Vitality during combat.Arachas: Lowered Damage Resistance cap from 20% to 15%.Archgriffin: Increased Vitality drain from 5% to 10% of enemy's MAX Vitality/Essence, but you must have maximum stamina and 1 Adrenaline Point (which will be consumed) to activate the ability.Water Hag: Increased damage bonus from 50% to 75%. Foglet: A version of the vanilla "Flood of Anger" ability. 2 Adrenaline Points (if available) will be consumed to upgrade a sign to its full power. Still buggy like the vanilla version.Nightwraith: Increased Vitality bonus from 50/per kill to 100/per kill.Cockatrice: Each active potion reduces the stamina cost of casting signs by 10%.Wyvern: Taking damage increases toxicity before it depletes Vitality.Troll: Lowered Vitality regen effect from 100/s to 30/s out of combat and from 20/s to 10/s during combat.Succubus: Attack Power bonus increased from 1% to 3%, to a maximum cap of 90%. Alghoul: Adrenaline gain increased from 50% to 70%.Fiend: Encumbrance bonus increased from 20 to 80.Forktail: Attack Power/Sign Intensity bonus increased from 50% to 100%.Grave Hag: Vitality Regen effect increased from 5/s to 10/s.Earth Elemental: Geralt's strong attacks cannot be parried by most enemies.Ancient Leshen: Draining Stamina completely will increase Stamina Regeneration for the rest of the fight. Stamina Regen increased from +2/s to +5/s. Added a maximum cap of +75/s. This works better as it removes the ability to stack on stamina regen indefinitely using Aard Sweep (since it doesn't drain all your stamina) and resolves a design flaw where sometimes signs wouldn't trigger the regen ability. Leshen: Returned damage increased from 2% to 15%.Griffin: Each successful counter raises damage resistance by 5% for the remainder of the fight, up to a maximum cap of 20%. Basilisk: Increases bomb damage by 100%.Werewolf: Geralt's damage increases the lower his Vitality is.Monster Oil (all oils except Beast and Hanged Man's Venom) Attack Power bonus has been increased from 10%/25%/50% to 25%/50%/100%. Enhanced/Superior monster oils now also lower the enemy's physical resistance by 10%/20%, respectively. This means applying oils is now a lot more important. To balance, they can no longer be applied during combat, so proper preparation is key.
Since all the alchemy items are a lot more powerful now, the superior versions of them are also more difficult to craft. Three new alchemy items have been added to the game:
Black Gull: Replaces White Gull as a crafting component for all superior potions.
Dragon Blood: Required to craft all superior oils (excluding Hanged Man's Venom and Beast)Black Powder: Required to craft all superior bombs. These alchemy items cannot be crafted in the game and can only be acquired from Gremist on Skellige as part of the "Practicum in Advanced Alchemy" quest and bought from him afterwards. Note that White Gull is still an important component as it is needed to craft the advanced alchemy bases such as rebis. Note that these alchemy items are very expensive.
A few tweaks have been made to monster statistics as per below to improve overall balance. Also, most monsters that are encountered solo (so not in groups) have had their damage resistance increased. This is to balance the change to enhanced/superior oils which now lower targeted monster's damage resistance. One thing to note is that, as per witcher lore, vampires are now drastically stronger than vanilla. Fighting a vampire around your level is always a challenge, fighting a vampire well above your level is likely suicide.
These are changes to the base stats of the monsters. This means all monsters of this type are affected. Vitality is red health, Essence is silver health.
Wolves/Dogs: -20-30% Vitality.
Black/Grizzly Bears: +30% Attack Power.White Bears: +60% Attack Power, +30% Vitality.Berserkers: +90% Attack Power, +60% Essence. Wraiths: +20% Attack Power.Noonwraiths/Nightwraiths/Plague Maidens: +15% Attack Power.Griffins: +15% Essence, +10% Attack Power.Archgriffins: +300% Essence, +150% Attack Power. Increased chance to dodge fast and strong attacks.Sirens: +30% Attack Power.Wyverns: +30% Essence, +50% Attack Power.Forktails: +30% Essence, +60% Attack Power. Increased chance of dodging light and heavy attacks. Cockatrice: +40% Essence, +40% Attack Power.Basilisks: +50% Essence, +80% Attack Power.Arachas: +40% Essence, +100% Attack Power. Added more physical damage since they did a lot of poison damage but this is easy to counter with Golden Oriole. Rock/Ice Trolls: +30% Essence.Cyclops: +100% Essence, +90% Attack Power.Ice Giants: +100% Essence, +90% Attack Power.Fiends: +40% Essence, +60% Attack Power. Essence regen ability at 0.2% of max Essence per second.Chorts: +50% Essence, +40% Attack Power. Essence regen ability at 0.5% of max Essence per second.Leshen: +90% Essence, +80% Attack Power. Ancient Leshen: +150% Essence, +80% Attack Power.Hyms: +90% Essence, +80% Attack Power. Immunity to Poison. Summoned Leshen Wolves: +30% Essence, +60% Attack Power.Golems/Elementals: +50% Essence, +70% Attack Power. Gargoyles: +50% Essence, +40% Attack Power. Ifryts: +80% Essence, +80% Attack Power.Dopplers: +40% Attack Power.Werewolves: +60% Essence, +70% Attack Power. Changed "essence regen" ability to be 2% of max Essence instead of base value. Increased chance of dodging light attacks. Ulfhedinn: +100% Essence, +80% Attack Power. Changed "essence regen" ability to be 5% of max Essence instead of base value. Increased chance of dodging light attacks. Ekimmara: +50% Essence, +60% Attack Power. Essence regen ability at 10% of max Essence per second. This means that they will regenerate essence faster than you can bring it down if you don't bring a Moon Dust bomb. Increased chance of dodging light attacks.Katakans: +150% Essence, +150% Attack Power. Essence regen ability at 15% of max Essence per second. Increased chance of dodging light attacks. Good luck. Higher Vampires/Large Katakans [Carnal Sins Quest]: +250% Essence, +210% Attack Power. Essence regen ability at 20% of max Essence per second. Increased chance of dodging light attacks. Seriously, good luck. (NB: Despite being a base change there is only one type of this monster in-game).The Wild Hunt: +50% Essence, +70% Attack Power, increased Poison and Burning resistances. Added immunity to regular critical hits. These are changes made to individual monsters, usually specific contract or side quest monsters. Note that the monsters listed here will have the below changes on top of any "base changes" of their monster type described above.
Werewolf [Ciri's Story: King of Wolves Quest]: -60% Essence. Significantly lowered essence regen ability as Ciri has no moon dust bombs so otherwise Werewolf is too difficult to beat.
Werewolf [Wild At Heart Quest]: -80% Essence, -60% Attack Power. Re-balanced due to werewolves being buffed significantly and this being an early game quest. Werewolf [Whispering Hillock Quest]: -60% Essence, -70% Attack Power. Re-balanced due to werewolves being buffed significantly and this being an early game quest.Shrieker [Cockatrice Contract]: -40% Essence, -40% Attack Power. Debuffs applied to even out the buffs given to Cockatrices in general. For some reason, the Shrieker was already given a massive Essence boost in vanilla, despite being an early game monster hunt. Nithral [Wild Hunt minion in "Wandering in the Dark" Quest]: +150% Essence, +100% Attack Power. Re-balanced as Kiera does more damage now. Keira Metz [Hostile Version in the "Advancement for Learning" Quest]: -40% Vitality, +80% Attack Power, +80% Spellpower. Sorceresses are very dangerous, one hit from Keira should basically kill you. The White Lady [Noonwraith Contract]: +30% Essence, +40% Attack Power.Sarasti (Ekimmara) [The Mystery of the Byways Murders Quest]: +100% Essence, +110% Attack Power.Abaya (Water Hag) [Muire D'yaeblen Contract]: +30% Essence, +40% Attack PowerKernun (Leshen) [Contract: Lord of the Wood Quest]: +20% Attack Power.Lord of Undvik (Ice Giant): +40% Essence, +20% Attack Power. Increased Poison Resistance.Melusine (Siren/Ehkidna) [Contract: Here Comes the Groom Quest]: +300% Essence.Morkvarg (Werewolf) [In Wolf's Clothing Quest]: +150% Essence, +120% Attack Power. Essence Regen ability at 5% of max Essence. Increased chance of dodging fast attacks. Hagubman (Nekker Warrior) [Contract: Strange Beast]: +40% Attack Power.Gael (Katakan) [Contract: The Oxenfurt Drunk]: +80% Essence, +40% Attack Power. Important Note: During the first phase of this fight, you're not able to use bombs for whatever reason, they're blocked by the quest. This makes the fight impossible since you can't get the Katakan's health down due to its really high regeneration rate. To get past this issue, I had to unlock all bomb throws that are blocked by quests. This may have unintended consequences. Frysdal Dragon (Forktail) [Contract: The Dragon of Frysdal Quest]: +40% Attack Power.Morkvudd (Fiend) [Contract: Missing Son Quest]: +80% Essence, +60% Attack Power. Increased essence regen to 2% per second.Gatekeeper (Sylvan) [Bald Mountain Quest]: +300% Essence, +100% Attack Power. Imlerith: +120% Essence, Very high DoT resistances to poisoning and bleeding.Human enemy statistics have been modified significantly. Fighting humans should be quick — it will either go your way or it won't. Where as monsters come in many varieties, a human is a human. One may be more skilled than another, but a good (or lucky) sword hit will bring them down. Despite Geralt's mutations, those who recall how the books end know that this includes him. So, my goal for modifying human combat was as follows:
Make it less about statistics and more about player skill
A hit from a sword should be more lethal, both against enemies and yourselfMore immersive/realistic — a peasant with a small blackjack should not be parrying Geralt nor surviving 5 hits from Geralt's steel sword, despite his level.With that in the mind, the following changes have been made:
Vitality for human enemies decreased by about 50% across the board — including the amount of extra Vitality each level brings.
Attack Power of human enemies increased by about 50% across the board, including the amount each extra level brings.Range of abilities/skills modified across human enemy ranks. For example, random thugs/peasants you meet in Velen are now a lot more useless at blocking Geralt's attacks, as it should be. Conversely, soldiers and elite fighters are now more likely to learn and adapt to Geralt. Compared to vanilla, you will likely find human enemies to be easier in the early game, and harder in the late game.How difficult a human enemy is is more based on their gear than stats now. A general rule of thumb, the more armored a human enemy looks, the more trouble they likely are.Poison resistance increased for human enemies across the board. This was done so a whole room of enemies couldn't be cleared by Devil's Puffball. From an in-game perspective, I'd like to think that some of the more skilled fighters would be smart enough to hold their breath when they see green mist. Critical hits are significantly more difficult to get against human enemies. For the highly skilled opponents, its completely impossible without the use of a skill, bomb or sign like Fleet Footed, Samum or Axii.There were also some specific stat changes as below:
Order of the Wild Rose Knights [Hearts of Stone]: -30% Vitality, +40% Attack Power, increased chance of parrying, dodging and countering. For some reason, all the human enemies in HoS were turned into damage sponges. I've instead turned them into more capable fighters.
MUTATION CHANGES [BLOOD AND WINE]
The mutations have had some minor (and one major) changes made to them to bring them in line with the new skill point system and to give them some buffs/nerfs where needed:
Deadly Counter: Costs 0 Skill Points. Finisher trigger increased from 25% to 50%.
Magic Sensibilities: Costs 0 Skill Points.Toxic Blood: Costs 0 Skill Points. Bloodbath: Costs 1 Skill Point. Attack Power bonus increased to 10%. Max Cap decreased to 200%. Piercing Cold: Costs 1 Skill Point. Freeze chance changed to 25% per Adrenaline Point. Removed extra damage. Euphoria: Costs 1 Skill Point. Increased bonus to 1% per toxicity point. Adrenaline Rush: Costs 1 Skill Point. Increased duration to 45 seconds. Decreased attack power bonus to 25%. Increased debuff cap to 80%.Cat Eyes: Costs 1 Skill Point.Conductors of Magic: Costs 1 Skill Point. Increased damage bonus to 70%.Mutated Skin: Costs 1 Skill Point. Second Life: Costs 2 Skill Points. Decreased cooldown to 90 seconds. Metamorphosis: Costs 2 Skill Points. Completely re-designed — First Decoction drank has no toxicity cost and either a significantly increased effect or duration (see below for details, can also be found in game in the decoction descriptions/tooltips).Alghoul Decoction: Adrenaline Point gain remains even after attacked
Ancient Leshen Decoction: Duration tripledArachas Decoction: Resist bonus doubledArchgriffin Decoction: No longer costs 1 Adrenaline PointBasilisk Decoction: Damage bonus doubledChort Decoction: Duration tripledCockatrice Decoction: Stamina cost reduction buffed to 20% per potionDoppler Decoction: Critical Hit Damage bonus doubledEarth Elemental Decoction: Duration tripledEkhidna Decoction: Vitality restore doubledEkimmara Decoction: Vitality restore doubledFiend Decoction: Duration tripledFoglet Decoction: Only costs 1 Adrenaline Point to castForktail Decoction: Bonus lasts for entire combat scenario when activated onceGrave Hag Decoction: Duration tripledGriffin Decoction: Resist Cap doubled to 40%Katakan Decoction: Critical Hit Chance doubledLeshen Decoction: Damage reflect doubledNekker Warrior Decoction: Damage doubledNightwraith Decoction: Duration tripledNoonwraith Decoction: Duration tripledReliever's Decoction: Bonuses doubledSuccubus Decoction: Cap doubled to 120%Troll Decoction: Duration tripledWater Hag Decoction: Damage doubledWerewolf Decoction: Damage doubledWraith Decoction: Quen shield activates at 1/6 Vitality lossWyvern Decoction: Toxicity increase halvedI would say the mod makes the game somewhat more difficult than vanilla. If you prepare properly before entering a fight, you should be fine. The only exception are vampires, they have intentionally been made to be a lot more difficult. Ultimately, whatever difficulty level you were comfortable with for vanilla should be fine here as well if you don't mind a slightly elevated challenge.
Although everything above has been implemented, there are still some changes outstanding, namely:
Rebalancing the Endgame (everything post Isle of Mists)
Rebalancing and further gameplay changes to Hearts of StoneRebalancing and further gameplay changes to Blood and WineHowever I wanted to release the mod now once I was pretty sure there were no major bugs so that I can get gameplay feedback from anyone who is willing to give it a go. The mod isn't perfect, and I'm sure there's still going to be balance issues in the base game. For anyone who is thinking about using it, I would love to get your opinion on how the difficulty is and if there are any skills that still feel overpowered/under powered. I'm especially interested if you're planning on doing a full sign build, since I'm really not sure how that build will play during the mid-game. I'm currently at the Isle of Mists, so i should have the game completed in the next week or so, and then the expansions after that, so there shouldn't be any risk of anyone catching up to me.
Дополнения — Blood and Wine и Hearts of Stone
Unification patch for 1.32 — 1.31 — 1.31GOTY — 1.31A game versions (UPatch)
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