Emhyr won the war. Ciri went on to become Empress. Triss and Geralt moved to Kovir. Queen Cerys ruled wisely. Roche got Temeria. Dandelion insists that he's a Count and Prisilla's okay. RIP Crach. RIP Vesemir. RIP White Frost. EskelxKeira is a thing. Not sure what else I'm missing, but overall pretty happy with my ending.
You mean LambertxKeira, right?
Was a bit surprised that Avallac'h had good intentions to save the multiverse from the White Frost. When Eredin told me that, I said "no shit", but was pleasantly surprised when Ciri came out and said told Geralt to put his damn sword away. Not used to there being people in this game who are actually decent, especially among magic users not named Triss Merigold. Really though, there's a lot of not good people involved in this game. Outside of Geralt's friend group, you've got Crach and kids (and even then, they're fucking Vikings), Ermion, the godlings, Roche and Ves in their own way, and the Rock Trolls. And they eat people. Though really, I love the Rock Trolls and I did everything I could to avoid killing them.
For what it's worth, I'd say there's about as many good people, as there are actually evil ones. Mostly, people live in a shitty place at a shitty time, and they're just tired, frightened, and/or desperate.
Speaking of Radovid, he's dead. He was getting out of control. Honestly would've been okay with Djikstra becoming the new king even if I wasn't his biggest fan, but then he had to go ahead and try to kill Roche. Fuck that nonsense. And in the end Roche got his free Temeria (with who as ruler? One of Foltest's bastards?). Kinda wish Saskia was still around to enforce some nonhuman equality but whatever. Had to save Triss and no way could I let Philippa control a dragon.
Yeah, Djikstra's a reasonably okay guy who would've made for an excellent ruler. I looked up the ending where he gets his way and, y'know, it really does seem like an excellent outcome for all the Northern peoples, nonhumans included, as well as the long-term peace and prosperity of the Continent at large. Just one problem: you gotta let Ves, Thaler, and Roche die for it, and that shit ain't happening. (Thaler filled the spymaster contact role in Witcher 1, couldn't be beaten in a drinking contest, and, unlike Dijkstra, never turned his back on you when you needed his help.)
Annoying dangling thread is the Novigrad crime situation. Two of the big 4 have been knocked off with my killing of Sigi Reuven/Djikstra, and then killing Whoreson Jr with Dudu taking his place and going legitimate. That leaves Cleaver and the King of Beggars, the latter of whom I'm feeling a little cheated on. When we first meet him, he gives a speech about his grander ideas and his anti-Eternal Fire positions... which we never hear about again. Not complaining about the focus on Djikstra and Whoreson (they deserved it), but that's just kindof a thing that was teased and didn't go anywhere. Also never found out if anything came of the Bloody Baron, but wasn't expecting it, really. Maybe it'll be in one of the DLCs as an easter egg.
Unfortunately not, as far as I can recall. Thing is, whatever path you take, the Church of the Eternal Fire loses all its power with the ending. If Dijkstra takes the North, then the pogroms are ended, and it's safe to assume he removes or de-claws all the major syndicates as well. If Nilfgaard takes the North, more or less the same thing. They don't know the underworld to quite the same extent that Dijkstra did, but they're authoritarian AF, and that only leaves so much room for the remaining crime bosses to wiggle in.
Did Emhyr conquer Skellige and give them a Temeria-esque deal (at Ciri's insistence) where Cerys got to still be Queen? Or did he just abandon the invasion after the whole mess with Eredin? Don't think we ever got an answer on that.
Most of the Empire's navy was wiped out in the final battle, so I'd expect they just didn't have the means left to continue the invasion anymore. They'll pick up Novigrad's fleet, sure, but Novigrad's entire economy is built around those ships. There's only a small fraction that can be spared without inciting rebellion and discord in the city, and a small fleet of merchant ships hastily adapted for battle just isn't going to cut it in Skellige.
Kinda wish I got to play as full-powered Ciri (well, not completely full powered. Didn't let me use the Ghost Wail) more than that small bit at the end where she carved her way to Calanthir. She kicked some major fucking ass. Cinematic swordplay was generally great, especially back during the battle for Kaer Morhen. Rock Elementals, Golems, etc are all way too annoying to kill because of their defensive stats. Can't even get good residual damages like burning and bleeding to kick in. I'm not entirely sure what good adrenaline points did for me. I remember they led to instant kills in Witcher 2, but I don't think it was ever explained to me what they did this time around. Whatever. Didn't matter much in the end anyhow.
Bleeding is a poor way to combat a bunch of rock monsters, (but a great way to fight big-ass bird monsters). For things with a bunch of armor, you oughtta get more on the strong attack plays, because armor imparts a flat damage reduction value to each hit. Investing in the chargeable shield-breaker strong attack is good value, and using an archgriffin decoction is excellent value. (Drains all your stamina when you hit a strong attack, but also deals an additional 5% of the targets max HP on-hit with said strong attack.)
Adrenaline points increase your damage dealt by a percentage, iirc. There are also build options that'll let them be used in place of stamina for casting, and some other effects, to the point where adrenaline-based builds are pretty common as a recommendation. I've never tried it myself, though. Always went with good ol' sword-and-alchemy, myself.
Loved traipsing through the multiverse. The White Frost world was really well done in capturing the "this is a really terrifying apocalypse" bit. Still don't understand what it is besides an unstoppable blizzard. Like, what's the source and how was Ciri able to kill it? And what little I saw of Tir na Lia did not look to be suffering from the White Frost. But hey, it worked out.
Y'got me there.
A few more annoying glitches. Twice it gave me the "you have too much shit in your inventory" penalty when I didn't. A whole bunch of times it wouldn't let me dive into the water. Crashed a few times. idk if the XBone version is a bit rougher than the other ones, but this is kinda par for the course when it comes to a game of this size, but at least I never really got caught in the geometry or anything.
Never had those happen on PC. Though, whenever I tried dismounting while riding in rainy weather at high speeds, Geralt would
dive off of his horse. Complete with a splashing sound and a midair swimming animation, followed quickly by a gentle drop to standing on the ground.
Finally, fuck fall damage. Forever and always.
Oh, this is nothing. Fall damage was actually a lot higher on release; I still remember how the fall damage nerf was the highlight of the first set of patch notes.
